23:100 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Owning their own land has always been important to Cassie's family ever since her grandparents were able to purchase some.  Cassie knew how hard her father worked to make sure they kept it but she didn't truly understand it until this year.  For the time when she accompanied her grandmother to town and was pushed and embarrassed but made to apologize to a white girl for the incident. For the black families who were set on fire by the night riders. For the black families who reside on white land and know they can lose it at any time for any reason.

Cassie now understands why having their own land is so important.

Read and studied with my 7th grader.  Again, I feel books like this are good to help point out that these are the experiences of others in America, the experiences that are all too often barely mentioned, if at all, in the history books. 


Page count: 276p/5,832p ytd/317,037p lifetime

8:100 Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli

Jeffery 'Maniac' McGee probably would have had a nice normal life if an accident hadn't killed both his parents and left him an orphan.  He was then raised for several years by an aunt and uncle who hated each other and divided everything in the house, even him, as much as they were able.  One day it all became too much for him and he ran and ran and ran away.  When he finally stopped running, he was in a town which was very racially divided and he's white boy butt was on the wrong side.  But Maniac didn't care.  He found a family that was happy to take him in and for the first time in a long time, he had adults who cared about him and even siblings to play with.  But then trouble started and he ran again. And again. And again.  Every time trouble would start, he would run but he kept running to different parts of the same town.  Something there made him want to stay and eventually, he even found a way to have a home with the family he wanted to be with and who wanted him to be with them.

A sweet tale about someone who found a unique way of dealing with racism and the lemons that life gave him but I'm not sure that teaching kids to just keep running is the greatest thing.



Page count: 192p/2,117p ytd/313,022p lifetime

82:100 Holes by Louis Sachar

Review from 2013:

Stanley Yelnats's family has always been unlucky because of a curse placed on them by Madame Zeroni generations back. Now the curse has struck him as he was arrested after some shoes fell out of the sky and landed on his head as he was walking home from school and it just so happens that they were the shoes of a famous baseball player who had donated them to a charity auction. Now Stanley is sentenced to Camp Green Lake where all the kids are forced to dig huge holes every day since "it's good for their character". Obviously the warden is looking for something but no one has any idea what. While at the camp, Stanley meets Zero and they start to become friends but Zero may just hold the key to removing the curse from Stanley's family.

A cute book and I love the weaving of all the different parts of the tale and then how it all comes together neatly at the end.



Page count: 233p/14,801p ytd/306,584p lifetime

74:120 Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Salamanca Tree Hiddle does not understand why her mother left her and her dad, only that something has happened and she isn't coming back and now her father has moved them away from the farm and the only life she has ever known and that she loves to the suburbs where her entire life has been turned upside down.  The first person her dad introduces her to is Mrs. Cadaver who Sal finds strange and does not understand why her dad wants to spend so much time with her. Then she meets Phoebe who lives on her block and is in her classes at the new school.  Phoebe's family seems like the perfect middle class family...until her mom disappears one day. It brings everything Sal has gone through flooding back.  Now she is on a roadtrip with her grandparents, following the path her mother took to Idaho and with so many miles ahead of them, she starts telling them Phoebe's story not realizing that she is telling her own story at the same time.

A poignant story about a girl trying to come to term's with the loss of her mother and upheaval of her entire life.  There is love and loss, friendship and family, basically life.  One of my older kids had read it years ago so it was hanging around and I've been trying to read new authors so figured I'd give it a try.  It was ok. The plot and writing were simple and straightforward with no major surprises.


Page count: 280p/14,871p ytd/286,003p lifetime

32:120 Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

The Aleuts came to the island and killed the chief, Karana's father, when he demanded the payment they promised him for hunting the otters. When the rest of the tribe attacked, almost all of the hunters were also killed so the oldest among them was chosen to lead them and so he went to seek help and brought back a ship to take their crippled tribe to a new home but Karana's brother went back and was left so she dove overboard in order to be with him thinking the ship would return shortly for them.

It didn't.

Now she must figure out how to survive on her own, especially with the wild dogs on the island after they kill her brother.  There are many dangers to prepare for including the return of the Aleuts and always watching for the return of the promised ship to take her away.

Based on a true story of a woman found on this island but who spoke a language no one else could understand, Scott O'Dell recreated one possible story of her life.  It was a lovely tale, with evocative imagery and beautiful language.


Page count: 177p/5,478p ytd/279,953p lifetime

5:120 Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

1936, Flint, Michigan.

Bud, not Buddy, has been at the Home (orphanage) for about 4 years, ever since his mother died.  He has never known his father but in his suitcase that contains all his belongings there are fliers for Herman E. Calloway & the Dusky Devastators of the Depression.  When he is sent to a new foster home where the abuse starts immediately, he runs away and comes to the conclusion that Herman E. Calloway must be his father so he will find him.  Bud ends up in a Hooverville at one point and then gets lucky when Lefty Lewis picks him up on his way to Flint.  Lefty knows Herman and gets Bud there in a much easier way than it would have been for him to walk.  Herman is not at all the person Bud was imagining but life has more unexpected surprises in store for the young man.

I read this as part of a literature unit with my 5th grader having never read it before.  I found the story engaging and touching and my son read ahead constantly.  While the story itself is not a true story, many of the scenes and people were based on people in the author's life and the stories he heard growing up and this helps give it a ring of truth.

Page count: 243p ytd/1,220p/276,695p lifetime

104:120 The Giver by Lois Lowry

Jonas is about to turn 12yrs old and find out what career has been chosen to be his life's path.  In a village where everything is concerned with Sameness and society's rules are rigid to enforce this, it comes as a big surprise when Jonas is chosen to become the new Giver, the keeper of memories, for the village.  His instructions are very different than anything he has ever seen in that he is told he can ask any question of anyone and he is given permission to lie.  He doesn't know what to think!  But once his training starts, he starts learning just how much he doesn't know about so many things like love, family, pain, and death.  How can he continue to live in the village knowing what he does and how much everyone else doesn't?

I had heard so much about this book for so long and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.  Reading it as part of my 10yr old's literature studies was even better because we read it together (he loved it!) and were able to discuss it together.  I think it's an interesting study in that the village seems like a utopia at the beginning but as you learn more, you realize that it's more dystopian than utopian but since no one knows this it's quite the quandry.  They are happy as they are and don't know how bland their lives are and what they have given up to achieve this.  Only the Giver ever knows and he is only called upon for advise when something knew comes up...until Jonas comes along.


Page count: 179p/25,717p ytd/274,874p lifetime