Journey of the Sparrows

Author	Peter W. Hassinger
ISBN	0060284676

Susanna Shakespeare finds the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon much too quiet and provincial. She yearns to travel to London to see her father's world of players and poets, and to follow a secret dream of her own. Once Susanna arrives in London, nothing is quite as she expected it to be -- least of all...

Author	James Howe
ISBN	1416926844

"If thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number...you would think a civilized society could come up with a way for us to skip it."

-- from "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" by Bruce Coville

No one will want to skip any of the twelve short stories and one poem that make up this collection...

Author	Gary Paulsen
ISBN	0439786614

A critically acclaimed tearjerker from a master storyteller: On one side of the border is brutality and heartache; on the other side--a new life.

14yo Manny is an orphan in Juarez, Mexico. He competes with his bigger, meaner rivals for the coins American tourists throw off the bridge between...

Author	Elizabeth Laird
ISBN	0140368558

I'm very miserly when it comes to giving out five star ratings on Goodreads. I have read hundreds upon hundreds of books in my lifetime, most of which I haven't recorded here on GR but currently I have around 20 five star ratings.


But there are some books that stand apart from all the others....

Author	Suzanne Fisher Staples
ISBN	0374380252

Intertwined portraits of courage and hope in Afghanistan and Pakistan   Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose name means “star,†suddenly finds herself alone when her father and older brother are conscripted by the Taliban and her mother and newborn brother are killed in an...

Author	Nicholasa Mohr
ISBN	0064471004

In a city called New York ...
In a neighborhood called El Bronx ...


The Fernandex children own a very special pet: A white hen named after their favorite Hollywood movie star.
A new girl comes to school - a gypsy child who can read palms and foretell the future.
A young boy must...

Author	Cynthia Voigt
ISBN	0689848684

"Love stories aren't about how they end."A chance meeting on a street corner with her childhood friend Orfe plunges Enny into the tough world of popular music. As Orfe's business manager, Enny sees Orfe and her band, the three Graces, arrive at the brink of success -- and watches Orfe's dangerous obsession...

Author	Norma Fox Mazer
ISBN	0380750252

At fifteen, Rachel is a worrier. She worries about whether her family understands her, whether her friends like her, and whether she'll get her first kiss before she turns sixteen. And she worries about whether she can handle having a real boyfriend if he does come along.

But it takes a dying...

Author	Angela Johnson
ISBN	0590481428

Angela Johnson's Coretta Scott King Award winning novel that traces three generations of African American women as they learn one another's truths.

Three generations of African American women, each holding on to a separate truth. Their story -- encompassing racism and murder as well as...

Author	M.E. Kerr
ISBN	0064470679

Buddy Boyle lives year-round with his family in unfashionable Seaville, New York, in a cramped little house on the bay. Skye Pennington spends the summers nearby on lavish estate complete with ocean view and a butler named Peacock.But Skye and Buddy fall in love anyway. And every once in a while they...

Author	Jerry Spinelli
ISBN	0671746847

Just finished this excellent young adult story. Spinelli has done it again -- spun a story I could hardly put down and that pulled all the loose ends together without tying them too tight.

Maisie is an athletic type junior high girl. She was Athlete of the Year, playing on the basketball team,...

Author

Ouida Sebestyen

Lena can recite the Scriptures by heart. Hoping to make her adored Papa proud of her and to make her white classmates notice her "Magic Mind," not her black skin, Lena vows to win the Bible-quoting contest. But winning does not bring Lena what she expected. Instead of honor, violence and death erupt and...

Author	Paula Danziger
ISBN	0142406813

In this book I think the author wants us to know that Marcy is a girl who doesn't really fit in with most people because of how she looks. Also Marcy and her father don't have a good connection.But when she goes to this special writing camp to be a counselor, her life just turns so much better. I think the author...

Author	Carole Boston Weatherford
ISBN	1590784405

A poetic tribute to the victims of the racially motivated church bombing that served as a seminal event in the struggle for civil rights. In 1963, the eyes of the world were on Birmingham, Alabama, a flashpoint for the civil rights movement. Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the United...

Author

Ana Veciana-Suarez

Yara Garcia and her family live a middle-class life in Havana, Cuba. But in 1967, as Communist ruler Fidel Castro tightens his hold on Cuba, the Garcias, who do not share the political beliefs of the Communist Party, are forced to flee to Miami, Florida. There, Yara encounters a strange land with foreign...

Author	Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN	0440408091

Journey is eleven the summer his mother leaves him and his sister, Cat, with their grandparents. He is sad and angry, and spends the summer looking for the clues that will explain why she left.



Journey searches photographs for answers. He hunts family resemblances in Grandma's albums....

Author	Lynne Rae Perkins
ISBN	0380733021

"Before last summer Maureen and I were best friends....At least I think we were. I don't know what happened exactly. As some people who get hit by trucks sometimes say,'I didn't see anything coming.'" When her best friend since the third grade starts acting as though Debbie doesn't exist, Debbie finds...

Author	Pegi Deitz Shea
ISBN	0618247483

For the Hmong people living in overcrowded refugee camps in Thailand, America is a dream: the land of peace and plenty. In 1995, ten years after their arrival at the camp, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang and her grandmother are about to experience that dream. In America, they will be reunited with their only...

Author	Wendelin Van Draanen
ISBN	0060540737

How I Survived Being a Girl was my favorite book when I was younger, and I only read it once. So when I found it in my stacks and stacks of books, I had to pick it up again. I scarcely even remembered what it was about, and since I didn't really want to pick up anything too hefty before school started, I just figured...

Author	Cathy Camper
ISBN	1452138362

The trio from Lowriders in Space are back! Lupe Impala, Elirio Malaria, and El Chavo Octopus are living their dream at last. They're the proud owners of their very own garage. But when their beloved cat Genie goes missing, they need to do everything they can to find him. Little do they know the trail will...

Author	Lois Lowry
ISBN	0440403448

Man, Lois Lowry is just the best, isn't she. The actual very best.

This is a really great book. I loved reading it and I'd recommend it to everyone. Even though I'd read a lot of reviews, I didn't quite understand what I was getting. (Basically, all that many reviews can clearly say is, "Oh my gosh,...

Author

Alexandra Diaz

Jaime is sitting on his bed drawing when he hears a scream. Instantly, he knows: Miguel, his cousin and best friend, is dead.

Everyone in Jaime’s small town in Guatemala knows someone who has been killed by the Alphas, a powerful gang that’s known for violence and drug trafficking. Anyone...

Author	Kathe Koja
ISBN	0374372780

A powerful debut novel

A female collie mix, so beautiful, all gold and white and dirty; she’s in the last cage on the aisle, curled up quiet, watching everything – but when I get too close she goes completely crazy, biting at the bars, herself, anything in reach, until I back off and away. Her...

Author	Beverley Naidoo
ISBN	0064410021

After the murder of their mother, twelve-year-old Sade and her younger brother are smuggled out of Nigeria by their journalist father to escape the corrupt military government and growing violence. They are sent to their uncle in London, but when they arrive, he is missing and they are abandoned, passed...

Author	Nikki Grimes
ISBN	0399245375

Paris has just moved in with the Lincoln family, and isn't thrilled to be in yet another foster home. She has a tough time trusting people, and she misses her brother, who's been sent to a boys' home. Over time, the Lincolns grow on Paris. But no matter how hard she tries to fit in, she can't ignore the feeling...