Bookshelf Travels: Children's Books that Spotlight North American States

Bookshelves offer starting points for many a journey. If you’ve ever wondered what life is like in Freedom, Georgia, on a ranch in Nevada, or on Blossom Street in Marshall County Mississippi, take a trip through the pages of these Parents’ Choice recommended books available at your local library.

Alabama

Send Me Down a Miracle
Ages: 12 & Up
Author: Han Nolan
Harcourt Brace & Company, $13.00

Fourteen-year-old Charity is torn between her preacher father and an exciting visiting artist. So is her whole Alabama community. Outlandish good humor.

Alaska

Irving and Muktuk: Two Bad Bears
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Daniel Pinkwater    Illustrator: Jill Pinkwater
Houghton Mifflin Children's Books, $15.00

The inhabitants of Yellowtooth in the frozen north brighten their long winter by celebrating New Year's Day with a Muffin Festival. Irving and Muktuk are ever on the prowl for muffins so Officer Bunny, the town's protector, must be ever alert. This cheerfully ludicrous story ends with the villains meeting their comeuppance. Sort of.

California

Weetzie BatAges: 12 & Up
By: Francesca L Block
HarperCollins Publisher/Charlotte Zolotow, $11.48
In a town called L.A. lived Weetzie Bat, a high school girl with a bleached-white flattop, pink Harlequin sunglasses, sugar-frosted eye shadow, and a best friend named Dirk. When Dirk tells Weetzie he is gay, she hugs him and says, "Now we can duck hunt together." Life as they live it is almost perfect, except Weetzie Bat has three wishes. As in traditional fairy tales, the folkloric themes in this modern one are bona fide.

Florida

The Worst Goes SouthAges: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: James Stevenson
HarperCollins Children's Books / Greenwillow

Mr. Worst is cantankerous, irascible, and adored by children. In his latest misadventure, his town decides to hold a Harvest Festival in the vacant lot next to his house. Worst is horrified at the thought of all the festivities, of course. Awakened in the night by the polka band rehearsing, he storms into the rehearsal where the cheerful band leader asks him what he would like to hear. His response is "Total silence!" He escapes the sounds by climbing into his 1959 Edsel and heading for Florida and a big surprise.

Because of Winn-DixieAges: 8 & Up
Author: Kate DiCamillo
Candlewick Press, $15.99

Although she lives in the Friendly Corners Trailer Park, ten-year-old Opal has no friends. She and her preacher father have moved to Naomi, Florida for her father’s new job. Here, on an errand to the local grocery store, Opal acquires a unique friend, a large brown stray that she names for the store Winn-Dixie. The dog proves to have exquisite taste in people; Winn- Dixie charms his way into everyone's heart.

Georgia

Fame and Glory In Freedom, GeorgiaAges: 8 - 12 yrs.
Author: Barbara O'Connor
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.00

Bird, who is in the sixth grade of the middle school of Freedom, Georgia, is not exactly popular. She feels as invisible as "Casper the Ghost." When another apparent loser, a boy named Harlem Tate, moves to town, Bird confides in her next door neighbor, Miss Delphine, her various schemes to win his friendship. What she ultimately wins is not fame and glory, but something much more valuable.

Moonpie and IvyAges: 10 - 15 yrs.
Author: Barbara O'Connor
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.00

Twelve year old Pearl is unceremoniously deserted by her erratic, volatile mother at the home of Aunt Ivy, whom she had never met. Totally ignorant of her mother's family, Pearl must not only deal with desertion, she must try to adjust to the totally alien, rural environment of Darwood, Georgia. A neighboring, extremely pale boy, aptly named Moonpie, tries to befriend the experience-hardened Pearl. Thawing slightly under the kindness of Moonpie and Ivy, Pearl's problems are too deep for rapid healing.

The Land
Ages: 12 & Up
Author: Mildred Taylor
Penguin Putnam/Phyllis Fogelman Books, $17.99

After the Civil War Paul, the son of a white father and a black mother, finds himself caught between the two worlds of colored folks and white folks as he pursues his dream of owning land of his own.

Idaho

Mailing May
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Michael O. Tunnell    Illustrator: Ted Rand
HarperCollins Children's Books / Greenwillow, $15.95

Set in 1914 and based on a true incident, May badly wants to visit her grandmother who lives seventy-five miles away on the other side of the Idaho mountains. When her parents tell her that they can't afford a train ticket, May is crushed. Her parents decide to mail their disappointed chick to her grandmother as just that-a baby chick.