Family

Every Hidden Thing

Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in centuries-buried rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the late nineteenth century world has ever seen. Some legends call it the Black Beauty, with its bones as black as ebony, but to seventeen-year-old Samuel Bolt it’s the “rex”, the king dinosaur that could put him and his struggling, temperamental archaeologist father in the history books (and conveniently make his father forget he’s been kicked out of school), if they can just quarry it out.

French Toast

Phoebe half Jamaican, half French-Canadian hates her school nickname of “French Toast.” So she is mortified when, out on a walk with her Jamaican grandmother, she hears a classmate shout it out at her. To make things worse, Nan-Ma, who is blind, wants an explanation of the name.

The Whispering Town

In Denmark during World War II, young Annet, her parents, and their neighbors help a Jewish family hide from Nazi soldiers until it is safe for them to leave Annet’s basement.

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.

Featured in WOW Review Volume IX, Issue 1.

Samurai Rising

When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery.

Samurai Rising is a WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for February 2017.

Red Ink

When her mother is knocked down and killed by a London bus, 15-year-old Melon Fouraki is left with no family worth mentioning. Her mother, Maria, never did introduce Melon to a “living, breathing” father. The indomitable Auntie Aphrodite, meanwhile, is hundreds of miles away on a farm in Crete and is unlikely to be jumping on a plane and coming to London anytime soon.

Riverkeep

The Danék is a wild, treacherous river, and the Fobisher family has tended it for generations clearing it of ice and weed, making sure boats can get through, and fishing corpses from its bleak depths. Wulliam’s father, the current Riverkeep, is proud of this work. Wull dreads it. And in one week, when he comes of age, he will have to take over.

Another Me

Seventeen-year-old Natan has a safe and happy life in fourteenth-century Strasbourg, France. He works with his father in his rag trade, helps his mother around the house, and studies the Torah at night with his young brother, Shmuli. He’s even feeling the first stirrings of love with Elena, the daughter of the master draper who is his father’s best customer. But something is rotten in the streets of Strasbourg. There is tension between the Jewish community and the rest of the citizens, and there is fear as the deadly plague sweeps through towns and cities nearby.

Listen To The Moon

lfie lives off the coast of England. Merry lives in New York City. Until Merry and her mother set sail on the Lusitania for England, where Merry’s father is recuperating from a war injury. People told them not to go, hearing rumors that the Lusitania might be carrying munitions. But they are desperate to be reunited with Merry’s father. Alfie and his father find a lost girl in an abandoned house on a small island. The girl doesn’t speak, except to say what sounds like “Lucy.” Alfie’s mother nurses her back to health. The others in the village suspect the unthinkable: Lucy is actually German―an enemy―because she’s found with a blanket with a German tag.