The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg

The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg

Clarion Books

2011

250p.



A novel based on the true story of seventeen-year-old
Clara Estby's walk across America with her mother Helga in 1896, to win
a ten thousand dollar prize and save their home from foreclosure.

Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Little, Brown

2011

278p.

In 1936, three children meet at the Mercy Home for Negro Orphans in
New York State, and while not all three are orphans, they are all
dealing with grief and loss which together, along with the help of a sympathetic staff member and the boxing matches of Joe Louis, they manage to overcome. Includes author's notes.

Ten Miles Past Normal by Francis O'Roark Dowell

Ten Miles Past Normal by Francis O'Roark Dowell

Atheneum Books For Young Readers

2011

211p.

Because living with "modern-hippy" parents on a goat farm means fourteen-year-old Janie Gorman cannot have a normal high school life, she tries joining Jam Band, making friends with Monster, and spending time with elderly former civil rights workers.

Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry

Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

2011

151p.

Mouse Mistress Hildegarde musters all her ingenuity to keep a large colony of church mice safe from the exterminator and to see that they make it through the dangerous Blessing of the Animals.

Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge

Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge

Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

2011

229p.



In the summer
of 1980 before she starts junior high school in Santa Rosa, California,
Tracy, who was adopted from Vietnam when she was six years old, finds
an old ammo box with a dog tag and picture that bring up painful memories for both her Vietnam-veteran father and her.

Hurricane Dancers by Margarita Engle

Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle

Henry Holt

2011

145p.



Quebrado has been a slave on captain Bernadino de Talavera's pirate ship for years, but when a hurricane sinks the ship and kills most of the crew, Quebrado escapes to safety and finds acceptance and refuge in a nearby village.

The Friendship Doll by Kirby Larson

The Friendship Doll by Kirby Larson

Delacorte Press

2011

176p.

Throughout the twentieth century, Miss Kanagawa, one of fifty-eight
dolls made to serve as ambassadors from Japan to the United States,
travels the country learning to love while changing the lives of those
who need her.