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.
Illinois
Two Days in May
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Harriet Peck Taylor
Illustrator: Leyla Torres
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.00
This unassuming but compelling urban story - based on a real-life incident
in Chicago - reveals what happens when the residents of a city neighborhood
band together to save five hungry deer who have wandered into their
midst.
A Long Way from Chicago
Ages: 10 - 14 yrs.
Author: Richard Peck
Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers/Puffin Books, $4.99
Each summer over the nine years of the Depression, Joey and his sister,
Mary Alice-two city slickers from Chicago-make their annual summer visit to
Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town. Soon enough, they find
that it's far from sleepy... and Grandma is far from your typical
grandmother.
The River Between Us
Ages: 12 & Up
Author: Richard Peck
Penguin Putnam Inc./Dial Books for Young Readers, $16.99
During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two
mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to
Illinois.
Maine
The Canning Season
Ages: 12 & Up
Author:
Polly Horvath
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.00
Ratchet loves her selfish mother but receives little in return. Without
warning or luggage of any sort, Ratchet’s mother ships her to Maine to
spend the summer with two elderly relatives. Tilly and Penpen are
unidentical twins who are tremendously eccentric; they are also kind and
generous. A laugh-aloud, farcical story evolves from this unlikely
premise.
Massachusetts
Bus Route to Boston
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Author: Maryann
Cocca-Leffler
Boyds Mills Press, $15.95
Most young listeners will be sympathetic to the excitement felt by two
small sisters when the bus that goes "all the way into Boston" passes down
their suburban street. The author-illustrator captures the look and feel of
a suburb (with city skyscrapers beckoning in the distance), and the
excitement of shopping in Filene's Basement (the original one) and then
eating "a big ice cream sundae" at Bailey's.
Letting Swift River Go
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Author:
Jane Yolen Illustrator: Barbara Cooney
Little, Brown & Co., $5.95
As a child of six, the narrator and her friends fished the Swift River,
played mumblety-peg in the graveyard, and slept under the backyard maples.
But then, when Boston "needed water," the towns were flooded, and Quabbin
Reservoir - where a grown-up narrator sits peacefully in a boat with her
father - inundated that bucolic past. The author says she has "let go" of
the past. But the text, and Cooney's lovely watercolors, say otherwise.
Michigan
Clever Beatrice
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Margaret
Willey Illustrator: Heather Solomon
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing/Atheneum Books for Young
Readers, $16.00
Clever Beatrice features a feisty, small heroine who outsmarts a dimwitted
but surprisingly polite and appealing giant. The heroine is in need of
money to buy food for herself and her impoverished mother. The giant
possesses a large fortune in gold coins. At Beatrice's suggestion, the
ill-matched pair engages in three contests testing brute strength, all of
which the heroine wins by force of intelligence rather than muscular
might.
The Log Cabin Quilt
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Author: Ellen Howard
Illustrator: Ronald Himler
Holiday House, Inc., $16.95
When a pioneering family moves from Carolina to Michigan early in the last
century, Grandmother insists on bringing along a sack of cloth scraps to
make quilts, even though there is precious little room in the wagon. "I aim
to set on it," she says. In a surprising way, these quilting scraps and the
ingenuity of one of the children end up saving the family from a freezing
winter.
Mississippi
The Long March
Ages: All Ages
Author: Marie-Louise
Fitzpatrick
Beyond Words Publishing, $14.95
In 1847, an impoverished group of Choctaw Indians collected $170 from their
meager resources for the relief of Ireland's Potato Famine. "The Long
March" is the story of Choona, a young Choctaw who must make his own
decision about whether to answer the Irish people's plea for help.
The Blues of Flats Brown
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author:
Walter Dean Myers Illustrator: Nina Laden
Holiday House, Inc., $16.95
Two Mississippi junkyard dogs, the young Flats and his elderly friend,
Caleb, belong to a vicious man. Flats comforts himself by playing the blues
on his guitar accompanied by Caleb playing the bones. Finally, forced to
fight or flee, they flee.
A Flower Blooms on Charlotte Street
Ages: 10 & Up
Author:
Milam McGraw Propst
Mercer University Press, $18.95
In 1898, after her mother's death, Ociee runs wild with her brothers in
Marshall County, Mississippi. Her mother's sister, Aunt Mamie, has other
plans for Ociee. Her loving father agrees and packs his only daughter on
the train to go live with her aunt on Charlotte Street in Ashville, North
Carolina; it is the biggest metropolis that the child has ever seen. This
protagonist, lively and sympathetic, stars in a story that is permeated
with familial love.
Montana
Once We Had a Horse
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
By: Glen Rounds
Holiday House, Inc., $6.95
When the author-illustrator was small, he lived on a ranch in Montana. One
day a new horse arrived. The children admired it, then fed it, then rode
it. When the snow came, the horse was led away. That's all! A magic moment,
told simply and illustrated with self-effacing felicity.
Nevada
Cowboy Country
Ages: 6 - 8 yrs.
Author: Ann
Herbert Scott Illustrator: Ted Lewin
Houghton Mifflin /Clarion Books, $6.95
Roads crisscross the old Nevada ranches now, and machines do work that used
to be done by muscle. But much is the same - the weather, the horses and
the million stars in the night sky. Deep familiarity with cows is the heart
of the job, says the old cowboy narrator. Graced by Lewin's remarkable
watercolors, this is a super book.
New Jersey
The Girl on the High-Diving Horse: An Adventure in Atlantic
City
Ages: 5 - 9 yrs.
Author: Linda High
Illustrator: Ted Lewin
Penguin Putnam Inc./ Philomel, $16.99
Ivy Cordelia is plain lucky. It's the summer of 1936, and she gets to stay
in Atlantic City all summer long, where there's so much to see: boxing
kangaroos, human cannonballs, card-playing cats . . . and high-diving
horses! If there's anyone luckier than she is, it must be the girl on the
high-diving horse, who daily performs her dangerous-looking act while the
crowd cheers. Ivy's dream is to be that girl. But could she ever be that
brave?
New York
Mirette & Bellini Cross Niagara Falls
Ages: 5 - 8
yrs.
Author: Emily Arnold McCully
Penguin Putnam/Putnam, $15.99
As they arrive in New York to perform their tight rope act across Niagara
Falls, Mirette and Bellini become embroiled in the sad situation of an
immigrant boy who is not met at Ellis Island by his uncle. Who could have
known that the same young lad that they befriend will prove invaluable when
their dangerous act is sabotaged?
The Saturday Kid
Ages: 5 - 9 yrs.
Author: Edward Sorel Illustrator: Cheryl Carlesimo
Simon & Schuster Children's/Margaret K. McElderry, $18.00
Children are always interested in what the world was like before their
arrival into it, and Edward Sorel’s evocative line drawings with watercolor
overlay recreate a New York City of the 1930s. The Third Avenue El was
alive and well; a Saturday afternoon at the movies was the highpoint of the
week; and the newsreel was part and parcel of every film program. Our hero
Morty shares his triumph when he unexpectedly witnesses himself on the Big
Screen shaking hands with New York’s Mayor – Fiorello La Guardia, of
course.
North Carolina
The Jack Tales: Folk Tales from the Southern Appalachains
Ages: 9
- 12 yrs.
Author: Richard Chase
Houghton Mifflin Co., $7.95
Here is quintessential America from the mountains of North Carolina,
arranged- and for decades memorably performed- by the wandering troubadour;
Richard Chase. Big Jack and Little Jack, Jack and the Bull, Jack and the
Bean tree- many of the plots are familiar.
Pennsylvania
Growing Up In Coal Country
Ages: 8 - 12 yrs.
Author: Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Houghton Mifflin Co., $7.95
Before the child labor laws, young boys worked as Pennsylvania coal miners
under incredibly harsh conditions. Filled with photographs, the book, with
its calm understated prose, is an excellent depiction of nineteenth and
twentieth century exploitation of children, a dirty period - literally - of
our history.
South Dakota
Wounded Knee
Ages: 9 & Up
By: Neil Waldman
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing/Atheneum Books for Young
Readers, $18.00
Neil Waldman's heartfelt and evocative black and white pictures -- with a
sprinkling of sepia and earth colors for some landscapes and Indian
portraits -- chronicle the last free-roaming days of the Lakota tribes of
the western plains. Waldman writes a serviceable but uninspired prose that
will give his readers some sense of the clash of two alien cultures (Native
Americans and white settlers) that doomed the nomadic tribal life of the
Indian population.
Texas
Puss in Cowboy Boots
Ages: 6 - 10 yrs.
Author: Jan Huling Illustrator: Phil Huling
Simon & Schuster/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $16.00
Though the Puss in this telling of the old fairy tale wears "the purdiest
pair of red snakeskin cowboy boots ever worn," he is as crafty and sly as
of yore. With the story transported to Texas, the wily cat manages to marry
off his penniless master to the daughter of "the biggest, the richest, and
the most powerful oilman in the state of Texas," Mr. Patoot.
Vermont
Jip: His Story
Ages: 8 - 12 yrs.
Author: Katherine Patterson
Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers/Puffin Books, $4.99
Orphaned Jip, believing himself to be a gypsy, grows up on a poor farm in
Vermont. When a lunatic is brought to the farm and kept in a cage during
his lunatic rages, a deep friendship develops between the two. A "good
read" of substance.
Virginia
James Towne
Ages: 6 - 10 yrs.
By: Marcia Sewall
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing/Atheneum Books for Young
Readers, $16.00
A uthor/illustrator Marcia Sewall makes the settling of James Towne in 1607
an exciting and danger-filled adventure in which the reader takes part.
Sewall deftly uses as narrator a young carpenter, but she adds bits and
pieces of contemporary documents -- quotes from Instructions for
Government, 1606, and snippets of journal entries and letters from actual
passengers on the early ships.
Missing May
Ages: 10 & Up
By: Cynthia Rylant
Scholastic Inc./Orchard Books, $10.47
This novel is about a hand-me-down orphan finally adopted by a pair of
elderly relatives. May and Ob pack up the small girl, named Summer, and
take her to live in their trailer in Deep Water, West Virginia. After the
death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and
her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to
go on living.
Washington
Our Only May Amelia
Ages: 10 & Up
Author: Jennifer Holm
Harper Collins
In 1899, May Amelia lives on the Nasel River in Washington with seven
brothers. Running around in overalls, she has no interest in being a proper
young lady. She views all warnings as challenges. A delightful, thoroughly
adventurous character.
West Virginia
Way Down Deep
Ages: 10 & Up
Author: Ruth White
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.00
Way Down Deep in West Virginia in 1944, a toddler is found sitting on the
courthouse steps in the early morning sun. No one knows who she is or where
she came from. The quiet Miss Arbutus Ward, proprietress of the town’s
boardinghouse, volunteers to take Ruby in. Ruby’s life is happy and settled
until, just before she turns 13 years old, a quirky family new to Way Down
Deep seems to have some information that may unravel the truth of Ruby’s
past.
Wisconsin
The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods
Ages: 8 - 12 yrs.
Author: Ann Cameron
Farrar, Straus & Giroux $16.00
Set in rural Wisconsin, this story of an eleven -year -old who lives with a
difficult mother, a self-absorbed older sister, a beloved but distant
father, never hits a false note. Privy to Amanda’s innermost thoughts, the
reader empathizes completely with this appealing protagonist. Amanda grows
and changes despite - or perhaps because of -spending most of her time
coping with trying circumstances ... like the rest of us.
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