Primary (ages 6-9)

Material appropriate for primary age groups

A Path of Stars

A refugee from Cambodia, Dara’s beloved grandmother, Lok Yeay, is grief-stricken when she learns her brother–left behind in Cambodia–has died, and it is up to Dara to bring Lok Yeay back to a place of happiness.

This book has been included in WOW’s Kids Taking Action Booklist. For our current list, visit our Boolist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Mrs. Harkness and the Panda

In 1934, Ruth Harkness had never seen a panda bear.  Not many people in the world had.

But soon the young Mrs. Harkness would inherit an expedition from her explorer husband: the hunt for a panda.  She knew that bringing back a panda would be hard. Impossible, even.  But she intended to try.

So she went to China, where she found a guide, built traps, gathered supplies, and had explorers’ clothes made—unheard of for a woman in those days.  Then she set out up the Yangtze River and into the wilderness.  What she discovered would awe America: an adorable baby panda she named Su Lin, which means “a little bit of something very cute.”

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

When 14-year-old William Kamkwamba’s Malawi village was hit by a drought in 2001, everyone’s crops began to fail. His family didn’t have enough money for food, let alone school, so William spent his days in the library. He came across a book on windmills and figured out how to build a windmill that could bring electricity to his village. Everyone thought he was crazy but William persevered and managed to create a functioning windmill out of junkyard scraps. Several years later he figured out how to use the windmill for irrigation purposes.

This book has been included in WOW’s Kids Taking Action Booklist. For our current list, visit our Boolist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDreonald No Combina

Marisol McDonald, a biracial, nonconformist, soccer-playing pirate-princess with brown skin and red hair, celebrates her uniqueness.

Grandfather Counts

When Helen’s grandfather, Gong Gong, comes from China to live with her family, he’s shocked to find that none of his grandchildren speak Chinese. How will he communicate with them? At first he keeps to himself. Then one day he joins Helen to watch the trains. He starts counting the train cars in Chinese, and she repeats the words. Then Helen says the numbers in English. They continue to teach each other, and Helen even learns her Chinese name, which means “flower.” In this luminously illustrated intergenerational story, the devotion between a young girl and her grandfather helps them overcome barriers of age and language.

A Circle Of Cats

One a quiet day, when the wind was still, the creek could be heard all the way up to where the old beech stood.  Under its branches, cats would come to dream and be dreamed.  Black cats and calicos, white cats and marmalade ones, too.  But they hadn’t yet gathered the day the orphan girl fell asleep among its roots, nestling in the weeds and long grass like the gangly, tousle-haired girl she was.  Her names was Lillian.

Lillian is an orphan who lives with her aunt on a homested miles from anyone, surrounded by uncharted forest.  She wanders the woods, chasing after squirrels and rabbits and climbing trees like a possum.  Free-spirited and independent, Lillian is kindard soul to the many wild cats who gather around the ancient beech tree.  One day, while she is under the beech, Lillian is bitten by a poisonous snake.  The cats refuse to let her die, and use their magic to turn her into one of their own.  How she becomes a girl again is a lyrical, original folklore that begs to be read aloud.  Set in the hill country outside of the author’s fictional city of Newford, A Circle of Cats is the much anticipated first picture book by longtime friends Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, whose art is as magical as the story.

Such A Prince

An opinionated, love-starved princess. Her status-conscious parents. Two muscular, but rude, hunks. Their kind, thoughtful brother. Three not-so-perfect peaches. An impossible challenge. And a whole lot of rabbits! Told from the point of view of a very untraditional fairy, this hilarious version of “The Three Peaches” shines a new light on the traditional tale and features a unique narrative voice and madcap illustrations. As in all good fairy tales, the vain, rude characters get their comeuppance, the fairy works her magic, and the princess gets her prince. So he’s a little on the skinny side–he has a big heart. (The heart is a muscle too, you know.) Everything else is fair game in this side-splitting take on the classic formula.

Out on the Ice in the Middle of the Bay

Out on the Ice in the Middle of the Bay is the poetic tale of a human toddler meeting a polar bear cub, peacefully alone, out on the ice. There follows a gripping confrontation between human father and animal mother, with their mutual distrust and anxiety for their young.