#25--The Captive by Joyce Hansen

Kofi is the beloved son of an Ashanti chief who has been betrayed by a beloved family slave, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Massachusetts, post American Revolution--when slavery was illegal, but often tolerated.  Kofi does not understand what is happening.  All he wants is to get back to his family and village. He even tries to convince his captors that if they return him they will be richly rewarded.  Which, of course, they all laugh at and continue in their nefarious ways.

On the route to America, he befriends two other young boys on the ship: one, Tim, is a white indentured servant, and the other, Joseph, a black orphan who was born on the ship.  These three boys become inseparable and are eventually purchased together by a Puritan man and his wife.  While slavery is illegal in Massachusetts, white indentured servitude is not.  The man is not kind to any of the help on the farm, but especially not to the three boys.  The mistress gives all three boys lessons and Kofi especially eats it up.  Kofi eventually tries to explain to the mistress, thinking she is his friend, that he wants to go back to Africa to his family and village.  She is horrified and from then on holds him at a distance, demanding that the three boys pray for their salvation--even though there is never any explanation to the boys why they go to a long building once a week or the purpose behind the kneeling every night while the master drones one.

Kofi and his two friends eventually escape and end up on a boat belonging to Paul Cuffe, who happened to be a free black and the captain of the ship, as well as a Quaker.  The boys are taken to jail because though the master claims he has paid good money for Tim's contract, the boys claim ill-treatment and that Kofi is a kidnapped African and Joseph is an illegal slave.  In order to sort everything out, there is a trial.  Paul Cuffe has promised to take the boys under his wing and make them his apprentices in ship-building.  The boys are eventually awarded their freedom and go to live with Cuffe and his family.

In the epilogue, Kofi is an adult, married, and working tirelessly with Joseph and other Quakers to end slavery and to make life better for blacks in America.

This book is based on a journal from the late 1700s.  I was able to find out a little more information about Paul Cuffe but Kofi is a creation of the author's imagination, based on the journal.

This was a quick, easy read that I will recommend to students interested in this time period, or to teachers working on a history of slavery lesson/unit.

Happy Reading!!

#24--My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen is a favorite with my students, especially my boys.  I remember reading Hatchet at some point in elementary or junior high and loving the adventure of it all.  As an adult I enjoy finding out about the author's themselves and if they have had personal experiences that have influenced their writing.  In reading My Life in Dog Years I discovered that Gary Paulsen has lived a very adventurous life, including running the Idiotarod a number of times.

My Life in Dog Years is autobiographical in that it recalls nine different dogs out of hundreds Paulsen has owned over the course of his life....from Snowball, his first ever puppy while the family was stationed in the Philippines to Josh, the trusty and brilliant border collie that was Paulsen's current dog at the time of publication in 1998.  There were stories that made me giggle as well as stories that made me sniffle.  This was a quick and easy read and I know it is a book that my students and dog lovers of all ages would enjoy.

Happy Reading!!

#23--Wolf by the Ears by Ann Rinaldi

Over the years I have found Ann Rinaldi's books to be good historical reads about events or people that you don't always hear much about.  In the case of this title, the main character is Harriet Hemings, daughter of slave Sally Hemings and probably Thomas Jefferson.  In the book, Harriet and her siblings have all been raised as slaves but with light work loads.  They have also been educated and told that when they reach the age of 21 they would have their freedom.  Harriet is approaching her 21st birthday but is unsure if she wants to take her freedom.  She tells her brother Beverly that she loves the master (Jefferson) and doesn't want to leave him or Monticello.  Beverly finally convinces her by telling Harriet that Jefferson lists them, their two younger brothers and their mother in farm journals as just any other slave would be listed....that there is no written record anywhere in the house of what Sally was to Master Jefferson.  Harriet has help in planing her leaving from Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., Jefferson's son-in-law and the governor of Virginia at the time.  Randolph makes sure that Harriet has any and all training and education necessary for Harriet to pass--to live as a white woman.

Much of what I've read in Ann Rinaldi's books appears to be very close to factual.  In this case, Harriet was not freed in real life, but Jefferson never reported her as a runaway and never tried to coerce her into coming back to Monticello.  Reading something like this always makes me want to find out more about the people in the story and what happened to them in real life.

Happy Reading!!

#22--Reservations for Two by Anne Patrick

I was looking for a shorter read on my kindle and this happened to be on the first page and the shortest of the options listed.  This was a quick, easy read.  It was also your typical Christian romance, with the exception of the ages of the protagonists.  In my experience, typical Christian romances place the main characters in their twenties or thirties, and every once in a while you may have a character or two who have slipped into their forties.  In this case, the two protagonists were both retirees who had lost their spouses within the last 3-5 years.

62-year-old Maggie lost her husband of 39 years three years ago and she has traveled to New Mexico, where she and Joe took their honeymoon, to get some closure, as well as some good hiking in.  65-year-old retired judge Carson lost his wife to cancer five years ago and since his only daughter isn't speaking to him, he decided to finally take the trip across the country that he and Emily had always talked about taking.  Maggie and Carson cross paths when she falls while roller-blading and he helps her up.  The owners of the B and B where Maggie is staying encourage the romance, on both sides.  Things move rather quickly and eventually Maggie and Carson set out for her daughter's home in Texas for her grandson's birthday in Carson's RV.  Maggie's daughter is none too happy about this situation, while everyone else (her older brother included) are happy for Maggie.

Like most Christian romances, this one has a happy ending and all the loose ends are tied up by the end.  A year from now I probably won't remember it, but it is a light read, if that is what you're looking for.

Happy Reading!!

#21--Whatever Happened to Janie? by Caroline B. Cooney

So, back in probably middle school or early high school I read the first book in this series The Face on the Milk Carton.....and I probably read it several times.  My students love it too and so I thought it was high time I finally continued on in the series.

In the first book, Janie Johnson picks up her best friend's milk carton at lunch for a swig after eating her sandwich.  This was back when milk cartons had pictures of missing children on them (all you children of the 80's know what I'm talking about).  Janie sees a picture of a 3-year-old girl on the carton, and she immediately thinks it is her.  But there is no reason why it would be her.  She has two doting parents who love her.  She can't be the girl, Jennie Spring, on the milk carton.  Janie obsesses over this picture, to the point that she actually writes a letter to the family--simply to let them know she is ok.  She never means to send this letter; however, it falls out of her binder and someone finds it and mails it to her.  It turns out that Janie really is Jennie and she was taken from a mall in New Jersey when she was three by a woman named Hannah Javensen, the Johnson's estranged daughter who had joined a cult many years before.  Hannah had brought Janie/Jennie to her parents, telling them that the little girl was her daughter.  Her parents had no reason to not believe her.  However, because they were afraid that the cult would track them down and try to take Janie from them, they changed their last name and moved.  The first book ends with both sets of parents meeting, at an impasse....trying to figure out what to do.

The second book picks up with Janie getting ready to leave the parents who raised her in order to get to know her biological family--two parents, three brothers, and one sister.  Nothing goes smoothly.  Jodie, Jennie's slightly older sister, had visions of nightly slumber parties with her newly found sister, her biological parents keep thinking that they can wipe away the past 13 years, and her oldest brother, Stephen is angry at the world, but mostly at Jennie for all the stress and pain her disappearance has cause both him and the family....and the younger twins, well, they are so wrapped up in each other that they don't seem to register the latest addition to the family.  Every once in a while there is a bright spot where Janie forgets that she isn't supposed to be happy with these strangers, but eventually, she demands that she be allowed to go back to her parents, the ones who raised her.

There are three more books in this series, with the last one having been published just this year.  So, I think I need to find out the rest of Janie/Jennie's story before another 20 years goes by!

Happy Reading!!

#20--Soldier X by Don Wulffson

Have I ever told you that I love historical fiction?

Not only to I love the stories that are expected from history, but I love those unexpected gems that pop up every once in awhile (Code Name Verity and Between Shades of Gray, to name a few).

Soldier X has been in my book talk rotation for several years now, but I have never had the chance to read it--since it is usually off the shelf and I have yet to have a student come to me after reading this book and tell me they didn't like it.  So, I decided that I needed to read it this summer....and it just so happens that I had a copy of this book in my "books removed from the library, but I still want to read" pile (it was in ratty condition and unable to be repaired anymore, so I had taken it out of the collection), so I grabbed it for part of my vacation reading.

The book opens with an old man, Professor Erik Brandt, explaining that his student had often asked him about his prosthesis and other injuries...to which he replied that he received the injuries while fighting in World War II in the woods in Russia....but he never tells his students that he was fighting for the Germans.

Erik is 16 and a member of Hitler Youth when he is sent to the Eastern front in 1944.  Growing up in a bilingual household of German and Russian, the Germans plan to use his skills to help interrogate Russian prisoners.  (Erik's deceased father was German and his mother and maternal grandparents, who helped raise him, are Russian.)  During his first days of battle, most of his friends and platoon are decimated.  He is stuck in a trench, behind enemy lines, with a dead Russian soldier about his age.  In a split-second decision, Erik decides that his only chance at survival is to exchange clothing with the dead Russian and try to pass as a member of Russia's army.  Because of injuries sustained during the battle, Erik is taken to a Russian hospital, where he is thought to be a Russian soldier with amnesia and is given the name X.  At the hospital he falls in love with a young Russian nurse named Tamara.

Not only is X able to pass as a Russian soldier, he is able to make friends on this side of the war as well.

In some ways this book reminded me of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front due to its easy ability to wipe away the romance of war and to simply demonstrate the vast evil of it.  This book would be a great way to introduce students to a different viewpoint of the war, as well as be a great discussion starter for loyalty and the justness of war.

I will definitely be keeping this one in my book talk rotation and use it to try to spark my reluctant readers!

Happy Reading!!

#19--Tilly by Frank E. Peretti

I have yet to find a Frank Peretti book that I didn't like.  My fiance handed me this one several months ago to read, but I finally grabbed it for vacation--and it was the first thing I read after leaving the house!  This is a quick and easy read, while also being something of a tear-jerk-er at times.

The book opens with Dan and Kathy attending the funeral for a man they didn't know well as the only mourners other than the pastor.  After the graveside service, they are walking through the cemetery and they come upon a woman mourning at a headstone that simply reads "Tilly" with one date on it.  Despite Dan's warnings, Kathy approaches the woman and tries to comfort her and at the same time, find out who Tilly was.  The woman flees in fear.  For about a week afterward, Kathy is unable to function and spends most of her time in the bedroom, trying to figure out what happened, as well as how to talk to Dan about it, and other things on her mind.  At the end of the week, Kathy is sleeping and when she wakes up there are hundreds of children in her yard....children she doesn't recognize....making noise that she doesn't appreciate because she is trying to sleep.  She shoos most of them away, with the exception of one small girl.  This small girl asks to eat lunch with Kathy in her house.  Once Kathy hears her name, Tilly, she acquiesces.  As Kathy and Tilly spend time getting to know one another, Dan is on a mission of his own--to find out who the woman was and who Tilly is.

Both Kathy and Dan are able to get the answers to their questions and are also able to lay aside the guilt that had plagued them for a number of years for something they did.  In an effort to not completely spoil the ending, I won't say anymore, other than...this book is an example of forgiveness....forgiveness that we must give one another, the forgiveness that comes from God, and accepting that forgiveness once it is meted out.

Happy Reading!!

#18--The Cookcamp by Gary Paulsen

This was another one of the titles I grabbed for vacation from the "books removed from the library, but I still want to read" pile.  This story is about a little boy with no name who sent to the wilderness of Canada to live with his grandmother during World War II while his mother works in a factory and his father is off to war.  The little boy befriends the men who are building the road into the wilderness and his grandmother is their cook.  The little boy is happy here, but he misses his mother.  Eventually he goes back to his mother and doesn't see his grandmother again for many years.

This was a quick, easy read.  I like Paulsen's work, however, I have trouble connecting to characters who have no name, like the protagonist in this story.  I would say that this story is more geared for an elementary reader than for a middle school reader, but a middle school student could still get something from it.

Not my favorite of Paulsen's works, but still pretty solid.

Happy Reading!!

#17--Around the World by Matt Phelan

Each year I have been a librarian I have had the pleasure and privilege to attend the annual PSLA (Pennsylvania School Librarian Association) conference in the spring.  This year was no different.  Each year there is both an author and an illustrator featured during the conference.  This year's illustrator was Matt Phelan, who has written and illustrated several graphic novels/nonfiction works.  I purchased two of them, with Around the World being one of them.

Around the World follows three real-life adventurers on their trips around the world.  Before reading this book I was only familiar with Nellie Bly, who is most famous for her stunt journalism (including her trip around the world in an attempt to beat Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg and an expose she wrote after she faked insanity and was placed in a mental institution so she could write about the abuses happening from within).

The second adventurer (he appears first in the book) is Thomas Stevens.  Stevens is a miner, but he does not enjoy his work.  As the bicycle is first introduced to American culture (a new-fangled contraption that many did not believe would last), Stevens quits his job and decides to ride his bicycle around the world.  In an effort to have a sponsor pay for his trip, he offers to chronicle his adventures.  (He eventually does do this, but he does not get sponsorship right away.)

The third, and final, adventurer is Joshua Slocum, a retired sea captain who fixes up a dilapidated little boat to sail around the world in.  It takes him several years to do this.  Once he has completed his adventure he eventually climbs back into his boat and sails off, never to be heard from again.

All three of these individuals, Bly, Stevens, and Slocum, wrote accounts of their adventures that were published.  It was these accounts that inspired the author to create this work.  Phelan's illustrations are of water colors that tend to be washed-out...despite this, they are expressive and beautiful in their own right.  I am looking forward to reading my second purchase of Phelan's Storm in the Barn, as well as his newest release coming out later this month, Bluffton: My Summer With Buster Keaton.  

Despite the fact that the book comes in at 240 pages, I was able to finish it in about a half an hour.  So, it is a quick and easy read.

Happy Reading!!

#16--A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

It is an established fact that I love history.  I am also fascinated by events in history where something went wrong and how people handled it.  Case in point, the Holocaust....so many wrongs and yet there were people who tried everything to make it as right as they could, in their limited capacity.  Other events, like disasters--the sinking of the Titanic and the Hindenberg disaster--are also fascinating to me for similar reasons.

Several years ago, while conducting a weed (to remove unused/out-dated materials from the collection) of the library, I came across a dilapidated copy of this title.  Because of its condition and age, it was removed from the collection.  (It was first published in 1955, so the author had had the good fortune to be able to interview survivors of the Titanic sinking.)  Because of my interest, I took the deleted copy home with me, in the hopes of reading it someday.  That someday finally has come.  I was recently on vacation and grabbed several weeded books to take with me (these are books that I don't worry about losing or misplacing--which makes them perfect for vacation).

The author thoroughly did his research and has recreated the events of that fateful night with as much accuracy as is possible.  While reading, I felt like I was with the people, experiencing the events right along with them.  Everyone knows how this one ends....the boat sinks, with hundreds of people on board.  However, the descriptions of the acts of heroism and courage (and stupidity/cowardliness) make the story come alive for the reader.

In the back of the book there are lists of each of the classes (first, second, and third/steerage) and who the survivors were.  The index also includes each person who is named, so you can find out more info about them.  The end-papers included a diagram of the boat itself and indicated on the boat the timeline of what happened, where, and when.

So much could have been different about this tragedy if little things had been done differently.  However, hindsight is usually 20/20.  And in the end, so much has been changed for the better because of this event: life boats are required for the capacity of the ship (as well as life-boat drills for the crew and passengers), 24-hour radio watch and distress rockets, the creation of an International Ice Patrol, and changes to how ships are designed.

Since we still have a copy of this title on the shelves at my school, I think I'm going to add it to my non-fiction book talk rotation this coming year, since I always have a few students who are fascinated by the Titanic.

Happy Reading!!