Citations

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House,                 1970. Print.

Fleischman, Paul, and Judy Pedersen. Seedfolks. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Print.

 Gordon, Sheila. Waiting for Rain: a Novel of South Africa. New York: Orchard, 1987. Print.

Henkes, Kevin. Chrysanthemum. New York: Greenwillow, 1991. Print.

 Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust. New York: Scholastic, 1999. Print.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mocking Bird. London: Arrow, 1997. Print.

Lovell, Patty, and David Catrow. Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2001. Print.

  Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Print.

 Myers, Walter Dean. Harlem Summer. New York: Scholastic, 2007. Print. 

  Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic, 2000. Print.

  Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me. New York: Wendy Lamb, 2009. Print.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade. New York: Henry Holt and, 2006. Print.

Wong, Janet S., and Margaret Chodos-Irvine. Apple Pie 4th of July. San Diego: Harcourt, 2002. Print.

Wood, June Rae. The Man Who Loved Clowns. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1992. Print.

Woodson, Jacqueline, and Earl B. Lewis. The Other Side. New York: Putnam's, 2001. Print.

Out of the Dust - By Karen Hesse

Like the Oklahoma dust bowl from which she came, 14-year-old narrator Billie Jo writes in sparse, free-floating verse. In this compelling, immediate journal, Billie Jo reveals the grim domestic realities of living during the years of constant dust storms: That hopes--like the crops--blow away in the night like skittering tumbleweeds. That trucks, tractors, even Billie Jo's beloved piano, can suddenly be buried beneath drifts of dust. Perhaps swallowing all that grit is what gives Billie Jo--our strong, endearing, rough-cut heroine--the stoic courage to face the death of her mother after a hideous accident that also leaves her piano-playing hands in pain and permanently scarred.

Meanwhile, Billie Jo's silent, windblown father is literally decaying with grief and skin cancer before her very eyes. When she decides to flee the lingering ghosts and dust of her homestead and jump a train west, she discovers a simple but profound truth about herself and her plight. There are no tight, sentimental endings here--just a steady ember of hope that brightens Karen Hesse's exquisitely written and mournful tale. Hesse won the 1998 Newbery Award for this elegantly crafted, gut-wrenching novel. 

Summary and review provided by: Amazon.com- Gail Hudson

Out of the Dust, written by Karen Hesse. New York: Scholastic, 1999. 

This is a great book about overcoming inner and outward obstacles and finding inner strength. This would be a great time to talk about the dust bowl and what life was like in it. This is a great story about fitting in with family and finding your place. I think it could be a readers circle book or even an introduction to a history lesson. 


ISBN: 0613119533

Make Lemonade- by Virginia Euwer Wolff

This book is absolutely unforgettable. It's just a story about fourteen-year-old La Vaughn who takes on a babysitting job. She needs to work her way through school to save enough money to get through college. That's how it is in America. She means to study, to get a better job, to escape the poverty that she is growing up in.

She babysits for Jolly, a lone and inadequate, seventeen-year-old mother of two, Jeremy and Jilly. Now, the place where this little family live is absolutely disgusting. Like La Vaughn says, you really don't want to know this, but she tells you anyway. The children are filthy and deprived of all the good things in life. No decent food, no bus trips out anywhere, no learning at home, no stable basics at all. But, Jolly loves them fiercely.

Things go well enough at first. Jolly works an evening shift and La Vaughn babysits from the finish of school until late in the evening. La Vaughn works hard to look after the children and complete all her homework every night. And she takes pride in herself and her work because she's nicely brought up. She really does her best for Jeremy and Jilly. She spends time playing with them and teaching them and cleaning them and comes to love them. While Jolly is working she can afford to pay La Vaughn and La Vaughn's bank account, her own escape route, grows satisfactorily.

But Jolly gets the sack. Now Jolly and La Vaughn are friends and it is only at this point that La Vaughn really comprehends what a terrible trap Jolly is in. Jolly has no family to fall back on. She never went to school much, so she is almost totally illiterate. She cannot find another job, and if she does it most likely won't last very long. She fears to take the Welfare handouts in case she loses her children. La Vaughn continues to babysit for free while Jolly considers her non-existent options:

Me sitting the kids free is like Jolly gets Welfare right at home
from somebody almost a child herself, me.
And that's most definitely not right.
I should be paid for my services.
But then like it says Help Your Neighbor.
And like they say in Steam (Self-esteem) Class:
One good thing you do in a day for somebody else
don't cost you.
But then they go on about you have to find the good thing
that ain't the wrong good thing,
like for somebody going to abuse you,
or like you expect some big banquet of thanks for it
which you ain't going to get.
They make you give examples of both kinds.

So I end up not knowing
after I thought about it
no more than I did
in the first place.

La Vaughn persuades Jolly to go back to school. It is unbelievably moving. Read it for yourself and see.

Don't let the lay-out put you off. I must say, I groaned a bit myself when I saw it. It's just a narrative. La Vaughn tells us what happened in her own words. Each little incident is related in a separate little block or chapter. The lay-out actually makes it very quick and easy to read.

Quick and easy to read, but you won't shrug this book off quickly. There are some monumental ideas here about friendship and self-respect and pulling yourself up by your own bootlaces. Like La Vaughn and Jolly, I was thrilled by that story about making lemonade. What do you do if somebody hands you a lemon in life?

Excellent. Another one for the girls.

Review and Summary provided by: Reading Matters: Book Review - http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=50

Make Lemonade, written by Virginia Euwer Wolff. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Print. 

This story deals with a very tough subject: teen pregnancy. This is a great one for teachers because this is something that could possible happen in your classroom. This is great for students too because it helps them confront this issue. This is also useful because some students may have teen mom's as well. 


ISBN: 9781603708210

Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon- By Patty Lovell

Meet Molly Lou Melon: she's "just taller than her dog," with "buck teeth that stuck out so far, she could stack pennies on them," and a voice that brings to mind "a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor." She also possesses huge insect-like eyes. In fact, young readers may actually gasp when they get a good look at the fearless first-grader in Catrow's (She's Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head) double spread, extreme close-up portrait. Thanks to her grandmother, the protagonist possesses seemingly indomitable self-esteem but will it survive a move to a new school and a bully named Ronald Durkin? Newcomer Lovell doesn't offer any real surprises in her fable there's never any doubt that Molly Lou Melon will charm her classmates with her eccentric talents (which include making a paper snowflake the size of a school room), or that even Ronald Durkin will capitulate and join her fan club. What keeps the storytelling fresh is the crisp prose and the heroine's full-speed-ahead determination; the story never dallies too long on the potentially saccharine message. Catrow's full-bleed pencil-and-watercolor illustrations, awash in ripe colors and animated by slapstick exaggeration, radiate a winningly eccentric elegance.


Summary and Review provided by: Publishers Weekly-    Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon, Illustrated by David Catrow. New York: Putnam, 2001. Print. 


This is a wonderful story of being confident in who you are and what you look like. Its a great book to talk about what your classroom community should look like or should not look like. This would also be a great time to address bullying. Such a fun book, and hilarious illustrations. 


ISBN: 9780439120418

To Kill A Mocking Bird- By Harper Lee

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

Review provided by: http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-50th-Anniversary/dp/0061743526/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288557553&sr=1-1

To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee.  Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Company, 1960.

This is a great book for students to discuss the issues of racism. Its a great story that tells of the overcoming of racism and the friendships that came along with it. This book is banned in many schools, however, I feel like its a great read for middle aged students and is a classic among many audiences. 

Apple Pie 4th of July- Janet Wong

This simply told story explores a child's fears about cultural differences and fitting in with understanding and affection. A Chinese-American girl helps her parents open their small neighborhood grocery store every day of the year. However, today is the Fourth of July and her parents just don't understand that customers won't be ordering chow mein and sweet-and-sour pork on this very American holiday. As she spends the day working in the store and watching the local parade, she can't shake her anxiety about her parents' na‹vet‚. When evening arrives along with hungry customers looking "for some Chinese food to go," she is surprised but obviously proud that her parents were right after all: Americans do eat Chinese food on the Fourth of July. Nighttime finds the family atop their roof enjoying fireworks and sharing a neighbor's apple pie. Done in a "variety of printmaking techniques," Chodos-Irvine's illustrations are cheerfully bright and crisp, capturing the spirit of the day as well as the changing emotions of the main character. This second successful collaboration by the creators of Buzz (Harcourt, 2000) is one you won't want to miss.

-Alicia Eames, New York City Public Schools

Summary and Review provided by: School Library Journal - Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Apple Pie 4th Of July, illustrated by Margaret Chodos- Irvine. Sandpiper, 2006. Print.

This would be a great book to use in the classroom because it shows the insecurities of a child's heritage and how those preconcieved notions are proved wrong. This is a great lesson about being okay with who you are and where you come from. It also depicts an American tradition from a new perspective. 

Harlem Summer- By Walter Dean Myers

Sixteen-year-old musician Mark Purvis longs to break into the jazz scene of 1925 Harlem, but when he becomes embroiled in a bootlegging scheme with real-life jazzman Fats Waller, he has to find a way to pay off an angry mob boss for losing the liquor. Mark has a job at The Crisis, a magazine headed up by W. E. B. DuBois and published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As expected, his lovably carefree and occasionally clueless personality gets him into an insurmountable pile of trouble, yet it energizes both the plot and era with a contemporary vitality that today's hip-hop and pop-culture fans will appreciate. In this quickly paced and laugh-out-loud narrative, Myers brings Mark face-to-face with a dazzling host of Harlem Renaissance A-listers, including Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen. Their swift, red-carpetlike entrances and exits ignite the hot New York City summer setting with the electricity of creativity and reform. As the story progresses, Mark's awareness of his surroundings and contributions to the cause grow stronger and stronger, and no doubt that's exactly what Myers hopes his readers will realize for themselves as Mark's story unfolds.

—Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library

Summary and Review provided by: School Library Journal - Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

 
Harlem Summer, written by Walter Dean Myers. New York:Scholastic, 2007.Print. 


This is a great story about friendship across the racial divide. This is a great story about overcoming obstacles and pushing yourself. The book would be a good introduction to the NAACP and the history of the Harlem renaissance and what that looked like for people living in Harlem. This would be a good book to have a discussion about racial tensions and the history of Jazz and NAACP in Harlem. 

Waiting For Rain - By Sheila Gordon

This novel about life in South Africa is sure to give readers a better understanding of what lies behind the newspaper headlines and TV stories. Tengo is the 10-year-old son of workers on Oom Koos's large farm in the Transvaal. He longs to go to school like his friend Frikkie, who visits his uncle's farm on holidays. But Tengo's family is too poor to pay for the education that comes free to whites. He finally gets his wish at age 14. Tengo goes to live with his cousin in a squalid township outside Johannesburg and studies furiously. After three years, he is almost ready for college, but a year-long school boycott ruins his chances and he is drawn into the fight against apartheid. When he and Frikkie meet in a violent confrontation, Tengo realizes that he will carry on the struggle for freedom as a scholar, not a soldier. The writing here is powerful, evoking in minute detail daily life and the broad landscapes of the country. But the subtle implication throughout is that readers should resent and grow to hate the whites for not seeing what we can see through our "enlightened" eyes: the unfair ways that blacks are viewed and treated. The reader is sometimes too aware that Gordon has manipulated the plot to make her point. But the point is well made nonetheless; this is a persuasive statement about the ongoing tragedy of South Africa.


Summary and Review by: Publishers Weekly- Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc


Waiting For Rain, By Sheila Gordon. Laurel Leaf, 1996.


This would be a great book to bring to the classroom since it deals with multiculturalism through another country. So many books are focusing on the United States but sometimes we forget to consider what is going on in the worlds around us, or even this history of the world around us (if it does not involve us). This is a great story about relationships, bias', and understanding more than just propaganda. 

The Other Side - By Jacqueline Woodson

A story of friendship across a racial divide. Clover, the young African-American narrator, lives beside a fence that segregates her town. Her mother instructs her never to climb over to the other side because it isn't safe. But one summer morning, Clover notices a girl on the other side. Both children are curious about one another, and as the summer stretches on, Clover and Annie work up the nerve to introduce themselves. They dodge the injunction against crossing the fence by sitting on top of it together, and Clover pretends not to care when her friends react strangely at the sight of her sitting side by side with a white girl. Eventually, it's the fence that's out of place, not the friendship. Woodson's spare text is easy and unencumbered. In her deft care, a story that might have suffered from heavy-handed didacticism manages to plumb great depths with understated simplicity. In Lewis's accompanying watercolor illustrations, Clover and her friends pass their summer beneath a blinding sun that casts dark but shallow shadows. Text and art work together beautifully.

-Catherine T. Quattlebaum, DeKalb County Public Library, Atlanta, GA

Summary and Review provided by: School Library Journal- Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The Other Side, illustrated by E.B Lewis. Putnam, 2001. 

When we read this book in class, I loved it. It is a very tactful way of demonstrating race issues and viewing them in the eyes of a child. This is a great multicultural book to read to students of any age. This very simply put book looks at a very serious issue, and views it through young eyes and plainly puts how ridiculous it is. A fun read and a great discussion. 

Chrysanthemum- By Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes' title character is a cute little mouse with a very big name. Chrysanthemum loves her name, and can even spell it, but when she goes to school, she is mercilessly teased by a group of nasty little mouselets who use her name as an excuse to pick on her. Chrysanthemum goes home each night to her caring and concerned parents, who tell her she is winsome and winning, and although Chrysanthemum is reassured that she is the center of her parents' universe, her parents' concern doesn't solve the problem. Finally, at school, Chrysanthemum meets a fabulous new music teacher whom all of the mouse children adore. Ms. Twinkle is a ray of sunshine, and when she produces a musical play, Chrysanthemum is chosen to be a daisy.

When Chrysanthemum confides in her teacher about the way the other children are teasing her, Mrs. Twinkle restores Chrysanthemum's confidence, and makes her the envy of all her peers.

Even though Chrysanthemum's friends made fun of her name, she was unique. Identity is a big issue with middle school aged kids, and even though this is a picture book, it is the perfect tool to show students that they are special and unique and have a place in the world no matter what their name is.  

Summary provided by: Hub Pages Children's Book Review

 Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes. New York: Greenwillow, 1991. Print.

I absolutely love this book! I have seen it in elementary, middle and even college level courses. This is a story about identity and being happy with who you are. I think this would be a great opening book for a new classroom to talk to students about community and respecting each other. 

Esperanza Rising- By Pam Munzo Ryan

Pam Munoz Ryan's ancestors lived this story, and she has done a great service to write it with such an authentic voice. She has presented a fictionalized account of her own grandmother's fall from wealth and privilege in the aftermath of the revolution in Mexico as she immigrated to the United States to work in a Mexican farm labor camp during the Great Depression. Esperanza, the young protagonist, experiences loss, poverty, separation, prejudice, humiliation and fear on the road to her ultimate rise from the ashes in the manner of the mythical phoenix. Ryan does an excellent job of presenting the dilemma and danger of early attempts to improve the working conditions of the laborer during this period. She points out in the author's notes the grave injustices incurred by the Mexican Deportation Act, which exceeded relocations of the Japanese-Americans during the 2nd World War and of the Native Americans of the previous century. Many of these issues of prejudice and injustice persist today. Adults who enjoy this wonderful children's book should be sure to read "Rain of Gold," by Villasenor.

Summary and Review provided by: Amazon.com

Esperanza Rising, By Pan Munzo Ryan. New York: Scholastic Inc. 2000.

This book is a great way to discuss the Labor camps and the Mexican Desperation Act. This helps paint a picture of US and Central American relations and how things came to be. This would be a great book to begin the talk about current issues between the United States and Mexico. This is a book where it focuses on a different area of the country rather than the typical southern novel or a New York based one. Students can get a glimpse of other settings around the United States which brings a whole new perspective to this reading. 

Number the Stars - By Lois Lowry

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 Newberry Medal.

Review provided by: Amazon.com 

This is a fantastic book to use in the classroom. It is a great introductory book to the Holocaust. This is a very important theme in history and some great writing and poetry comes from this tragic time in history. This is a great discussion book, and I think you could really have a great time talking about this book and having the students relate it to life today and make connections with the characters. 

The Man Who Loved Clowns - By June Rae Wood

In this potent debut, Wood displays a prodigious writing and storytelling talent. Delrita, 13, has recently moved to a small Missouri town with her parents and Punky, an uncle who has Down's syndrome. Delrita adores Punky, yet is also embarrassed by him. She easily accepts his childish ways at home, but avoids having visitors, and attending church in her new community causes the girl considerable anguish. Always a loner, Punky is befriended by the persistent Avanelle Shackleford ("a name that was almost bigger than she was"), a classmate who also has familial shame--and a fabulous older brother. When disaster tears Delrita's life apart, her new friends' support fortifies her as does Punky's enduring love. The skillfully crafted work, based on the author's memory of a brother who had Down's syndrome, is enriched by humorous touches and Delrita's involving, simply told narrative. This close-up view of a prevalent disease is more than a one-note novel: the author also artfully interweaves issues of loneliness, first romance and parental death. Both Delrita and Punky are complex, realistically drawn characters worthy of attention and admiration.

Review and Summary provided by: Publishers Weekly- Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

The Man Who Loved Clowns, written by June Rae Wood. New York: Puffin, 2005. Print. 

ISBN: 0142404225

This book is so important in classrooms. It has always been one of my favorite books and helps students understand and have appreciation for special needs students in the classroom. Students are exposed to special needs, particularly Downs-syndrome, which they may not know about or understand. Using this book in a classroom can tackle unfamiliar issues in a very good way. 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - By Maya Angelou

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou describes her coming of age as a precocious but insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s and subsequently in California during the 1940s. Maya’s parents divorce when she is only three years old and ship Maya and her older brother, Bailey, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, in rural Stamps, Arkansas. Annie, whom they call Momma, runs the only store in the black section of Stamps and becomes the central moral figure in Maya’s childhood.
As young children, Maya and Bailey struggle with the pain of having been rejected and abandoned by their parents. Maya also finds herself tormented by the belief that she is an ugly child who will never measure up to genteel, white girls. She does not feel equal to other black children. One Easter Sunday, Maya is unable to finish reciting a poem in church, and self-consciously feeling ridiculed and a failure, Maya races from the church crying, laughing, and wetting herself. Bailey sticks up for Maya when people actually make fun of her to her face, wielding his charisma to put others in their place.
Growing up in Stamps, Maya faces a deep-seated southern racism manifested in wearying daily indignities and terrifying lynch mobs. She spends time at Momma’s store, observing the cotton-pickers as they journey to and from work in the fields. When Maya is eight, her father, of whom she has no memory, arrives in Stamps unexpectedly and takes her and Bailey to live with their mother, Vivian, in St. Louis, Missouri. Beautiful and alluring, Vivian lives a wild life working in gambling parlors. One morning Vivian’s live-in boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, sexually molests Maya, and he later rapes her. They go to court and afterward Mr. Freeman is violently murdered, probably by some the underground criminal associates of Maya’s family.
In the aftermath of these events, Maya endures the guilt and shame of having been sexually abused. She also believes that she bears responsibility for Mr. Freeman’s death because she denied in court that he had molested her prior to the rape. Believing that she has become a mouthpiece for the devil, Maya stops speaking to everyone except Bailey. Her mother’s family accepts her silence at first as temporary post-rape trauma, but they later become frustrated and angry at what they perceive to be disrespectful behavior.
To Maya’s relief, but Bailey’s regret, Maya and Bailey return to Stamps to live with Momma. Momma manages to break through Maya’s silence by introducing her to Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a kind, educated woman who tells Maya to read works of literature out loud, giving her books of poetry that help her to regain her voice.
During these years in Stamps, Maya becomes aware of both the fragility and the strength of her community. She attends a church revival during which a priest preaches implicitly against white hypocrisy through his sermon on charity. The spiritual strength gained during the sermon soon dissipates as the revival crowd walks home past the honky-tonk party. Maya also observes the entire community listening to the Joe Louis heavyweight championship boxing match, desperately longing for him to defend his title against his white opponent.

Maya endures several appalling incidents that teach her about the insidious nature of racism. At age ten, Maya takes a job for a white woman who calls Maya “Mary” for her own convenience. Maya becomes enraged and retaliates by breaking the woman’s fine china. At Maya’s eighth grade graduation, a white speaker devastates the proud community by explaining that black students are expected to become only athletes or servants. When Maya gets a rotten tooth, Momma takes her to the only dentist in Stamps, a white man who insults her, saying he’d rather place his hand in a dog’s mouth than in hers. The last straw comes when Bailey encounters a dead, rotting black man and witnesses a white man’s satisfaction at seeing the body. Momma begins to fear for the children’s well-being and saves money to bring them to Vivian, who now lives in California.
When Maya is thirteen, the family moves to live with Vivian in Los Angeles and then in Oakland, California. When Vivian marries Daddy Clidell, a positive father figure, they move with him to San Francisco, the first city where Maya feels at home. She spends one summer with her father, Big Bailey, in Los Angeles and has to put up with his cruel indifference and his hostile girlfriend, Dolores. After Dolores cuts her in a fight, Maya runs away and lives for a month with a group of homeless teenagers in a junkyard. She returns to San Francisco strong and self-assured. She defies racist hiring policies in wartime San Francisco to become the first black streetcar conductor at age fifteen. At sixteen, she hides her pregnancy from her mother and stepfather for eight months and graduates from high school. The account ends as Maya begins to feel confident as a mother to her newborn son.


Summary by: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/cagedbird/summary.html

 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, written by Maya Angelou. New York: Ballantine, 2009. Print.

This book focuses on a lot of adult issues, including that of rape. Instead of avoiding the issue I think this is a good conversation to have with students. This would also be a good time to bring history in to the classroom and talk about the life of Maya Angelou. Not only could you confront race and feminism issues but also have great discussion questions and it could be a great introduction in talking about memoir. 

When You Reach Me - By Rebecca Stead

Four mysterious letters change Miranda’s world forever.

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.

But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper:

I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.

I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.

Summary by GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5310515-when-you-reach-me

When You Reach Me, written by Rebecca Stead.  New York: Random House, 2009.

This book identifies different aspects of a classroom from race and class to poverty and home life. It is important for students to understand these different aspects and understand we all come from different backgrounds. Each of the characters has a unique relationship in this book, and I think it would be interesting to see how the students view these relationships. It will also be important to talk about why it is important to have friends from different cultures, races and socio-economic status'.

Seedfolks - by Paul Fleischman

Seedfolks is a carefully crafted, elegantly written novel about a community garden that springs up on a trash-laden, rat-infested vacant lot. Each of the thirteen chapters is devoted to a particular character and his/her situation. We learn about the changes in the garden as seen through their eyes. As the book progresses, each person weaves themselves into the garden's life-- making improvements, getting to know others, sharing their time. The volunteers interaction has a carry-over effect outside the garden; they begin to know other's names and become real people to one another.

At the end they have a "Harvest Celebration". They are celebrating more than a bunch of plants--they have become part of each other's lives.

Fleischman, in sixty nine pages, created a tightly-written novel.  Even though it's a quick read, the story stays with you long after you have put the book down.  Fleischman creates amazingly realistic characters that speak to universal audiences and make his novel a delight to read. 

Review by: The College of Education at The University of Texas Austin 

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/resources/booksR4teens/book_reviews/book_reviews.php?book_id=963

Seedfolks, illustrated by Judy Petersen.  New York: HarperTrophy, 1997.


This book focuses a lot on community, which is a very central point in classroom's today. This would be a great book to have a book talk on in the classroom and discuss how even though our classroom is made up of people from different backgrounds, we all still need to come together and be a community. Like the people in Seedfolks we are all very different, but we can come together for the common good.