Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco

Title: Pink and Say

Author: Patricia Polacco

Publisher: Philomel; First edition

Release date: September 1994

Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 978-0399226717

Summary:

Amazon: 

"This picture book set during the Civil War is a departure for Polacco in terms of content and audience. It is certainly the deepest and most serious book she has done. Sheldon Curtis, 15, a white boy, lies badly wounded in a field in Georgia when Pinkus Aylee, an African American Union soldier about Sheldon's age, finds him and carries him home to his mother, Moe Moe Bay. Sheldon, known as Say, is nursed back to health in her nurturing care. But then she is killed by marauders, and the boys return to their units. They are then are captured and taken to Andersonville, where Pink is hanged within hours of their capture. One of the most touching moments is when Pink reads aloud from the Bible to Moe Moe and Say. Say tells them that he can't read, but then he offers something he's very proud of: he once shook Abraham Lincoln's hand. This is a central image in the story, and is what ties the boys together for a final time, as Pink cries, "'Let me touch the hand that touched Mr. Lincoln, Say, just one last time.'" The picture of their clasped hands, with the hands of the soldiers wrenching them apart, is exceptionally moving. Polacco's artwork, in fact, has never been better. She uses dramatic perspectives, dynamic compositions, and faces full of emotion to carry her powerful tale. History comes to life in this remarkable book."

http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Say-Patricia-Polacco/dp/0399226710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288588297&sr=1-1

In the classroom:

This book is yet another example of the racial issues that took place during the Civil War and allows students to see that diversity is a good thing and that having friends that come from different backgrounds and races is something positive.  It shows them to now focus on the outer appearance of an individual.  Due to the time period that the story is taking place, during the Civil War, it also allows for a lot of historical background. 

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

Title:  If You Come Softly 

Author:  Jacqueline Woodson

Release date:  January 1998

Publisher:  Speak

Pages:  208

Genre:  Middle grade fiction

Source:  Library

ISBN-13: 978-0698118621

Summary:
Amazon: 

"Once again, Woodson (I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This) handles delicate, even explosive subject matter with exceptional clarity, surety and depth. In this contemporary story about an interracial romance, she seems to slip effortlessly into the skins of both her main characters, Ellie, an upper-middle-class white girl who has just transferred to Percy, an elite New York City prep school, and Jeremiah, one of her few African American classmates, whose parents (a movie producer and a famous writer) have just separated. A prologue intimates heartbreak to come; thereafter, sequences alternate between Ellie's first-person narration and a third-person telling that focuses on Jeremiah. Both voices convincingly describe the couple's love-at-first-sight meeting and the gradual building of their trust. The intensity of their emotions will make hearts flutter, then ache as evidence mounts that Ellie's and Jeremiah's "perfect" love exists in a deeply flawed society. Even as Woodson's lyrical prose draws the audience into the tenderness of young love, her perceptive comments about race and racism will strike a chord with black readers and open the eyes of white readers ("Thing about white people," Jeremiah's father tells him, "they know what everybody else is, but they don't know they're white"). Knowing from the beginning that tragedy lies just around the corner doesn't soften the sharp impact of this wrenching book."

http://www.amazon.com/You-Come-Softly-Jacqueline-Woodson/dp/0142415227/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288586528&sr=1-1

In the classroom:

This book is a the perfect example of the blending of cultures.  It is a good book when dealing with the topic of racism in the class and teaches the students to embrace those of other ethnicities, cultures and upbringings.  

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Title: The Giver

Author: Lois Lowry

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Release date: January 2006

Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 978-0385732550

Setting:

Amazon:

"In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. With a storyline that hints at Christian allegory and an eerie futuristic setting, this intriguing novel calls to mind John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Lowry is once again in top form--raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers"

http://www.amazon.com/Giver-Lois-Lowry/dp/0385732554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288584308&sr=1-1

In the classroom:

The Giver shows students to stand up for what they believe in.  It teaches them the standards between right from wrong and gives them the strength to act when they know something is not the way it should be.  

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Title: Number the Stars

Author: Lois Lowry

Publisher: Laurel leaf

Release date: February 1998

Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 978-0440227533

Setting:

Amazon:

"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 Newbery Medal."

http://www.amazon.com/Number-Stars-Lois-Lowry/dp/0440227534/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288580959&sr=1-1

In the classroom:

This book allows for a lot of history background to be explored within the classroom.  It could be paired with Ellie Wiesel's Night in order to get another perspective on the horrors of the holocaust.  The subject matter of the novel also leads to exploration of morality and diversity.  It also shows how empowering and important friendship can be.  I think it would be a rewarding book to read with a class.  

Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

Title: Seedfolks
Author: Paul Fleishman
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Release date: December 2004
Pages: 70
ISBN-13: 978-0064472074


Summary:
Amazon:
"Sometimes, even in the middle of ugliness and neglect, a little bit of beauty will bloom. Award-winning writer Paul Fleischman dazzles us with this truth inSeedfolks--a slim novel that bursts with hope. Wasting not a single word, Fleischman unfolds a story of a blighted neighborhood transformed when a young girl plants a few lima beans in an abandoned lot. Slowly, one by one, neighbors are touched and stirred to action as they see tendrils poke through the dirt. Hispanics, Haitians, Koreans, young, and old begin to turn the littered lot into a garden for the whole community. A gift for hearts of all ages, this gentle, timeless story will delight anyone in need of a sprig of inspiration"


http://www.amazon.com/Seedfolks-Joanna-Colter-Books-Fleischman/dp/0064472078/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288563575&sr=1-1


In the classroom:
Throughout this entire book, it describes a sense of community between complete strangers.  This is something that is very important for kids who are transitioning between middle school and high school or maybe moving to a completely new city.  Community is something that will help them adjust to the people that they are around during these difficult times and needs to be emphasized within schools.  

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Title: Island of the Blue Dolphins

Author: Scott O'Dell

Publisher: Sandpiper; Anv edition

Release date: February 2010

Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 978-0547328614

Summary:

Amazon:

"The Newberry Medal-winning story of a 12-year old girl who lives alone on a Pacific island after she leaps from a rescue ship. Isolated on the island for eighteen years, Karana forages for food, builds weapons to fight predators, clothes herself in a cormorant feathered skirt, and finds strength and peace in her seclusion. A classic tale of discovery and solitude returns to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for its 50th anniversary, with a new introduction by Lois Lowry."

http://www.amazon.com/Island-Blue-Dolphins-Scott-ODell/dp/0547328613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288562288&sr=8-1

In the classroom:

Kids in middle school are going through their own troubles with self discovery.  This book tells the story of another discovery and survival allowing kids who are going through their own forms of these things to go along for the ride.  

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Author: Ishmael Beah

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition

Release date: August 2008

Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 978-0374531263

Summary:

Amazon:
"This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah's harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces. Beah then finds himself in the army—in a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter that lasts until he is 15, when he's brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and partnering NGOs. The process marks out Beah as a gifted spokesman for the center's work after his "repatriation" to civilian life in the capital, where he lives with his family and a distant uncle. When the war finally engulfs the capital, it sends 17-year-old Beah fleeing again, this time to the U.S., where he now lives. (Beah graduated from Oberlin College in 2004.) Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice, this memoir seems destined to become a classic firsthand account of war and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide"


-http://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374531269/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288561280&sr=1-1


In the classroom:
Because this book takes place within the past decade, kids can really connect with the issue at hand and the age that the author is throughout the story.  Told as a memoir, the students get a first hand experience of what life would have been like had they grown up as a boy soldier.  This book can be used in a classroom to get the students involved in global issues and become strong individuals who can over come any obstacle that may be put into their own lives.