Recommended+Children's+Literature

=Picture books= > This children's book presents the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It begins with his childhood and where he grew up and then moves on to talk about his career. The book is a biography of his life and then goes on to talk about his many achievements and why he is now honored. It shows how he was followed by many and how his birthday is now remembered. THEMES: CIVIL RIGHTS, AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY, PEACE ** > This account of travel on the Underground Railroad depicts Ringgold’s present-day characters, Be Be and Cassie, traveling with Harriet Tubman in the sky. Cassie follows in Be Be’s footsteps as Aunt Harriet shows her the way to freedom. THEMES: SLAVERY, CIVIL RIGHTS, AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY. > In this picture book, it illustrates the course of African-American history.It starts off by describing them fight in the Civil War. Without this happening, George Washington Carver could not be a major part of history. This book also includes: Jesse Owens, Hattie McDaniel, Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Barack Obama. As one can see, all these African-Americans played an important part of American and African-American history. THEMES: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY, CHANGE, and CIVIL RIGHTS. > Summary: Granddaddy’s Gift begins with a little girl, called Daughter, that does not want to go to school. Her Granddaddy tries to persuade her into going so she has choices when she is older. The next day, Granddaddy takes Daughter with her to Church where the pastor asks one of the members to register to vote. Granddaddy stood up, went to the courthouse and registered to take the Constitution Test. I wouldn’t have been a big deal to register to vote but Granddaddy was the first African American registered voter after completing and passing his test. After he votes, Daughter experiences a glimpse of racial segregation when her church is set on fire. She now knows how segregation feels and wants to fight for it on her own. Thanks to her Granddaddy, she can now vote to make a difference. Social Studies Themes: Voting rights; Segregation; Aspirations/Goals =Chapter books (fiction & non-fiction)=
 * **//Steel Town.// By Jonah Winter. Illustrations by Terry Widener. Antheneum Books 2008.** This book follows a day in the life of a worker at a steel mill during the industrial revolution. The poetic descriptions of what conditions are like in the factory, and in the town centered around the factory, couple with the bleak illustrations. The workers have to work hard, and the machines never stop running. The town is always dark from the mills, and it is clearly shown that this was not an easy life. THEMES: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, LABOR ISSUES/REFORM
 * **Feliz Cumpleanos, Martin Luther King. By Jean Marzollo. Illustrations by J. Brian Pinkney. First Scholastic Printing 1993.
 * **//Hey, Little Ant//. By Phillip & Hannah Hoose. Illustrations by Debbie Tilley. Tricycle Press, 2004.** In this story, told and drawn from two different perspectives, a boy has an encounter with a tiny ant on a sidewalk. The boy threatens to squish the ant, but the ant pleads his case and tries to get the boy to see things from his perspective. Filled with "ant's eye" illustrations that are sure to catch kids' interest, the book builds to an ambiguous ending that forces students to think about the meaning of right and wrong. THEMES: EMPATHY, MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES, USE AND MISUSE OF POWER.
 * **If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World's People. By David J. Smith. Illustrations by Shelagh Armstrong. Kids Can Press, 2007**. In this informational picture book, the earth's population of 6.6 billion people is imagined as a village of 100. What would that village look like? How many of its people would be from each continent? How many would speak English? How many would be Muslim? How many would be able to read? How many would suffer from lack of adequate housing, water, or food? THEMES: GLOBAL ISSUES (POPULATION, HUNGER, LITERACY, POLLUTION, WEALTH AND POVERTY)
 * **//Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky//.** **Ringgold, Faith.** **New York: Dragonfly Books, 1995. Print.**
 * **// The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain //**** . By Peter Sis. Frances Foster Books, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007. ** This children’s book is presented like a graphic novel. It tells the life of a young boy growing up on the communist side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. It explains what life was behind the curtain meant and how people wanted to be free. The use of drawing, music, and diary entries of this young boy (Peter Sis) along with creativity illustrates his hope of a life on the outside. It explains to children an uncommon topic and helps them understand it in a new way. ( COMMUNISM, THE COLD WAR, OPPRESSION).
 * **//Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change//. By Michelle Cook. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2009.**
 * **//Henry’s Freedom Box//. By Ellen Levine. Scholastic Inc., 2007.** This picture book follows Henry, a young boy born into slavery. When his master dies Henry is sold to his master’s son and separated from his family. Henry eventually marries a woman under slavery and has children with her. All of Henry’s family is sold to another plantation without him. It is then that he decides to mail himself in a box to Philadelphia in order to achieve freedom. This is a true story and a Caldecott Honor Book. THEMES: SLAVERY, OPPRESSION, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
 * **//If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution.// By Kay Moore. Illustrated by Daniel O'Leary. Scholastic, 1997.** This picture books is set up in a question and anwer format. Every page or so a question concerning the American Revolution is asked and then an answer as well as a picture is provided. This book does not focus so much on the actual war as it does the events leading up to it and what life for a child or their family on either side of the war would be like at home It does not need to be read straight through like a story and is more like a reference book that can be looked at periodically throughout a lesson to provide a different perspective to the revolution. The end of the book also provides a biography on key players in the war. THEMES: AMERICAN REVOLUTION and BIOGRAPHY
 * **//The Story of Ruby Bridges//** ** By Robert Coles Illustrations by George Ford. 1995. Published by Scholastic, Inc. ** This book is about a girl named Ruby Bridges who helped to integrate the New Orleans school system. During this period in American History, much of the South was segregated . The integration of schools was an important feat for the Civil Rights Movement. In 1960, all the New Orleans schools were segregated so a judge ordered four young African American girls to segregated the schools. All the girls, except Ruby were sent to McDonogh 19, while Ruby was chosen to integrate William Frantz Elementary School. Everyday when Ruby would arrive at school. She would be verbally attacked by heckling crowd of men, women, and children. Ruby had to be escorted into school by gun-carrying federal marshals. No other parents would send their children to school with Ruby. Frantz Elementary School became a school of one: Ruby Bridges. Prayer was extremely instrumental in Ruby’s experience at Frantz. Everyday she would pray for the angry that awaited her outside her school. THEMES: Education, Segregation, Courage
 * **//Granddaddy’s Gift// by Margaree King Mitchell Illustrated by Larry Johnson 1997 Scholastic Inc.**
 * ======// Visiting Day // . By Jacqueline Woodson. Illustrations by James Ransome. Scholastic Press, 2001.  Told entirely from a little girl’s perspective, __Visiting Day__ is a colorfully rich picture book that depicts the rituals, anticipation, and love a young girl and her grandmother face as they prepare to visit the little girl’s father in prison. The narrative makes no judgment as to why the father is incarcerated and the vibrant illustrations create an overwhelming sense of hope and love that is felt within this family’s bond. THEMES: PRISON, FAMILY, LOVE, AND ACCEPTANCE. ======
 * __**The Upside Down Boy**.__ **By Juan Felipe Herrera, Illustrated by Elizabeth** **Gomez, Children’s Book Press, San Francisco, CA, 2000, Multicultural Issues, Labor Issues, Social Issues.** In this picture book it describes a boy named Juanito who moves from the country as a migrant worker to the big city. This book follows his experiences on the first day of school. He is concerned with not knowing English and worries that his “tongue will turn into a rock”. (Herrera 7) This book shows the first day of school through the eyes of an English Language Learner. Many of the things that he questions are things that native English speakers assume are normal. In the story we follow Juanito’s assimilation process to a US school and learning English. He forms relationships with his teacher and finds his own outlet, poetry, art and music. This book is written in both English and Spanish as way to reach both audiences.
 * **//What Does Peace Feel Like?// By V. Radunsky. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2004.**In this book, the author allows children to have a voice. On each page, he poses a question and then writes the children’s poetic-like responses. The questions refer to how peace looks, feels, tastes, smells, and sounds. While this book might seem quite simple it deals with a complex issue. For example, in answering the question of what peace //sounds// like, one student wrote, “like a growling bear of war who gets shot by a love arrow and the fighting stops.” Another student wrote, “like everyone’s heart beating, making one big sound together.” While this book is primarily written by children, it sends a profound message to people at all ages. The author also illustrated this book, including engaging, bright pictures that capture the attention of the audience. THEMES: PEACE/WAR, CITIZENSHIP, MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES. *
 * **//Working Cotton//, written by Sherley Anne Williams. Illustrated by Carole Byard**. Published by Harcourt Brace & Company 1992. The book has one little girl tell about her day from the morning to night working in the cotton fields. It’s in a southern/ ebonic dialect. The book shows a family working in the fields as slaves. The little girl in the story narrates the whole thing and shows what a day in her life picking cotton in the fields is like from sun up to sun down. The book shows a sense of family as well as the historical context of the dialect and pictures. **Themes: History, Family, Hard Work.**
 * **//My Hiroshima.// By Junko Morimoto. Viking Penguin Books 1987.** This book is a first hand account of the bombing of Hiroshima by America in 1945, by a woman who was a young girl growing up in Hiroshima with her family at the time. The story begins with her explanation of how life was in Hiroshima before the bomb, showing a life not unlike childrens’ lives around the worlds today. Then, she explains the pain and confusion immediately following the bombing and life thereafter from her point of view as she grew and matured, and as she explains what she learned about the bombing and what she experienced during the aftermath. This story connects not only to the history of the war and the bombing, but also to the multiple points of view and perspectives that can be taken when viewing any part of history. The book ends with the author returning to see life today, that there are once again people living in Hiroshima just like she did so long ago, and shows that life moves on, but the sorrow and pain history can cause today even though it seems so long ago. THEMES: WWII, ATOMIC BOMB, WAR, POINTS OF VIEW
 * **In English, of Course Author: Josephine Nobisso Year of Publication: 2002 Publisher: Gingerbread House**. In English, of Course is about Josephine, a new student from Naples, Italy, and her first day of school and the language barrier she encounters. The teacher asks the different students in the class about life in their home countries. When it is Josephine’s turn she gets nervous that she will not be able to tell her story due to her limited English vocabulary. Instead of telling her story of city life in Naples, she tells a story of her visit to a farm while her teacher provides her with new vocabulary. This story can connect to social studies by learning about the different students and where they all came from, or the multicultural issues of the class. Social Studies Theme: MULTICULTURAL ISSUES, ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, LANGUAGE BARRIERS, ITALY, FARM.

=Young adult novels=
 * **Go and Come Back. By Joan Abelove. Puffin Books, 1998**. As this novel begins, two white women anthropologists arrive in a Peruvian jungle village to "study" an indigenous group of people, the Isabo. Told from the perspective of Alicia, a young Isabo girl, the book forces readers to question their assumptions about what is "normal" and to realize that how we see the world depends in large part on the cultural lenses through which we look. THEMES: CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDING, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, ETHNOCENTRISM.


 * **//Willow Run.// By Patricia Riley Giff. Wendy Lamb Books, 2005.** This book is written from the perspective of a 11 year-old Margaret (Meggie) Dillon whose family is affected by World War II. Meggie is originally from Rockaway, New York but she moves to Willow Run, Michigan with her parents because her dad gets a factory job building planes. In the meantime, Meggie struggles with leaving her best friend and her German Grandfather behind, her brother being off at war, and getting adjusted to new people and new surroundings. This book offers a different perspective of WWII, a child's, which is something that children in the class may find interesting and something that they could relate to. THEMES: WAR, RELOCATION, IDENTITY, UNCERTAINTY, INJUSTICE


 * **//The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane// by Kate DiCamillo. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Candlewick Press 2006.** This chapter book is about the journey a stuffed, but also human-esk rabbit takes after being lost by his devoted owner, Abilene. Edward takes a journey through sea, land fill and even a hoboes’ camp. The story is a great example of how one should forget what has happened in their past and be happy with where they are presently. The ending is heart touching and moving. THEMES: FORGIVING, LONLINESS, BEING LOST/CONFUSED, LOVE.


 * **The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. By John Boyne. David Fickling Books, 2006.** This is a story about a young boy who moves to the countryside when his father gets a new job as an S.S. commander in charge of Auschwitz. Since there are no children to play with he goes exploring one day and discovers a boy in striped pajamas on the other side of the fence. The two form a friendship despite the fact that their situations are worlds apart. The book is interesting because it tells the story of concentration camp from the perspective of a young boy who doesn’t really understand what is going on. It also brings into question ideas about guilt and innocence during World War II. THEMES: WORLD WAR II, THE HOLOCAUST, GUILT AND INNOCENCE IN HISTORY


 * **Monster. By Walter Dean Myers. Illustrations by Christopher Myers. Harper Tempest Books, 1999.** //Monster// is about Steve Harmon, a sixteen-year-old boy from Harlem who is standing trial accused of murder. The story is written as a script/various diary entries. The book goes through various times, from before Steve goes to jail, where he hears James King, another accused young man, planning on robbing a local store, to entering jail and his feelings when he is by himself at night, thinking about how his life could be like this forever, to during the court proceedings. The story also talks about what Steve feels others are thinking about him at this time, such as his family, the neighborhood he lives in, and even his attorney and how his actions have had a devastating effect on other's lives. THEMES: RACISM, CRIME, IDENTITY, INJUSTICE, FAMILY

=Young adult non-fiction=

=Graphic novels=

=Poetry=