Fiction Books - Page 2

Romiette and Julio

Sharon M. Draper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Romiette and Julio 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Purchased for reading in a high school intensive reading class. So far, three students have read the book and recommended it to other students.

They said it was a great story about teenagers and the struggles in life.

Editorial Review:

Star Crossed Lovers

When Romiette Cappelle meets Julio Montague, she feels as though she has met the soul mate who can rescue her from her recurring nightmare about fire and water. But like the Shakespearean characters whose names echo theirs, Romiette and Julio discover that not everyone approves of their budding romance. In their case, it is because Romiette is African-American and Julio is Hispanic, and the Devildogs, a dangerous local gang, violently oppose their interracial relationship.

When the Devildogs threaten to teach them a lesson, Romiette and Julio come up with a risky plan to escape from the gang's fearsome shadow. But things go terribly awry, and the two find themselves caught up in a deadly reality more frightening that Romiette's nightmare -- and in a desperate struggle to avoid the tragic fate of Shakespeare's famous young lovers.

American Born Chinese

Gene Luen Yang

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Indie graphic novelist Gene Yang's intelligent and emotionally challenging American Born Chinese is made up of three individual plotlines: the determined efforts of the Chinese folk hero Monkey King to shed his humble roots and be revered as a god; the struggles faced by Jin Wang, a lonely Asian American middle school student who would do anything to fit in with his white classmates; and the sitcom plight of Danny, an All-American teen so shamed by his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee (a purposefully painful ethnic stereotype) that he is forced to change schools. Each story works well on its own, but Yang engineers a clever convergence of these parallel tales into a powerful climax that destroys the hateful stereotype of Chin-Kee, while leaving both Jin Wang and the Monkey King satisfied and happy to be who they are.

Yang skillfully weaves these affecting, often humorous stories together to create a masterful commentary about race, identity, and self-acceptance that has earned him a spot as a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People. The artwork, rendered in a chromatically cool palette, is crisp and clear, with clean white space around center panels that sharply focuses the reader's attention in on Yang's achingly familiar characters. There isn't an adolescent alive who won't be able to relate to Jin's wish to be someone other than who he is, and his gradual realization that there is no better feeling than being comfortable in your own skin.--Jennifer Hubert

I Don't Have Your Eyes

Carrie A. Kitze

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Disappointed 2 out of 5 stars.
6 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Our red-haired, blue-eyed son and his similarly endowed wife are in the process of pursuing a Vietnamese adoption, so the title of this book attracted my attention immediately. I was quite disappointed in it, however, because it's entirely too specific in listing the ways in which parent and child who do not look alike are still similar. I was especially put off by the religious portion...my son and his wife are not religious, nor are we, but the book assumes that the parent adopting the child is and will pass on that tradition. The book is useless for us and will be passed on to the library sale. The other book I purchased, "The Red Blanket", is vastly superior, both in text and illustration.

Editorial Review:

Family connections are vitally important to children as they begin to find their place in the world. For transracial and transcultural adoptees, domestic adoptees, and for children in foster care or kinship placements, celebrating the differences within their families as well as the similarities that connect them, is the foundation for belonging. As parents or caregivers, we can strengthen our children’s tie to family and embrace the differences that make them unique. Each child will have their own story and their own special place to belong.

This beautifully illustrated and uplifting book, for the 2-5 set, will help to create the intimate parent/caregiver and child bond that is so important. While others may notice the physical differences between us on the outside, inside we are the same.

Sheetzucacapoopoo: My Kind of Dog

Joy Behar

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not what I expected 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I bought this because I love Joy Behar and I like the idea that it was benefiting a good cause, but my five year old did not enjoy it - I found it to be a tongue-in-cheek adult version of a child's book. The name itself has three different ways to say a four letter word begining with "s" and ending in "t!" That's why it's funny! But it's just not funny to a five year old like I thought it might be. Buy it for the good cause, but not because you think a five year old will giggle through it.

Editorial Review:

Comedian and talk-show host Joy Behar has teamed up with illustrator Gene Barretta to create a feisty, lovable character in this cheerful, funny picture book. When Max the mixed-breed meets a pack of snobby purebred dogs in the dog run, he can’t understand why they don’t want to play with him and his mongrel friends. Determined to get everyone to play together, brainy Max—who is part poodle, after all—comes up with a way to break the ice between the mixed-breeds and the purebreds. America’s current obsession with designer dogs makes this book as timely as it is lively.

Feathers

Jacqueline Woodson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Beautiful story 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I finished this yesterday morning--about 36 hours ago--and I've been thinking about it off and on since then. That's rare for me. Usually, I finish one book, then move right on to the next. But this beautiful novel stuck with me.

Frannie is a girl who's lost hope--she lives on the poor side of the highway, she's seen her mama suffer through miscarriages and now she's pregnant again, and she sees the way girls treat her brother when they find out he's deaf. Frannie's teacher reads an Emily Dickinson poem that starts "Hope is the thing with feathers..." to her class, which gets Frannie thinking about hope. Then a boy who looks like Jesus shows up as the new kid at school, and Frannie is forced to grapple with her own understanding of hope, faith, and religion. One of my favorite aspects of the story is how Frannie explores the idea of spirituality versus religion.

This would be a great book to read with your child because of all the interesting conversations you could have about the characters and what they go through.

Editorial Review:

“Hope is the thing with feathers” starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn’t thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more “holy.” There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he’s not white. Who is he?

During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light—her brother Sean’s deafness, her mother’s fear, the class bully’s anger, her best friend’s faith and her own desire for “the thing with feathers.”

Jacqueline Woodson once again takes readers on a journey into a young girl’s heart and reveals the pain and the joy of learning to look beneath the surface.

Molly's Pilgrim

Barbara Cohen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Molly is the Best 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Molly's Pilgrim is the best book! Molly is a little Jewish girl from Russia. She doesn't like to go to school because the girls are teasing her. There are no other Jewish girls at Winter Hill and they think she looks and talks different. She wishes she could go back to Russia or even New York City. Molly had an assignment to make a clothespin Pilgrim doll. Her mom made it to look like herself-because mama sees herself as a Pilgrim from Russia. Molly thinks the doll is beautiful but is also ashamed of the doll because she doesn't think it is a real Pilgrim. She brings it to school and hides it in her desk. When Elizabeth and her friends see it, they make fun of it. Molly explains to Miss Stickly that her mother made the doll to look like her because she came from Russia for freedom just like the Pilgrims. Miss Stickly praises it and puts it in a special place on her desk. This makes Molly proud. We loved this book!!
By Mrs. Lee's 1st and 2nd Grade Red Group at Nike Elementary!

Editorial Review:

Sparkling new illustrations refresh this Thanksgiving classic based on the true experience of a member of Barbara Cohen's family. The touching story tells how recent immigrant Molly leads her third-grade class to discover that it takes all kinds of pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving. Originally published in 1983, Molly's Pilgrim inspired the 1986 Academy Award winning live-action short film.

Copper Sun

Sharon M. Draper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

One of the BEST Books I've EVER Read...and I'm an English Teacher 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Hello Everyone...I am an 8th grade English teacher and I just finished reading Sharon Draper's "Copper Sun." I almost don't have words to describe how amazing it was. If you are a teacher, you will accrue many cool points from your students if you read this book with them. It is action packed, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Please read this whether you have children/students or not! It has completely enriched my life, and made me even more proud of the African American race's diligence, determination, and strength.

Editorial Review:

Stolen from her village, sold to the highest bidder,
fifteen-year-old Amari has only one thing left of her own -- hope.

Amari's life was once perfect. Engaged to the handsomest man in her tribe, adored by her family, and living in a beautiful village, she could not have imagined everything could be taken away from her in an instant. But when slave traders invade her village and brutally murder her entire family, Amari finds herself dragged away to a slave ship headed to the Carolinas, where she is bought by a plantation owner and given to his son as a birthday present.

Survival seems all that Amari can hope for. But then an act of unimaginable cruelty provides her with an opportunity to escape, and with an indentured servant named Polly she flees to Fort Mose, Florida, in search of sanctuary at the Spanish colony. Can the illusive dream of freedom sustain Amari and Polly on their arduous journey, fraught with hardship and danger?

Number the Stars

Lois Lowry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 710 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Holocaust tale appropriate for younger readers 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

10-year-old Annemarie Johannesen narrates this story (based on real events) set in Denmark during WWII. The Danish resistance arranged to transport many Jews to safety in Sweden after they found out that Jews were being sent to concentration camps by the Nazis.

Annemarie is not Jewish, but her best friend, Ellen, is. Annemarie's family helps smuggle Ellen and her parents, along with several other Jewish families, out of the country. Lowry manages to give the reader a sense of the horror of the Holocaust without going into graphic detail.

Editorial Review:

The evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark is one of the great untold stories of World War II. On September 29, 1943, word got out in Denmark that Jews were to be detained and then sent to the death camps. Within hours the Danish resistance, population and police arranged a small flotilla to herd 7,000 Jews to Sweden. Lois Lowry fictionalizes a true-story account to bring this courageous tale to life. She brings the experience to life through the eyes of 10-year-old Annemarie Johannesen, whose family harbors her best friend, Ellen Rosen, on the eve of the round-up and helps smuggles Ellen's family out of the country. Number the Stars won the 1990 Newbery Medal.

Trouble

Gary D. Schmidt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Richie's Picks: TROUBLE 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

" 'It smells like you have a dog in here,' he said. 'A wet dog.' His voice was tight.
"It did not seem useful to Henry to lie about this.
"Especially since the dog came around the corner of the island and sat down, her head cocked off to the side so that the ear with the large missing piece stuck out.
"Now Henry's father's face grew tight, too.
" 'Get the dog out of here.' he said.
" 'I just saved her from drowning in the cove.'
" 'That was a mistake. You don't go looking for Trouble, Henry...Get away.'
"The last part was directed not at Henry but at the dog, who had come to sniff Henry's father to see if he might be at all interesting.
" 'Get away,' he said again. 'Black dog, get away.'
"The dog lifted up a paw.
"And Henry's father kicked her about as hard as a slippered foot can kick. Enough to skid her across the quarried stone floor.
"She did not cry out. When she stopped skidding, she turned on her back, put her feet up in the air, and showed her belly.
" 'Why did you ever bring that dog in here?' said Henry's father. 'Look at her. Who would want a black dog like that? Lying there, all beat up. Bleeding. Pieces of her missing.' He stopped. He leaned against the kitchen island and put his hands across his eyes. 'Pieces of her missing,' he said again. His body trembled, slowly, and then a little bit more, and a little more, like a building that is beginning to feel the earthquake starting under its foundations.
"Then his mouth opened, and though no sound came out, his silent howls filled the kitchen.
"Henry held his father. Tight. Very tight. He felt the black dog come back to them. He felt his father reach down to scratch behind her chipped ear. He saw the dog roll her face with pleasure against his father's untied robe -- and hoped that his father would not see the pus and blood that she left there.
"They stood, the three of them, together in the kitchen, and two things happened.
"First, Black Dog had a home and a name.
"Second, the telephone rang. It was the hospital."

Set in the 1980s, TROUBLE is the story of Henry Smith, a middle school student growing up on the northern coast of Massachusetts in a large house which has been inhabited by his ancestors for 300 years. Henry's older brother, Franklin, and his sister, Louisa, both attend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Preparatory High School in Blythbury-by-the-Sea, the town that has grown up around their ancestral home. Big brother Franklin is the golden boy, popular and athletic, who can do no wrong -- or at least that is how it seems at first glance.

As he did with THE WEDNESDAY WARS, my favorite children's book of 2007, Gary Schmidt creates an extraordinary work of historical fiction that melds zany humor with unfathomable, brutal history with the intricacies of growing up in a family. As with THE WEDNESDAY WARS, he incorporates classical literature. (In THE WEDNESDAY WARS Holling Hoodhood was dealing with Shakespeare; here Henry is wrestling with Chaucer.) Furthermore, in both books there are adult characters who epitomize prejudice and stupidity in the world. The character in THE WEDNESDAY WARS whom I most hated was Micky Mantle. Here, in TROUBLE, it is Dr. Sheringham, principal of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Prep.

Trouble comes when Franklin is out running one evening and he is struck by a vehicle, causing his loss of an arm and critical brain damage, and requiring that he be maintained in a comatose state. The driver of the vehicle is arrested. We know little about that driver until a pretrial hearing lays out an apparent mystery to be unraveled.

The driver of the vehicle is Chay Chouan. Chay and his parents are survivors of the Cambodian massacres that took place under the Khmer Rouge; Chay has experienced his sister being shot in front of him and his brother being taken by force. Having barely survived, and having made their way out of Cambodia to the United States, Chay's family has settled into Merton, a formerly-abandoned mill town that has been revitalized by an influx of Cambodian refugees. Chay's parents, who have founded a family masonry and stonework business, want the best for Chay. And so it is -- we learn during the pretrial hearing -- that Chay's parents had gotten him enrolled at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Preparatory High School in Blythbury-by-the-Sea, where Chay has been repeatedly beat up and had his property destroyed by a group of students led by golden boy Franklin Smith.

And -- if we hadn't previously gotten the drift -- it becomes abundantly clear that Chay and Louisa (Henry and Franklin's sister) have been spending time together and are in love. One might well conclude that knowledge of this relationship has contributed to Franklin's neanderthal behavior.

It is during the pretrial hearing, when all of this is revealed, that Dr. Sheringham's testimony also makes it crystal clear that the administration has fully sanctioned the abuse meted out upon Chay by Franklin and his cronies.

And so readers are provided this information, along with the fact that Chay claims to have fallen asleep behind the wheel, and that he bandaged Franklin's arm with his shirt before racing off to get medical assistance. (Remember, this is the 1980s. There are no cell phones for calling 911.)

The question is, with knowing the way that Franklin and his henchmen have savagely beaten and abused Chay, might Chay have purposely or unconsciously struck Franklin?

And how might you feel if you'd had a life like Chay's and found yourself behind the wheel in such circumstances?

"In the dark, in the light, always imagining her face, remembering her face in the moments before the accident. Her laugh. Her easy wave. How her wave had been the first thing about her that told him all he needed to know.
"How had his father guessed? 'Remember you were Cambodian before you were American.' And so he had taken his dog to teach him what he had to learn. He beat her. He made him watch. He starved her. He made him watch. 'Learn how to be strong,' he said. Then he took her away. 'She is drowned,' he said when he returned. 'Learn to be cold inside.'
"But this is not what he learned.
"He had not realized how much he had missed her face."

Adding TROUBLE to WEDNESDAY WARS and the Prinz Honor and Newbery Honor book LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY makes for quite an amazing trifecta for Gary Schmidt.

Editorial Review:

"Henry Smith's father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you."

But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry's older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin's preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry's family has lived for generations.
Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents' knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.

Stumptown Kid

Carol Gorman, Ron J. Findley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This dramatic and moving story set in the days of the Negro Leagues illustrates the true meanings of friendship, prejudice, and heroism.

Charlie Nebraska wants two things he can't get: to make the local Wildcats baseball team and to have life to return to the way it was before his father died two years earlier in the Korean War. Then Charlie meets Luther Peale, a former Negro Baseball League player who agrees to coach Charlie's fledgling neighborhood baseball team for a game against the Wildcats.

But many of Charlie's white neighbors are suspicious of Luther, and when Charlie inadvertently reveals a secret of Luther's, violence erupts in the town and both Luther and Charlie are drawn into serious danger.
Praise for STUMPTOWN KID:

"Readers will enjoy this winning mix of sports, suspense, and heroism, and delight in the baseball wit and wisdom." --School Library Journal
- Honorable mention, 2005 Gustavus Myers Award
- 2006 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People
- 2005-6 Pennsylvania Young Adult Top Forty List
- Kansas State Reading Circle 2005 Recommended Reading List