Straw Into Gold
10 best books like Straw Into Gold (Gary D. Schmidt): Shadow Spinner, The Running Dream, The Twenty-One Balloons, The Stars Beneath Our Feet, Tuesdays at the Castle, The Princess and the Goblin, Once Upon a Marigold, Before Midnight - A Retelling of Cinderella, Countdown, The Apothecary
| Author | Susan Fletcher |
| ISBN | 0689830513 |
Originally reviewed on my blog, Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing.
Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher is set in Ancient Persia and it is a retelling of 1001 Arabian Nights. The original tale is the story of Shaharazad, the young woman who tells stories each night to the Sultan, ending before...
| Author | Wendelin Van Draanen |
| ISBN | 0375866671 |
An award-winning and inspiring novel. When Jessica's dreams are shattered, she puts herself back together—and learns to dream bigger than ever before.
Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with...
| Author | William Pène du Bois |
| ISBN | 0140320970 |
One month after graduating from college, I started working. That was in 1984. I am now in my 4th company and except for my paid vacation leaves and rare sick days, I have never been, even a single day, out of the corporate rate race.
27 years of working and trying to earn a living.
I know it...
| Author | David Barclay Moore |
| ISBN | 1524701254 |
A boy tries to steer a safe path through the projects in Harlem in the wake of his brother’s death in this outstanding debut novel that celebrates community and creativity.
It’s Christmas Eve in Harlem, but twelve-year-old Lolly Rachpaul and his mom aren’t celebrating. They’re still...
| Author | Jessica Day George |
| ISBN | 1599906449 |
Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one-other than Celie, that is-takes the time to map out the new additions. But when King...
The Princess and the Goblin
| Author | George MacDonald |
| ISBN | 0140367462 |
Published in 1872, The Princess and the Goblin is one of the first books in the modern fantasy genre. This book had tremendous and very visible influence on all the (now much more famous) authors that came after it.
It is of course very dated. It does not match the standards that fantasy have created...
| Author | Jean Ferris |
| ISBN | 0152050841 |
This is the cutest book in the entire world. You kind of just want to hug it and squeeze it and call it George, because it's just that damned cute.
The subtitle is "part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen sink," and that's pretty accurate. I got a bit of a Princess Bride type...
| Author | Cameron Dokey |
| ISBN | 1416934715 |
Etienne de Brabant is brokenhearted. His wife has died in childbirth, leaving him alone with an infant daughter he cannot bear to name. But before he abandons her for king and court, he brings a second child to be raised alongside her, a boy whose identity he does not reveal.The girl, La Cendrillon, and...
| Author | Deborah Wiles |
| ISBN | 0545106052 |
Franny Chapman just wants some peace. But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head. Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things. Worst of all, everyone is...
It’s 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows—a fascinating boy who’s not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy. When Benjamin’s father is kidnapped,...
| Author | M.M. Kaye |
| ISBN | 0142300853 |
Along with Wit, Charm, Health, and Courage, Princess Amy of Phantasmorania receives a special fairy christening gift: Ordinariness. Unlike her six beautiful sisters, she has brown hair and freckles, and would rather have adventures than play the harp, embroider tapestries . . . or become a Queen....
Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on "climbing boys"--orphans owned by chimney sweeps--to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived--and a girl. With her...
| Author | Gail Carson Levine |
| ISBN | 0060000945 |
There she was, chartreuse and warty and smiling at him. Such a nice smile. Something in his heart fluttered.
The young maiden, Parsley, will eat nothing but parsley, which in Snettering-on-Snoakes grows only in the fairy Bombina's garden. All is well -- until Bombina is released from the fairy queen's...
| Author | Pat Schmatz |
| ISBN | 0763653349 |
Travis is missing his old home in the country, and he’s missing his old hound, Rosco. Now there’s just the cramped place he shares with his alcoholic grandpa, a new school, and the dreaded routine of school. But that’s before Travis meets Mr. McQueen, who doesn’t take "pass" for an answer—a...
| Author | L.A. Meyer |
| ISBN | 0152065016 |
On the very day that Jacky Faber is to wed her true love, she is kidnapped by British Naval Intelligence and forced to embark on yet another daring mission—this time to search for sunken Spanish gold. But when Jacky is involved, things don't always go as planned.
Jacky has survived battles...
The Mark of the Golden Dragon: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Jewel of the East, Vexation of the West, and Pearl of the South China Sea
| Author | L.A. Meyer |
| ISBN | 0547517645 |
Jacky Faber, soldier, sailor, spy, and sometime pirate, condemned for life to the English prison colony in Australia for high crimes against the Crown, has once again wriggled out of the grasp of British authorities. Back on her flagship, the Lorelei Lee, she happily heads back to England in the company...
| Author | Matthew Cody |
| ISBN | 0375855955 |
Superheroes soar in this promising debut—and they’re kids!
Twelve-year-old Daniel, the new kid in town, soon learns the truth about his nice—but odd—new friends: one can fly, another can turn invisible, yet another controls electricity. Incredible. The superkids use their powers...
Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie
| Author | David Lubar |
| ISBN | 0142407801 |
Freaks and bullies, classes and crushes, this is high school.
Starting high school is never easy. Seniors take your lunch money. Girls you’ve known forever are suddenly beautiful and unattainable. And you can never get enough sleep. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce...
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
| Author | E.L. Konigsburg |
| ISBN | 0689866372 |
I Prefer Not To....
That's Margaret Rose Kane's response to every activity she's asked to participate in at the summer camp to which she's been exiled while her parents are in Peru. So Margaret Rose is delighted when her beloved uncles rescue her from Camp Talequa, with its uptight camp director...
