When Kay is lured from his home by the beautiful, cruel Snow Queen, his friend Gerda sets out on an epic journey to rescue him. As she searches, she encounters a series of strangers to whom she relays her plight. Charmed by her story and her innocence, each of them helps Gerda, so that at last she is able to find the Snow Queen’s icy palace. But at the end of her epic journey, will Gerda manage to set Kay free?
Set in colonial India, this richly layered coming-of-age tale follows a spirited young artist on a journey up the Ganges — and through the enigmas of her past.How can Anila Tandy, left to fend for herself after her mother’s death, dare to apply for a job that is clearly not meant for a woman? But somehow the “Bird Girl of Calcutta,” art supplies in hand, finds herself on an eye-opening journey up the Ganges, apprenticed to a gentleman scientist. As the lush landscape slips by, Anila dives into her past — a past where her beautiful Bengali mother still tells stories and her Irish father’s mysterious disappearance lingers. Gorgeously written and rich with atmosphere, Mary Finn’s debut novel tells the story of a determined young artist who must make her way in the dangerous world of late-eighteenth-century India.
Oranges in No Man’s Land tells the riveting story of ten-year-old Ayesha’s terrifying journey across no man’s land to reach a doctor in hostile territory in search of medicine for her dying grandmother.Set in Lebanon during the civil war, this story is told by award-winning author Elizabeth Laird and is based on personal, real-life events. Elizabeth stayed on the green line in Beirut in 1977 in a war-damaged flat with her husband and six-month-old son. Memories of her son sleeping in a suitcase on the floor, taking his first steps on the bullet-riddled balcony, playing with the soldiers on the checkpoint, and her husband racing through no man’s land in the buildup to a battle have all inspired this gripping and moving story.Elizabeth Laird says, “When I wrote Oranges in No Man’s Land, I didn’t know that Lebanon would be plunged back so soon into a nightmare. Caught up in that nightmare are children like Ayesha and Samar, whose lives political leaders so easily throw away.”Elizabeth Laird has been nominated four times for the Carnegie Medal and has won both the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the Children’s Book Award (UK). Her numerous books, including A Little Piece of Ground (Haymarket Books, 2006), have been published around the world.
Sir Francis Walsingham, England’s spymaster general, has eyes and ears all over the world. His secret service protects Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth—and ensures the might of all of England. Now he has a new recruit. Fourteen-year-old Nathan Fox is an actor in the same company as young Will Shakespeare. His life in the theater has taught him a thing or two about disguises and deception. But nothing can prepare Nathan for the shadowy world he’s about to enter now. Nathan is trained in swordplay and street fighting, code breaking and escapes. Then he’s paired with fearless spy John Pearce for his first mission: a journey to Venice to forge an alliance against the powerful King of Spain. Posing as master and servant, Nathan and Pearce move smoothly through Venetian society… until they cross paths with the great General Othello. Soon they become entangled in his tragic love affair with a young noblewoman, Desdemona. Nathan’s new life holds more action and more drama than he ever saw on a stage. But will he ever survive to tell Will Shakespeare this tale?
The woman describes her childhood and her Aunt Anna and Uncle Billy, who lived in a wonderful mansion filled with beautiful carpets, vases, and paintings. Most special of all were four ebony elephants that she loved to played with. When World War II began, she was sent to live in Canada and, while she was gone, her aunt, uncle, and father died. After hearing the story, Annie wants to visit the old country, and her mother agrees that it is time. Annie is determined to find the elephants, but it is not until they visit a restaurant on their last night that she discovers the figurines in a glass case and hears the story of how Uncle Billy left them there for his niece to find.
A Japanese American man recounts his grandfather’s journey to America which he later also undertakes, and the feelings of being torn by a love for two different countries.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume VII, Issue 4
When it’s 9 P.M. in Brooklyn, it’s 10 P.M. in Puerto Rico, and midnight on the mid–atlantic. Far from the vroom of New York traffic, the Puerto Rican night is filled with conga music, sweet rice, and fruit ice. In India, villagers begin their morning chores as well ropes squeak, buckets splash, and bracelets jangle. Meanwhile, in Australia, a sly kookaburra is ready for a noontime feast. Marilyn Singer’s rhythmic lullaby, with bright illustrations by Franc. Lessac, gently transports children through different time zones and distant lands. Young readers will travel far from home, then back again, on a glorious bedtime journey.
Shade is the runt of his Silverwing bat colony, determined to prove himself on the perilous migration to Hibernaculum. During a fierce storm, he loses the others and soon faces the most incredible journey of his short life.
Jaap Penraat can’t understand the Germans’ hatred of his Jewish neighbors in his hometown of Amsterdam. As the restrictions multiply and the violence escalates, Jaap knows he must take action to help his friends. He begins by using his father’s printing press to forge identification cards and papers for Jewish neighbors and refugees, but as the Nazi grasp tightens, he is forced to take a more drastic path leading twenty Jews on the dangerous first leg of a journey to Paris, the start of the underground pipeline to safety.This initial group of twenty men is only the beginning; the number eventually grows to over four hundred Jews saved from certain death by Jaap Penraat’s heroic efforts, brought to life in this vivid retelling.
The House of the Scorpion By Nancy Farmer is about Matthew who is a clone of El Patrón, a powerful drug lord of the land of Opium, which is located between the United States and Mexico. For six years, he has lived in a tiny cottage in the poppy fields with Celia, a kind and deeply religious servant woman who is charged with his care and safety. He knows little about his existence until he is discovered by a group of children playing in the fields and wonders why he isn’t like them. Though Matt has been spared the fate of most clones, who have their intelligence destroyed at birth, the evil inhabitants of El Patrón’s empire consider him a “beast” and an “eejit.” When El Patrón dies at the age of 146, fourteen-year-old Matt escapes Opium with the help of Celia and Tam Lin, his devoted bodyguard who wants to right his own wrongs. After a near misadventure in his escape, Matt makes his way back home and begins to rid the country of its evils.