Identity

After the Train

Peter Liebig can’t wait for summer. He’s tired of classrooms, teachers, and the endless lectures about the horrible Nazis. The war has been over for ten years, and besides, his town of Rolfen, West Germany, has moved on nicely. Despite its bombed-out church, it looks just as calm and pretty as ever. There is money to be made at the beach, and there are whole days to spend with Father at his job. And, of course, there’s soccer. Plenty for a thirteen-year-old boy to look forward to. But when Peter stumbles across a letter he was never meant to see, he unravels a troubling secret. Soon he questions everything—the town’s peaceful nature, his parents’ stories about the war, and his own sense of belonging.

Shylock’s Daughter

Sixteen-year-old Jessica, who longs to be free of the restrictions of her father and life in the Jewish ghetto of sixteen-century Venice, falls in love with a Christian aristocrat and must make choices which will affect her whole family. Inspired by Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice.

The Real Plato Jones

Thirteen-year-old Plato Jones comes to terms with his mixed heritage when he visits Greece and finds out about his Welsh grandfather, a World War II hero, and his Greek grandfather, who is rumored to have been a traitor.

When the Soldiers Were Gone

After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Benjamin leaves the Christian family with whom he had been living and reunites with his real parents who returned from hiding.

I Am I

Two small boys in warrior garb peer at each other across a deserted landscape. Each is suspicious of the other; each is proud and boastful. And so, an argument breaks out that grows bigger and bigger, until it threatens to consume them and everything around them.

Name Me Nobody

Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.

Against the Storm

When Mehmet and his family leave their small Turkish village to seek a better life in Ankara, they find themselves living in poverty, but an encounter with a streetwise orphan and his own determination give Mehmet the courage to find a way out.

Celebrating the Hero

Camilia Draper, an American teenager still feeling guilt and loss about her mother’s death, travels to her mother’s birthplace in Colombia for a ceremony celebrating her famous grandfather, about whom she will learn some disquieting and revelatory facts.

The Dark Light

When it was discovered that thirteen-year-old Tora has leprosy, she is sent from her family’s remote mountain farm to the leprosy hospital in the bustling port of Bergen. In early-nineteenth-century Norway, lepers are quarantined in this hospital and no longer considered among the living. But even as her body gradually fails her, Tora’s new life blossoms. She finds strength through helping her fellow patients, both young and old, and she decides to see for herself what the Bible says about leprosy. To do so, she must make friends with the young and angry Mistress Dybendal, the only person at the hospital who can teach her to read.As she did in The Abduction (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year), Mette Newth brings another era vividly to life and demonstrates the timeless nature of the search for identity and tolerance.

Becoming Naomi León

Naomi Soledad León Outlaw has had a lot to contend with in her young life, her name for one. Then there are her clothes (sewn in polyester by Gram), her difficulty speaking up, and her status at school as “nobody special.” But according to Gram’s self-prophecies, most problems can be overcome with positive thinking. Luckily, Naomi also has her carving to strengthen her spirit. And life with Gram and her little brother, Owen, is happy and peaceful. That is, until their mother reappears after seven years of being gone, stirring up all sorts of questions and challenging Naomi to discover who she really is.

Awards
Americas Award For Children’s And Young Adult Literature (Commended)