Relates the life experiences, from birth to beginning boarding school, of a boy growing up on a rubber plantation in rural Malaysia.
Kampung Boy
Young Adult (ages 14-18)
Material appropriate for young adults
The Book Thief
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel — a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
Awards
USBBY Honor Book
Take a closer look at The Book Thief as examined in WOW Review.
Markus + Diana
A moment of false bravado and some imaginative letters allow shy, anxiety-ridden, 13-year-old Markus to connect with a Hollywood star, but when she returns home to Norway she wants to meet the 36-year-old millionaire she believes him to be.
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You
Eight-year-old Jeanne was the only one of her family to survive the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Then a German family adopted her, and her adoptive mother now tells Jeanne’s story in a compelling fictionalized biography that stays true to the traumatized child’s bewildered viewpoint.
Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.
Wintersmith
When witch-in-training Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts the Dance of the Seasons and awakens the interest of the elemental spirit of Winter, she requires the help of the six-inch-high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men to put the seasons aright.
Something Remains
In 1993, as Hitler becomes Chancellor, twelve-year-old Erich and his family, who are Jewish, find they need to make changes in their everyday lives as hatred of the Jews grows.
The Roreshadowing
Having always been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has foreseen for him.
Surrender
As he is dying, a twenty-year-old man known as Gabriel recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finningan.
By The River
A fourteen-year-old describes, through prose poems, his life in a small Australian town in 1962, where, since their mother’s death, he and his brother have been mainly on their own to learn about life, death, and love.
Millie and the Right Heron
Millie begins high school in a new town. For the first time she can remember, her mother has a proper job teaching art. Millie has a crush on a boy called Rowan, an enemy called Tayla and three good friends-Sarah, Helen and Rachel. Weird but lovable Millie discovers her passion for the environment, photography and friendships. Millie and the Night Heron explores the changing concept of family in contemporary life through the eyes of Millie, a sharply observant chronicler.