Age

Catalog sorted by age group

Shopaholic

Taylor, Sam, and Sophie have been best mates forever. But lately things have been changing. Taylor is starting to sense that maybe Sam and Sophie would rather hang out only with each other rather than with her. And she can’t talk to her mum about it — she’s been acting even more depressed than usual, spending the day watching the telly in her bathrobe and only eating when Taylor makes her dinner. Then Taylor meets Kat while out shopping one day. Kat is glamorous. Kat is planning on becoming a model. Kat has dozens of older blokes following her around. And suddenly Taylor’s life is looking brighter. Kat seems to understand exactly how Taylor feels and Taylor is willing to do anything to be friends with her. The thing is, Kat loves to go shopping and if Taylor wants to continue to be her friend, then she’ll have to come up with the money to keep Kat happy…even if that means going against everything Taylor knows is right. An emotionally-charged novel about what loneliness can drive you to do, and how a little credit card can lead to lots of trouble.

Josias, Hold the Book

Every Morning Josias is hard at work in the family’s garden under the hot Haitian sun. And every morning he sees his friend Chrislove walk to school. When will you join us to hold the book? asks Chrislove. But Josias has a garden to tend and no time to learn to read and write, especially now that the garden is failing. Josias can’t figure out why the beans aren’t growing. Without beans, there may not be enough food for his family. He tries giving the beans more water. He tries working more fertilizer into the soil. Still, the garden shows no sign of life. One morning, when Chrislove asks again when his friend plans to come to school, Josias wonders if a book might hold the solution to his problem.

Featured in Volume I, Issue 2 of WOW Review.

Slant

Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called “slant” and “gook,” and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish–and a long-kept secret about her mother’s death is revealed–Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.

Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom

Kids of all ages are always asking Joe Hayes, “How can it snow tortillas?” Now they’ll know where to find the answer: at long last, Joe’s signature book The Day It Snowed Tortillas is appearing in a new bilingual edition. Bloomsbury Review listed the original English-only edition as one of their fifteen all-time favorite children’s books. This bilingual edition has all the original stories as they have evolved in the last twenty years of Joe’s storytelling. It also has new illustrations by award-winning artist Antonio Castro. Storytellers have been telling these stories in the villages of New Mexico since the Spanish first came to the New World over four hundred years ago, but Joe always adds his own nuances for modern audiences. The tales are full of magic and fun. In the title story, for instance, a clever woman saves her silly husband from a band of robbers. She makes the old man believe it snowed tortillas during the night! In another story, a young boy gladly gives up all of his wages for good advice. His parents think he is a fool, but the good advice leads to wealth and a royal marriage. The enchantment continues in story after story—a clever thief tricks a king for his kingdom and a prince finds his beloved in a house full of wicked step-sisters. And of course, we listen again to the ancient tale of the weeping woman, La Llorona, who still searches for her drowned children along the riverbanks.

Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.

Duke’s Olympic Feet

Duke Kahanamoku was the twentieth century’s top waterman, and is known as the “father of international surfing.” The first Hawaiian to win an Olympic gold medal, Duke represented the United States in the Olympic Games in 1912, 1920, 1924 and 1932, winning gold, silver and bronze medals. Born in 1890, Duke grew up next to the ocean in Waikîkî. After school, he and his sister and brothers would hit the water. “I was only happy when I was swimming like a fish,” Duke said. Duke and the other beach boys gathered under a hau tree in Waikîkî. They rode the waves at Castles, a prime surf spot, on their sixteen-foot solid wooden surfboards. Years of swimming, surfing and canoe paddling made Duke a fine athlete. He had a strong body, long arms, powerful legs and his hands were said to be as big as buckets. Some claimed he had feet as big as fins and could steer a canoe with his feet alone. Duke knew that he was a very fast swimmer and he trained constantly. He said that God had given him a gift and a whip. “The whip,” he said with a grin, “is to flog myself into getting the most out of the gift.” He felt that, just maybe, he could be a champion and win Olympic gold for Hawai‘i. His chance came August 12, 1911, at Alakea Slip in Honolulu Harbor, when he demolished the world amateur record for the 100-yard freestyle. His excitement was crushed when mainland AAU officials refused to believe his time. “What are you using for stopwatches over there in Hawai‘i?” they asked. “Alarm clocks?” The AAU officials doubted that a virtually untrained swimmer could break a world record. It was up to Duke to prove he could go up against the world’s fastest swimmers and beat them. Along with his athletic accomplishments, Duke is remembered for his concern for others, humility in victory, courage in adversity and good sportsmanship.

Take a closer look at Duke’s Olympic Feet as examined in WOW Review.

Almost To Freedom

Tells the story of a young girl’s dramatic escape from slavery via the Underground Railroad, from the perspective of her beloved rag doll.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book)

Leaving Glorytown: One Boy’s Struggle Under Castro

Eduardo F. Calcines was a child of Fidel Castro’s Cuba; he was just three years old when Castro came to power in January 1959. After that, everything changed for his family and his country. When he was ten, his family applied for an exit visa to emigrate to America and he was ridiculed by his schoolmates and even his teachers for being a traitor to his country. But even worse, his father was sent to an agricultural reform camp to do hard labor as punishment for daring to want to leave Cuba. During the years to come, as he grew up in Glorytown, a neighborhood in the city of Cienfuegos, Eduardo hoped with all his might that their exit visa would be granted before he turned fifteen, the age at which he would be drafted into the army. In this absorbing memoir, by turns humorous and heartbreaking, Eduardo Calcines recounts his boyhood and chronicles the conditions that led him to wish above all else to leave behind his beloved extended family and his home for a chance at a better future.

Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.

The Braid

Two sisters, Jeannie and Sarah, tell their separate yet tightly interwoven stories in alternating narrative poems. Each sister–Jeannie, who leaves Scotland during the Highland Clearances with her father, mother, and the younger children, and Sarah, who hides so she can stay behind with her grandmother–carries a length of the other’s hair braided with her own. The braid binds them together when they are worlds apart and reminds them of who they used to be before they were evicted from the Western Isles, where their family had lived for many generations.

An author’s note describes the poetic form in detail.

Featured in Vol. I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.

Stolen Voices: Young People’s War Diaries, from World War I to Iraq

Zlata Filipovic’s diary of her harrowing war experiences in the Balkans, published in 1993, made her a globally recognized spokesperson for children affected by military conflict. She and co-editor Melanie Challenger have gathered fifteen diaries of young people coping with war, from World War I to the struggle in Iraq that continues today. Profoundly affecting testimonies of shattered youth and the gritty particulars of war in the tradition of Anne Frank, this extraordinary collection— the first of its kind—is sure to leave a lasting impression on young and old readers alike.