Courage

The First Tortilla: A Bilingual Story

The First Tortilla is a moving, bilingual story of courage and discovery. A small Mexican village is near starvation. There is no rain, and the bean and squash plants are dying. Jade, a young village girl, is told by a blue hummingbird to take a gift to the Mountain Spirit. Then it will send the needed rain. Burning lava threatens her, but Jade reaches the top of the volcano. The Mountain Spirit is pleased. It allows the ants in a nearby cave to share their corn with Jade. The corn was sweet and delicious and Jade took some back to save the village. Jade grinds the dry corn, adds water, and makes dough. She pats the masa and places it on hot stones near the fire. She has made the first tortilla. Soon the making of corn tortillas spreads throughout Mexico and beyond.Reading level: grade 3 and up

War Horse

In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey’s courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer’s son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?

A Season for Mangoes

Sareen is attending her first sit-up, a Jamaican tradition that celebrates the life of a loved one who has died. The whole village has come to share memories of Sareen’s Nana. Sareen wants to tell her stories of Nana’s last mango season and their search for the perfect mango, but she’s afraid the words won’t come or that she’ll begin to cry. It’s only when Sareen faces her fear that she realizes it’s not the sadness of Nana’s death that she’ll remember best but the joy of Nana’s life.Set amid the rich culture and lush scenery of Jamaica, this moving book offers the hope of rediscovering joy after a loss and pays tribute to the remarkable power of story: to touch, to connect, and to heal.

Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China

An enchanting tale of hidden beauty and fierce courage, retold in the style of T’ang Dynasty poetry and illustrated with charm and grace. A young Chinese princess is sent from her father’s kingdom to marry the king of a far-off land. She must leave behind her home of splendors: sour plums and pink peach petals and — most precious and secret of all — the small silkworm. She begs her father to let her stay, but he insists that she go and fulfill her destiny as the queen of Khotan. Beautifully told and arrestingly illustrated, here is a coming-of-age tale of a brave young princess whose clever plan will go on to live in legend — and will ensure that her cherished home is with her always.

Under the Persimmon Tree

Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose name means “star,” finds herself alone when her father and older brother are conscripted by the Taliban and her mother and newborn brother are killed in an air raid. An American woman, Elaine, whose Islamic name is Nusrat, is also on her own. She waits out the war in Peshawar, Pakistan, teaching refugee children under the persimmon tree in her garden while her Afghan doctor husband runs a clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Najmah’s father had always assured her that the stars would take care of her, just as Nusrat’s husband had promised that they would tell Nusrat where he was and that he was safe. As the two look to the skies for answers, their fates entwine. Najmah, seeking refuge and hoping to find her father and brother, begins the perilous journey through the mountains to cross the border into Pakistan. And Nusrat’s persimmon-tree school awaits Najmah’s arrival. Together, they seek their way home.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume IV, Issue 4

The Secret History of Tom Trueheart

Tom’s six older brothers are adventurers who go on dangerous quests in the Land of Stories. Tom stays home with his mother. Tom’s brothers are famous for the exciting endings they discover for the tales the Story Bureau assigns to them. Tom worries he will never have a story of his own. But when his brothers fail to return from their adventures in time to celebrate Tom’s twelfth birthday, a letter from the Story Bureau arrives … addressed to Tom. It is up to him to find out why his brothers haven’t completed their missions. Tom packs his bags and kisses his mother good-bye. It turns out that he has his own story after all.

Silent in an Evil Time: The Brave War of Edith Cavell

Dutiful nurse, hospital matron, courageous resistance fighter, Edith Cavell was all of these. A British citizen, the forty-eight-year-old Cavell was matron of an institute for nurses in the suburbs of Brussels at the outbreak of World War I. Dedicated to the methods of Florence Nightingale, her intelligence and ferocious sense of duty had transformed the institute into a leading training center.When the Germans captured Belgium in the fall of 1914, an organization was formed to assist British and French soldiers trapped behind German lines. Edith was asked to help and she didn’t hesitate. From that moment forward, Edith sheltered escaping soldiers in her hospital, using trickery to keep the suspicious Germans from discovering them. She helped arrange a secret route to neutral Holland and back to England at great personal risk, enabling soldiers of all ranks to slip through German lines. Using the institute as part of an elaborate Allied escape route, Edith Cavell was responsible for one thousand soldiers eventually making their way home.But Cavell’s role was discovered and a German military court put her on trial in Brussels, where she was sentenced to be executed by firing squad. On October 12, 1915, she put on her nurse’s uniform and met her fate, immediately becoming a worldwide martyr and rallying point for the British in their war against Germany.

Hurricane: A Novel

outside, the wind is howling. it is a monster shrieking to get inside. outside, the rain is a solid wall of water. everything is dark. everything is destroyed. everything is gone…. Everything except for the desperate courage of those who survive that terrifying night. After hours of cowering in the dark with no lights, no warmth, and the terrible noises of the rain and wind pounding on the walls, José walks out his front door and steps into a nightmare. But his nightmare has only begun as he and the few who are left in his small village start to pull their lives back together. Based on Hurricane Mitch’s devastation of Honduras in 1998, Terry Trueman’s powerful story is about a young boy’s fear and courage in the face of a force of nature too huge to even imagine.

Grab Hands And Run

An El Salvadorian family flees political oppression in their homeland and takes a perilous journey north, through Mexico to America, where they hope they will find a better life. A compelling, provocative, and exciting novel. Details of the brutal realities in El Salvador are dexterously woven into the story of one family?s struggle to beat the odds.