"The winner of the Scott O'Dell Award, The Bomb is a powerful history lesson and a gripping tale of suspense that no listener will ever forget. In 1946, sixteen-year-old Sorry Rinamu watches as U.S. Navy warships appear off the coast of Bikini Island. The U.S. Government wants to test the deadly power of the atomic bomb-and Sorry's island has been chosen as the test site. The young man knows he must stop the Americans from dropping the bomb-even if it means defying orders from the U.S. Government and risking his own life."
"It is 1848.On one side of the Mason-Dixon Line lives fifteen-year-old Willow, her master’s favorite servant. She’s been taught to read and has learned to write. She is permitted to spend much of her time riding her horse to the riverbank, where she writes letters to her dead mother. On the other side of the line is seventeen-year-old Cato, a black man, free born. It’s his personal mission to sneak as many fugitive slaves to freedom as he can. He does it both because he abhors slavery and to prove to his father that he is a man. When Willow’s and Cato’s lives intersect, they will discover the true meanings of bondage and freedom, of family and love.Tonya Cherie Hegamin’s moving coming-of-age story is a poignant meditation on the many ways a person can be enslaved and the force of will necessary to be truly emancipated."
"I throw back my tumble of black hair, roll one bare shoulder forward, then the other. The stack of bangles on each wrist shimmies and slides as my hands rise like birds in flight.
Set during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, sixteen-year-old Drina yearns to dance flamenco. When she dances, she forgets who she is. She forgets what seems to be her legacy: I am nothing. I belong nowhere. Why does her mother forbid her to dance, the very thing that makes her feel alive? She wonders about the secrets her mother holds, about the rumored life she had before Drina was born—a story that somehow still holds them both prisoner.
From the wandering Gypsy campagna to the vineyard estate of a paternal grandmother she has never known and the dance halls of Seville where flamenco reigns, Drina fights to discover who she is and where she belongs. Not quite Gypsy, not quite Spanish, she must carve out an identity all her own and discover what it means to be a bird with the heart of a mountain. Full of mystery, loss, and longing, this powerful novel brilliantly captures a young girl’s yearning and her adventurous journey to discover her true home."
"A captivating and richly detailed novel about one young soldier who saw the Civil War from both sides and lived to tell the tale.
Earnest, plain-spoken sixteen-year-old Jeff Bussey has finally gotten his father’s consent to join the Union volunteers. It’s 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff is eager to fight for the North before the war is over, which he’s sure will be soon.
But weeks turn to months, the marches through fields and woods prove endless, hunger and exhaustion seem to take up permanent residence in Jeff’s bones, and he learns what it really means to fight in battle—and to lose friends. When he finds himself among enemy troops, he’ll have to put his life on the line to advance the Union cause.
Thoroughly researched and based on firsthand accounts, Rifles for Watie “should hold a place with the best Civil War fiction for young people” (The Horn Book).
A strong choice for independent reading and for sharing in a classroom and for homeschooling. As a homeschool cooperative teacher commented: 'The book has launched many discussions in our class. When a person is on one side of a conflict, it is important to remember that people on the other side are also people. Jeff is a perfect model for how treating people with respect can happen even in war.'
Winner of the Newbery Medal • An ALA Notable Children’s Book • Winner of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award"
"An Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award winner—Grand Prize and Young Adult Fiction.
When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.
Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and her genetic ability to time travel makes Kate the only one who can fix the future. Risking everything, she travels back in time to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the murder and the chain of events that follows.
Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does Kate have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?
Publisher’s Note: Timebound was originally released as Time’s Twisted Arrow."
"For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own. Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down."
"An astonishing civil rights story from Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin.
On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution. This is a fascinating story of the prejudice that faced black men and women in America's armed forces during World War II, and a nuanced look at those who gave their lives in service of a country where they lacked the most basic rights."
"This second volume in Emily Bold’s mystical series about Samantha Watts and Payton McLean, a cursed Scotsman from another era, takes readers on a thrilling journey across time. After winning the battle to break a centuries-old curse, Samantha and Payton thought nothing could stand in the way of their happiness. But all too soon they learn the horrifying truth: Their struggle to keep Payton alive has only just begun. Samantha ventures into the past, back to eighteenth-century Scotland where it all began—and back into the arms of Payton, the handsome young Highlander who stole her heart. Will they unlock the secret to the legend of the five sisters in time to make their dreams come true?"
"Arrow through the Axes concludes the "Odyssey of a Slave" trilogy that began with the Red Maple–nominated Torn from Troy, retelling Homer's Odyssey. The slave Alexi, now free of his Greek captors, infiltrates the Greek strongholds of the Bronze Age in search of his sister. In so doing he participates in the stories of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, as he seeks revenge for his father's murder, and of Telemachus, son of Odysseus, who lands on Ithaca, the home island of Odysseus, just in time to witness the arrival of a mysterious stranger. As Alexi comes to understand the damage that the Trojan War has visited upon its victors, both he and the reader are forced to confront an unpleasant truth, while Alexi must decide where his allegiance really lies. Re-casting the Odyssey as a YA adventure, this trilogy brings ancient mythology to life in a way that traditional retellings cannot. We see what life would have been like for Bronze-Age warriors as Bowman interweaves adventure, ritual and historical detail into a realistic and compelling narrative. Readers who have experienced pop mythology, and now want to dive deeper, will find Arrow through the Axes especially satisfying, but all readers will enjoy this powerful excursion into the classic mythology that shaped western culture."
"This YALSA-ALA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award Finalist is a breathtaking and dramatic account of JFK's assassination by NY Times bestselling author of CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER.
In his award-winning young-adult book on the Kennedy assassination, James Swanson will transport readers back to one of the most shocking, sad, and terrifying events in American history. As he did in his bestselling Scholastic YA book, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER, Swanson deploys his signature 'you are there' style -- a riveting, ticking-clock pace, with an unprecedented eye for dramatic details and impeccable historical accuracy. Here is the story of the JFK assassination as it has never been told before."
"A centuries-old curse, a mysterious amulet, and a young love reignite a vendetta that had died down long ago…
When seventeen-year-old Samantha goes on a school-exchange trip to Scotland, she takes with her an old pendant that she found amongst her grandmother’s belongings. As soon as she arrives at her host family’s home, she is drawn into the country’s tales and myths. Then she meets the dangerously attractive Payton—a mysterious Highlander who soon conquers Sam’s heart. Caught up in her feelings, she doesn’t realize how much danger she’s in. Payton’s past holds a dark secret. A secret that has bound together both their families’ fates for hundreds of years and is now also endangering Sam’s life."
"One ordinary afternoon, fifeen-year-old Lilo and her family are suddenly picked up by Hitler’s police and imprisoned as part of the 'Gypsy plague.' Just when it seems certain that they will be headed to a labor camp, Lilo is chosen by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to work as a film extra. Life on the film set is a bizarre alternate reality. The surroundings are glamorous, but Lilo and the other extras are barely fed, closely guarded, and kept in a locked barn when not on the movie set. And the beautiful, charming Riefenstahl is always present, answering the slightest provocation with malice, flaunting the power to assign prisoners to life or death. Lilo takes matters into her own hands, effecting an escape and running for her life. In this chilling but ultimately uplifting novel, Kathryn Lasky imagines the lives of the Gypsies who worked as extras for the real Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, giving readers a story of survival unlike any other."
