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Tigluk and his grandmother paddle out into the Arctic Ocean where they find a young polar bear whose mother has died because of the changes brought about by the warming climate, and they bring the cub back to their town so they can teach it how to survive in a changing world.
Amaroq is a lively Eskimo boy who fives at the top of the world with his best friend, Nutik, the wolf pup. Amaroq was named after a great wolf leader; Nutik is the wolf leader’s grandpup. The boy and the wolf pup are like brothers.One day Amaroq and Nutik want to play football, but their ball has disappeared. What shall they do? Listening to and observing Nutik’s wolf talk, Amaroq follows him outside. The two friends wander out onto the tundra, where there are no trees, no paths, and no landmarks to help them find their way home again. Amaroq is afraid they are lost, but then he remembers what the great wolf leader he was named after would do. By observing nature and following what it says, Amaroq and Nutik are safe again-but not before finding a surprise for both of them!Amaroq and Nutik’s adventure follows the first picture book about them, Nutik, the Wolf Pup, and continues the Arctic saga about these characters originally drawn from Julie’s Wolf Pack, sequel to the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves.
Straddling the genres of fiction, memoir, photography and travel,”In the Company of Whispers” looks at the future through the eyes of the past. In the late 1950’s, a young girl moves with her family to Rangoon, Burma. Ninety years later finds her living in the overpopulated Greater East Coast Metropolis, planted firmly in the past inside her small house until her her granddaughter, Zeyya, arrives on her front porch. In 2047, Zeyya has been living like millions of other people in a towering high rise, until her parents are taken by a Quarantine Squad. She retreats to her eccentric ninety-eight-year-old grandmother’s home, the last freestanding house in the Metropolis. But whatever respite she envisions finding there is immediately imperiled by the appearance of the intricately tattooed and possibly delusional Jonah. When Granna invites him into her home, Zeyya is sure that her world will finish unraveling, but despite Zeyya’s resistance, she, Granna, and Jonah become inextricably bound together. Ironically, what binds them is not what is, but what has been. The past intertwines itself into the present as Granna bequeaths her memories of a childhood spent in Burma to Jonah and Zeyya. And in the end, it is both Jonah’s and Granna’s pasts that determine Zeyya’s future.
It’s Andy’s first trip on an airplane when he and his dad travel to Vietnam to meet all his relatives. Talk about culture shock! Everyone calls him by his Vietnamese name instead of Andy and he is stunned to discover the family restaurant. For Andy and his dad, a former refugee returning for the first time, Vietnam is full of surprises. Somehow though, it also becomes the place for learning how to see things in a whole new way.
Is Taro, a fisherman’s son, destined for greatness? In the course of a day, Taro’s entire life changes: His father is murdered before his eyes, and Taro is taken by a mysterious ninja on a perilous journey toward safety. Someone wants Taro dead, but who — and why? With his best friend, Hiro, and their ninja guide Shusaku, Taro gets caught in the crossfire of a bitter conflict between rival lords for control of imperial Japan. As Taro trains to become a ninja himself, he’s less and less sure that he wants to be one. But when his real identity is revealed, it becomes impossible for Taro to turn his back on his fate.
In seventeenth-century China, orphaned ShaoShu, who can squeeze into small spaces, puts his life in danger when he becomes a spy for a young band of warrior monks known as the Five Ancestors and bravely infiltrates evil Tonglong’s camp.
Kino lives on a farm on the side of a mountain in Japan. His friend, Jiya, lives in a fishing village below. Everyone, including Kino and Jiya, has heard of the big wave. No one suspects it will wipe out the whole village and Jiya’s family, too. As Jiya struggles to overcome his sorrow, he understands it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be.The famous story of a Japanese boy who must face life after escaping the tidal wave destruction of his family and village.
For the Hmong people living in overcrowded refugee camps in Thailand, America is a dream: the land of peace and plenty. In 1995, ten years after their arrival at the camp, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang and her grandmother are about to experience that dream. In America, they will be reunited with their only remaining relatives, Mai’s uncle and his family. They will discover the privileges of their new life: medical care, abundant food, and an apartment all their own. But Mai will also feel the pressures of life as a teenager. Her cousins, now known as Heather and Lisa, try to help Mai look less like a refugee, but following them means disobeying Grandma and Uncle. From showers and smoke alarms to shopping, dating, and her family’s new religion, Mai finds life in America complicated and confusing. Ultimately, she will have to reconcile the old ways with the new, and decide for herself the kind of woman she wants to be. This archetypal immigrant story introduces readers to the fascinating Hmong culture and offers a unique outsider’s perspective on our own.
This book has been included in WOW’s Language and Learning: Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Booklist. For our current list, visit our Booklist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.
In ancient China, two boys forge an unlikely alliance in an effort to become expert archers and, ultimately, to save their city from invading barbarians.
Alive in the Killing Fields is the real-life memoir of Nawuth Keat, a man who survived the horrors of war-torn Cambodia. He has now broken a longtime silence in the hope that telling the truth about what happened to his people and his country will spare future generations from similar tragedy. In this memoir, a young Nawuth defies the odds and survives the invasion of his homeland by the Khmer Rouge. Under the brutal reign of the dictator Pol Pot, he loses his parents, young sister and other members of his family. After his hometown of Salatrave was overrun, Nawuth and his remaining relatives are eventually captured and enslaved by Khmer Rouge fighters. They endure physical abuse, hunger and inhumane living conditions. But through it all, their sense of family holds them together, giving them the strength to persevere through a time when any assertion of identity is punishable by death. Nawuth’s story of survival and escape from the Killing Fields of Cambodia is also a message of hope; an inspiration to children whose worlds have been darkened by hardship and separation from loved ones. This story provides a timeless lesson in the value of human dignity and freedom for readers of all ages.