The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Brian Selznick

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Hugo Cabret is an orphan and the clock keeper in a busy Paris train station. His uncle used to be the clock keeper - but he disappeared. As long as Hugo keeps doing his job he gets to pick up the pay checks and can live in the clock keepers apartment. Hugo keeps up the clocks as often as needed which still leaves him plenty of time to steal toy parts for his project. Then the store owner catches Hugo stealing parts. He takes Hugo's notebook and threatens to destory it. Hugo, it seems, will go to any extent to get his notebook back. Why does the store owner have such an interest in Hugo's notebook with drawings of his project?

This book is a graphic novel - meaning part of the story is told in pictures. Though it is a thick book it can be read in two or three hours - most likely.

The Bomb

Theodore Taylor

Publisher:Harcourt Paperbacks

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

Sorry, a 14 year old boy, lives on Bikini Atoll, a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Sorry thinks the worst thing in his life is that the Japanese have taken over their island. Then the American's come and free the islanders from the Japanese. That must mean the Americans are wonderful and good right? Sorry certainly thinks so - for a couple of months at least. Then the American's tell Sorry and everyone in his village that they will have to be relocated to another island for Atomic Bomb testing. Suddenly the American's are not the good people they once were. Can Sorry and his family make a stand against the American's and get their island back?

A Love Like Lilly

Kay Lynn Mangum

Publisher: Deseret Book Company

Jamie - usually called James - is a tomboy. She hates dresses, loves basketball, and is nothing like her older sister. After James' grandma dies, she comes to live with her grandfather for the summer. While working on cleaning out her grandma's things, she comes across an old photo album from the 1930s. Her grandfather proceeds to tell her stories behind the pictures, while he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and about how he met her grandmother.

This book tells stories from two different families and two different time periods. The CCC stories are based off the author's grandfather's journal.

Song of the Sparrow

Lisa Ann Sandell

Publisher: Scholastic Press

16 year old Elaine has grown up in a war camp ever since her mother died. Often times she is the only woman in camp. Her father and two brothers are soldiers in King Arthur's army. She is the only girl in the camp. Though she is useful to the soldiers with her mending skills and her knowledge of the healing herbs she loves to run free as no other girl possibly could.

Often she wishes for another girl to come to come to camp. But when another girl finally comes things are incredibly tense. This new girl has captured the heart of Elaine's crush and refuses to do anything exciting or useful. Then comes the danger - and the two girls will have to figure out how to work together to make it through.

Based on "Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. This book is written as a poem.

Warnings: Battle and war are described in some details

Fever 1793

By Laurie Halse Anderson

Publisher: Scholastic Printing

Historical Fiction about the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793.

Mattie, age 14, lives with her mother and paternal grandfather. Together the run the Cook Coffeehouse.

When rumors of the Fever start spreading some neighbors leave the city and move to the countryside. Some say the rumors aren't true and they refuse to leave. Thousands of people die from the disease, even the family at the coffeehouse can't avoid it.

Those who live through the fever set out to help others while trying to cope with the panic around them. A well written book but hard to read because of the topic.

At the back there is a guide with a lot of historical information for further reading.

Warnings: This book tells of the disease in details.