Material appropriate for intermediate age groups
Abandoned at birth, the Brothers of the Ikkuma Pit know no mothers. They fend for themselves, each training their Little Brother to survive until they turn 16, when it’s their Leaving Day. No boy knows what’s beyond the forest. But when Urgle’s Little Brother, Cubby, is carried off by troll-like predators, Urgle and two of his Brothers embark on a quest to rescue him from a place from which no one has ever returned.
Ali and his fiancée Zeynep dream about leaving their home in Anatolia and building a new life together in Canada. But their homeland is controlled by the Turkish government, which is on the brink of war with Britain and Russia. And although Ali finds passage to Canada to work, he is forced to leave Zeynep behind until he can earn enough to bring her out to join him. When the First World War breaks out and Canada joins Britain, Ali is declared an enemy alien.
Join the discussion of Dance of the Banished as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2
Levinson follows the participants of two specific circuses that also work together periodically: Circus Harmony, in St. Louis, whose participants are inner-city and suburban kids, and Circus Galilee in Israel, whose participants and Jews and Arabs. As the kids’ relationships evolve over time, the members learn how to overcome assumptions, animosity, and obstacles both physical and personal.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2
“In 1963, thirteen-year-old Arthur is sentenced to community service helping the neighborhood Junk Man after he throws a brick at the old man’s head in a moment of rage, but the junk he collects might be more important than he suspects. Inspired by the work of American folk artist James Hampton”–
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2
At the age of seven, children in eighteenth-century Britain were tried in court like adults. For crimes such as picking pockets or stealing clothes, they could be sentenced to death by hanging or transported to the then-perilous and isolated colonies of Australia. Life in the colonies was often as difficult and dangerous as the poverty from which many of the convicts came, but the dreaded sentence of transportation could also present opportunities.
In this stunning idea book, acclaimed author and illustrator Sandra Morris shares her love for the flora and fauna of her native New Zealand and encourages budding scientists to record their own discoveries in creative ways, no matter where they live.
A Year Without Mom follows 12-year-old Dasha through a year full of turmoil after her mother leaves for America. It is the early 1990s in Moscow, and political change is in the air. But Dasha is more worried about her own challenges as she negotiates family, friendships and school without her mother. Just as she begins to find her own feet, she gets word that she is to join her mother in America — a place that seems impossibly far from everything and everyone she loves.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2
Nim is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe and is not afraid when her scientist dad sails off to study plankton for three days, leaving her alone on their island. Kids will love Nim’s zany adventures as she helps out her dad and diverts would-be tourists.
When Jacinta Juarez is paired with a rich, famous mentor, she is swept away from the diapers and dishes of her own daily life into a world of new experiences. But crossing la linea into Miss’s world is scary. Half of Jacinta aches for the comfort of Mamá and the familiar safety of the barrio, while the other half longs to embrace a future that offers more than cleaning stuff for white people. When her family is torn apart, Jacinta needs to bring the two halves of herself together to win back everything she’s lost.
Determined to recover the Adomal and to prevent the pirate Zavac from doing more damage, Hal and his brotherband crew persue Zavac to the lawless fortress of Ragusa where, if Hal is to succeed, he will have to go beyond his brotherband training and face the pirate one-on-one in a fight to the finish.