Juvenile Fiction
Selected by Janet Kreason, Head of Youth Services.
Scheduled to be published in the Times Union on 3/2008.
| Title: Jack Plank Tells Tales Author: Babbitt, Natalie For ages 8-11. Jack Plank is a genial companion but not much of a plunderer, so the other pirates on the Avarice put him ashore when times grow hard. As Jack considers and rejects various new careers, he spins nightly humorous or enigmatic yarns of seafaring adventures to explain his decisions to his landlady and fellow boarders. The others are so entranced by the masterfully told tales of such pirate favorites as treasure, a troll, a man/octopus shape shifter, a girl raised by gulls, and a sailor’s love for a mermaid, that they create the perfect job for Jack: village storyteller. |
| Title: The Traitors’ Gate Author: Avi, For ages 11-14. When John Huffam’s father is sent to debtor’s prison, the fourteen-year-old attempts to solve both the problem and the puzzle of the debt. John is drawn into an increasingly complex web of deception and intrigue involving a military secret, spies, a clever street urchin and Scotland Yard. A cast of eccentric characters and a strong period flavor of 1849 London give this memorable mystery a decidedly Dickensian twist. |
| Title: Iron Thunder Author: Ani, For ages 9-12. After Tom's father is killed fighting for the Union, the thirteen-year-old obtains work in Brooklyn iron works to help support the family. He is assigned to assist Captain Ericsson, who designed and is overseeing the construction of the Monitor. Threatened by copperheads seeking information about the ship to pass to the Confederates, Tom begins sleeping aboard the vessel for his own safety. He enlists in the Navy as a first class boy and sails to Newport Roads, enduring disastrous storms and the famous battle with the Merrimac. Period illustrations enhance a novel with strong appeal for young readers intrigued by the Civil War and the technology behind the famous ironclad. |
| Title: Someone Named Eva Author: Wolf, Joan M. For ages 11-14. Shortly after a warm celebration of her eleventh birthday, Milada’s family and community are torn apart. Nazi soldiers pound on doors in Lidice, Czechoslovakia in the middle of the night and separate the male and female residents. Since Milada’s looks fit the Aryan ideal, she is taken to a Lebensborn center in Poland, where she is renamed Eva and forced to learn the German language and culture. After sufficient grooming for her new role, she is adopted into the family of a high-ranking Nazi officer—an increasingly dangerous place as the war’s tide turns. Throughout her three-year ordeal, Milada struggles to maintain her personal and cultural identity, hoping against hope to be reunited with her birth family. |
| Title: A Picture for Marc Author: Kimmel, Eric A. For ages 7-10. Marc’s parents have worked hard to enable him to attend school so he will have a better life. He is a poor student whose only real interest is geometry—until the day a classmate shows him how to trace pictures. Marc begins to use imagination, observation and considerable talent to create his own drawings, and then questions the local studio owner about the nature of art and artists. His parents refuse to support his determination to pursue an art career until something unusual happens while he works at the herring factory with his father. An after word explains that Marc Chagall’s dreams did indeed carry him far beyond sleepy nineteenth-century Vitebsk, Russia. |