Escaping into the Night

Thirteen-year-old Halina Rudowski narrowly escapes the Polish ghetto and flees to the forest, where she is taken in by an encampment of Jews trying to survive World War II. Based on historical events, this gripping tale sheds light on a little-known aspect of the Holocaust: the underground forest encampments that saved several thousand Jews from the Nazis.

Genghis Khan

This is the story of a boy named Temujin. As a boy, he inherited the role of leader after his father’s death. As a man, he earned it–by fiercely protecting his people, no matter the cost, and by demanding total loyalty from those he led. His story is one of courage and survival, sacrifice and death. The boy who became the great Genghis Khan would take his people from the brink of survival to near-world domination — and lead the largest empire ever created in the lifetime of one man. Based on both history and legend, Demi’s classic story of Genghis Khan takes readers into a world of battle and victory and shows why Genghis Khan has gone down in history as the greatest conqueror of all time.

See also Chingis Khan.

Don Quixote

Don Quixote has forever memorialized the story of a Spanish gentleman who reads so many books about chivalric knighthood that he is convinced his own destiny is to become a knight-errant. And so he embarks upon a series of fantastical adventures across sixteenth-century Spain, accompanied by his faithful and philosophical squire, Sancho Panza.

The Tsunami Quilt: Grandfather’s Story

On April 1, 1946, an enormous tsunami wave strikes Hilo, Hawaii, causing death and destruction. Even those islanders who are fortunate to have survived find their lives forever altered. Young Kimo loves his grandfather very much. They go everywhere together, sharing island stories and experiences. But there is one story his grandfather has yet to share and that is the reason behind their yearly pilgrimage to Laupahoehoe Point. Here, in silent remembrance, Grandfather places a flower lei atop a stone monument.

Featured in Volume VI, Issue 1 of WOW Review.

Alis

At fourteen, Alis has never been outside her strict religious community. But when her parents arrange for her to marry a forty-year-old man, she flees desperately to the dangerous, unfamiliar city. She learns quickly that the only way to survive there is to become a thief—or worse. Facing an impossible choice between a forced marriage or life on the streets, Alis seizes control of her own fate. But the path she chooses sets off a disastrous chain of events that leave her accused of murder. Steadfastly loyal, Alis must decide: will she betray a loved one or sacrifice herself?

Pirates!

In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family’s Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.

Little Brother

“Fleeing from the Khmer Rouge soldiers, Vithy becomes separated from his older brother, Mang, as they escape from Cambodia into Thailand. . . . As Vithy makes the dangerous journey, he comes to rely on his own wits and instincts. Historical novel, adventure, and character study, this book takes readers to another place and time”.–Booklist. American Bookseller Pick of the Lists; NCSS-CBC Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies; Bank Street Child Study Children’s Book Assn. Children’s Book of the Year.

Two Suns in the Sky

In 1944, an Upstate New York teenager named Christine meets and falls in love with Adam, a Yugoslavian Jew living in a refugee camp, despite their parents’ conviction that they do not belong together.

The Cuckoo’s Child

Eleven-year-old Mia refuses to believe that her parents are not coming back after they are reported lost at sea. In 1962, Mia’s parents suddenly disappear while sailing off the coast of Greece. Mia and her two sisters are returned to the United States to the custody of her aunt they barely know. Mia wishes for a regular American life and spends a summer in her aunt’s Tennessee home, waiting for news of her parents. By summer’s end, Mia gradually understands why her mother left her and how she disrupted her aunt’s life.