Ready-Made Family


Frances Salomon Murphy - 1953
    But after the initial strangeness of a new life is over, life with the Kennedys gets better and better. The Kowalskis make their own young friends; Grandmother Kennedy gradually warms to the newcomers and when Hedy's aunt returns to try to claim her, new love and security keep Hedy where she is.

Knightley Academy


Violet Haberdasher - 2010
    They thwart Henry’s efforts to become a full-fledged Knight of the Realm, but he and two commoner classmates are determined to succeed. In the process, the boys uncover a conspiracy that violates the Hundred Years’ Peace treaty—and could lead to war! Can Henry manage to save his school and country from their enemies—and continue to study at the Academy?

The Hazards of War


Jonathan Paul Isaacs - 2015
    Hitler's war machine has decimated the Allies and the people of Europe must now learn the terror of living under the Third Reich.For Gabrielle Conti, a young French girl working at her family's winery, such news seemed incredibly distant and abstract. Surely these events wouldn't impact her simple life in the French countryside?That was before the body of an SS officer was found in the basement.When her family becomes the subject of a brutal murder investigation, Gabrielle must match wits with SS Captain Hans Tiedemann, a veteran of the Russian Front who is hell-bent on singling out the killer. Gabrielle bets that if she can fool Tiedemann into thinking he is making progress, she just might buy enough time for her family to escape.But that will be no easy task. For as the Germans gather their clues, Gabrielle starts to learn more about her family's true involvement in the war--and saving them could spell the end of the French Resistance.

Playing Beatie Bow


Ruth Park - 1980
    Distraught over her parents' separation, Abigail follows a strange child called Beatie Bow and time slips back a hundred years where she becomes involved with an Australian shopkeeper's family.

A Faraway Island


Annika Thor - 1996
    Two Jewish sisters from Vienna 12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellie are sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden. Nellie quickly settles in to her new surroundings. She s happy with her foster family and soon favors the Swedish language over her native German. Not so for Stephie, who finds it hard to adapt; she feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who s as cold and unforgiving as the island itself. Her main worry, though, is her parents and whether she will ever see them again.

The Blood Lie


Shirley Reva Vernick - 2011
    Jack Pool's sixteenth birthday. He's been restless lately, especially during this season of more-times-at-the-synagogue than you can shake a stick at. If it wasn't Rosh Hashanah, then it was Yom Kippur, and if it wasn't Yom Kippur, it was the Sabbath. But temple's good for some things. It gives him lots of time to daydream about a beautiful but inaccessible Gentile girl named Emaline. And if she isn't on his mind, then he's thinking about his music and imagining himself playing the cello with the New York Philharmonic. Yup, music is definitely his ticket out of this remote whistle-stop town—he doesn't want to be stuck here one more minute. But he doesn't realize exactly how stuck he is until Emaline's little sister Daisy goes missing and he and his family are accused of killing her for a blood sacrifice.Blood Lie was inspired by a real blood libel that took place when a small girl disappeared from Massena, New York, in 1928, and an innocent Jewish boy was called a murderer.

Gone-Away Lake


Elizabeth Enright - 1957
    But though the lake is long gone and the resort faded away, the houses still hold a secret life: two people who have never left Gone-Away...and who can tell the story of what happened there.

Spider's Voice


Gloria Skurzynski - 1999
    A man, standing behind me, who turned toward me and smiled. That smile! It was the first time anyone had ever looked at me as though I were someone who mattered. As if he were saying to me, without words, Because you and I are men, we apreciate feminine beauty when we see it. From the moment Aran sees Peter Abelard and his lover, Eloise, he wants nothing more than to surround himself with the coulple's renowned beauty, intelligence, and eloquence, which seem to offer a path of hope away from his cruel and impoverished childhood. Aran is still mourning the recent death of his devoted mother, who had taught her mute son how to spin wool, as well as the art of listening. Now Aran, born tongue-tied, has been peddled to a merchant of human grotesqueries by his brutal older brother and is about to have his body forced into the shape of a human spider. When Abelard, in need of a servant who will not talk of his affair with Eloise, rescues Aran from Master Galien, it seems that the boy's dream has come true. He is quickly given the name of Spider and accompanies the famous couple around France as they confront the various plights brought about by their overwhelming passion. During this time, he learns how to read, silently. Little by little, Spider becomes enmeshed in the lives of Abelard and Eloise, and his gifts of reading, spinning, and listening enable him to become the thread connecting the two people he worships most. In this fictional account of the true story of Abelard and Heloise, the famous twelfth-centuryFrench lovers, Gloria Skurzynski has created a tale of patience and devotion, and of the beauty created from the space between silence and words.

A Long Way from Verona


Jane Gardam - 1971
    For Jessica she has been told that she is 'beyond all possible doubt', a born writer. With her inability to conform, her absolute compulsion to tell the truth and her dedication to accurately noting her experiences, she knows this anyway. But what she doesn't know is that the experiences that sustain and enrich her burgeoning talent will one day lead to a new- and entirely unexpected- reality.

The Worms of Kukumlima


Daniel Pinkwater - 1981
    Ronald accompanies his grandfather, the salami snap magnate, and the world famous explorer Sir Charles Pelicanstein, on an expedition to Africa to search for the intelligent worms of Kukumlina.

The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds: The Donner Party Expedition, 1846


Rodman Philbrick - 2001
    Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

Malka


Mirjam Pressler - 2001
    But escape proves harder than they could have imagined, with bleeding feet, bad weather, and homesickness, and little Malka falls ill. Left behind to be brought across when the threat has passed, Malka finds herself in a terrifying world full of strangers, starvation, and constant fear of Nazi roundups. As time passes, it becomes more and more apparent that the threat is far from over. Completely alone, Malka struggles to stay hidden, unaware that miles away, a brokenhearted mother is searching frantically for her lost little girl.

Just Jenifer


Janet Lambert - 1946
    At the outbreak of WWII, with her father, an army general overseas, adolescent Jenifer musters her wits to housekeep for her large and lively family in the first of this famous series.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas


John Boyne - 2006
    (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence.Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.

The Shrunken Head


Lauren Oliver - 2015
    But when a fourth child, Max, a knife-thrower, joins the group, it sets off an unforgettable chain of events. When the museum’s Amazonian shrunken head is stolen, the four are determined to get it back. But their search leads them to a series of murders and an explosive secret about their pasts. This sensational new series combines the unparalleled storytelling gifts of Lauren Oliver with the rich knowledge of the notorious relics collector H.C. Chester. What you will NOT find in this book:– An accountant named Seymour– A never-ending line at the post office– Brussel sprouts (shudder)– A lecture on finishing all your homework on time– A sweet, gooey story for nice little girls and boys.