Shakespeare's Spy
10 best books like Shakespeare's Spy (Gary L. Blackwood): The Bronze Bow, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, Of Triton, Call It Courage, Seeing Redd, Underground to Canada, If I Just Had Two Wings, Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey, Bonanza Girl, Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
| Author | Elizabeth George Speare |
He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. –from the Song of David (2 Samuel 22:35)
The Bronze Bow, written by Elizabeth George Speare (author of The Witch of Blackbird Pond) won the Newbery Medal in 1962. This gripping, action-packed novel tells the story of eighteen-year-old...
| Author | Eloise Jarvis McGraw |
| ISBN | 0140319298 |
Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom. In order to gain it, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies - each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt.
Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters,...
| Author | Anna Banks |
| ISBN | 1250003334 |
Emma has just learned that her mother is a long-lost Poseidon princess, and now struggles with an identity crisis: As a Half-Breed, she’s a freak in the human world and an abomination in the Syrena realm below. Syrena law states that all Half-Breeds should be put to death.
As if that’s not...
| Author | Armstrong Sperry |
| ISBN | 0689713916 |
A boy tries to overcome his fear of the sea in this treasured classic and winner of the Newbery Medal.
Mafatu was afraid of the sea. It had taken his mother when he was a baby, and it seemed to him that the sea gods sought vengeance at having been cheated of Mafatu. So, though he was the son of the Great...
| Author | Frank Beddor |
| ISBN | 0803731558 |
Alyss of Wonderland's rule has only just begun, and already those who prefer chaos to peace are threatening to destroy everything worth imagining. Trailed by newly appointed royal bodyguard Homburg Molly, Alyss is doing her best to keep pace with the non-stop demands of being queen while attempting...
| Author | Barbara Smucker |
| ISBN | 0141306866 |
Taken away from her mother by a ruthless slave trader, all Julilly has left is the dream of freedom. Every day that she spends huddled in the slave trader’s wagon travelling south or working on the brutal new plantation, she thinks about the land where it is possible to be free, a land she and her friend...
| Author | Virginia Frances Schwartz |
| ISBN | 0773761926 |
In her dreams, Phoebe twirls through rows of sea island cotton as a white dress blows around her knees like a breeze. As she dances, she loses all memory of being born a slave on an Alabama plantation. She lifts up her feet and flies high above the fields, as light as air. Before her a single white star shines.
Thirteen-year-old...
| Author | Ann Rinaldi |
| ISBN | 0060549254 |
I had freckles.
I had sandy hair.
I was too short.
Would my feet even touch the ground if I sat on the throne?
These are the words of lady Jane Grey, as imagined by celebrated author Ann Rinaldi. Jane would become Queen of England for only nine days before being beheaded at the age of...
| Author | Patricia Beatty |
| ISBN | 0688122809 |
Mama is widowed, with two children and no job prospects. She decides to start a school out in the gold fields but is shortly and firmly disabused of all her city slicker notions. The story is narrated by Ann Katherine, who is a nicely written young teen. Her younger brother is the bane of her existence, naturally....
Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
| Author | Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton |
| ISBN | 0792272978 |
Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton gives American kids a firsthand look at growing up in Kenya as a member of a tribe of nomads whose livelihood centers on the raising and grazing of cattle. Readers share Lekuton's first encounter with a lion, the epitome of bravery in the warrior tradition. They follow his mischievous...
| Author | Katherine Schlick Noe |
| ISBN | 0547558139 |
Can a white girl feel at home on an Indian reservation?
Based on the author’s childhood experience in the early 1960s, this novel centers on Kitty, whose father is a government forester at Warm Springs Reservation, Oregon. Kitty is one of only two white kids in her class, and the Indian kids...
Ties That Bind, Ties That Break
| Author | Lensey Namioka |
| ISBN | 0440415993 |
Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. But Ailin loves to run away from her governess and play games with her male cousins. Knowing...
| Author | Chris Crutcher |
| ISBN | 0060502452 |
Eddie hasn't had an easy year
First his father dies. Then his best friend Billy accidentally kicks a stack of Sheetrock over on himself, breaking his neck and effectively hitting tilt on his Earthgame. Eddie and Billy were inseparable. Still are. Billy isn't going to let a little thing like...
| Author | Carol Matas |
| ISBN | 1551436248 |
Rose's idyllic existence in sixteenth century France is destroyed when her father dies, and her mother--a midwife and healer to half the families in the town--is arrested and accused of being a witch. When her mother begs Rose to save herself, Rose must weigh the terror of death against the pain of life...
My impression of Peace Corps memoirs, before reading this book, was not good. This seems to be recognized as one of the better ones, and as an engaging, perceptive memoir with a strong writing style, it certainly exceeded my expectations.
Tidwell spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in...
| Author | Jane Kurtz |
| ISBN | 0152010742 |
“The Storytellers Beads” by Jane Kurtz (who grew up in a remote village in southwest corner of Ethiopia) is about the main characters, Sahay and Rahel that are both from Ethiopia. Rahel is an Ethiopian Jew who is also blind. Sahay is an Orthodox Christian. The story follows their journey during the...
| Author | Alex W. Bealer |
| ISBN | 0316085197 |
From 1837 to 1838, thousands of Cherokee Indians were marched from their homelands in Georgia to exile in Arkansas by the same white men they has once befriended. The Cherokees journeyed through bitter cold and blazing heat, with little food or water. One out of every four died --- and with them died a...
| Author | Pamela Porter |
| ISBN | 0888996950 |
It is 1965, and twelve-year-old Emaline lives on a wheat farm in southern Saskatchewan. Her family has fallen apart. When her beloved dog, Prince, chased a hare into the path of the tractor, she chased after him, and her dad accidentally ran over her leg with the discer, leaving her with a long convalescence...
For every person, there are books that you read that completely shape your life or push your life in a certain direction. For me, this is one of those books.
I first read this book in seventh grade on a whim. I had to read Walk Two Moons in another class the previous year, so I recognized the author's...
