Over the last couple of years, I have had quite a few books connected with the Civil Rights movement come across my TBR pile.  Most of them have been excellent, and I have learned something from all of them, whether I was reading historical fiction or historical accounts.  Rita Williams Garcia introduced me to yet another aspect of those years that I knew next-to-nothing about in her novel One Crazy Summer (Scholastic 2010).

Delphine leads her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, to visit the mother who left them.  They fly across the country to Oakland, California, for the summer of 1968, to get to know the mysterious Cecile.  Even once they are living in her house, Cecile remains a mystery, but Delphine is not stubborn and bossy for nothing.  She will do whatever it takes to protect her sisters and get answers from Cecile.  She might even learn something about herself  along the way.

Delphine’s first surprise (after Cecile kicks them out of the house for the day) is her encounter with the Black Panthers.  Behind the headlines she heard back in New York City, she discovers that the Black Panthers distribute food to hungry children in the neighborhood and run a day camp for kids at the Community Center.  Before she quite knows how it happens, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are practicing parts to perform in a demonstration at the community park.  Before the demonstration is over, will encounter even more surprises.

Williams-Garcia tackles some serious issues in this novel–racism, abandonment, and families–and she does it with wit and humor.  Delphine is an unforgettable character, who is much stronger than she realizes.  As she finds her voice, she discovers the power of poetry and the power of the people and the power of herself.

Lynne Reid Banks brings the streets and palaces and circuses of Ancient Rome to life with an unforgettable cast of characters in Tiger, Tiger (Laurel Leaf Books 2004).  Aurelia, The Emperor Caesar’s daughter leads a pampered, if lonely, life.  She is thrilled when her father gives her a young tiger cub for her birthday.  With the help of its trainer Julius, Aurelia learns to earn the tiger’s trust.  She also learns to trust Julius and welcomes his company as much as she does Boots.  Her only other companion is her young cousin Marcus, who wants to impress but often falls short.

Aurelia may be pampered, but she is tender-hearted.  She is horrified by the acts of the Circus, wanting nothing to hurt the amazing animals she sees there.  She is also strong-willed, even daring to speak her mind (with caution, of course) to her father, who has the ultimate authority of life and death over every citizen in Rome.  While Marcus comes across as spoiled and petulant, he is only acting his age–ten.  When he most wants to impress Aurelia, he suggests a prank that goes horribly wrong.  Boots escapes into the city of Rome.  Now Julius must pay with his life as he faces another tiger in the arena–the tiger named Brute.

The streets of Rome swirl with controversy and violence.  While Aurelia lives above the dirty streets, she is not immune to their controversy.  She is fascinated by the new sect of believers who call themselves Christians.  Even though she could have grown up as cold and cruel as her father, Aurelia is kind, especially to animals.  Since we experience the circus through her eyes, Banks tempers the excitement and blood lust of the crowds with the horror she experiences at its violence and death.  Tiger, Tiger would make a good introduction or companion to the study of Ancient Rome.

When I first heard the buzz about The Lions of Little Rock (Scholastic 2012), I thought it would be set during 1957, the first year of school integration and the story of the Little Rock Nine.  I was wrong.  Instead Kristin Levine weaves a story of friendship that is set during the following year of 1958, when Little Rock closed their high schools in order to prevent further integration of the schools.

When Marlee and Liz becomes friends that year, they never dream that their friendship will test not only their loyalty to each other, but will also take on segregation and put their families in danger when Liz is caught “passing” for white at Marlee’s middle school.  No matter that the world is set against their friendship Liz and Marlee reach out to each other and help each other.

Marlee tells the story of their friendship, which is quite remarkable considering that Marlee is too frightened to talk to most people.  She even freezes up with her own mother.  Liz, however, pushes Marlee to find her voice and to speak up for herself.  Marlee teaches Liz how to be quiet.  Together, they face the tumultuous changes that come.  Marlee misses her big sister Judy, who is sent to live with a grandmother so she can go to school.  Liz finds a bit of romance.  Marlee joins The Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools and the Stop This Outrageous Purge campaigns and learns to talk to her mother.  Together, they learn that “a friend is someone who helps you change for the better” (289).

The I Survived series of historical fiction has been extremely popular in my classroom this year.  For students who are not sure about historical fiction, they provide a short (less than 100 pages), quick introduction to the genre.  Lauren Tarshis chooses some of the most exciting, most dangerous times in history to write about–the Battle of Gettysburg, the Japanese tsunami, the Nazi invasion of Europe.  With these dramatic historical events as the background, Tarshis creates a young character who must survive.  Whether an escaped slave or a young American overseas, each character is both believable and relatable for modern readers. I already had six of these titles in my classroom library.  Now I have extra copies of those six plus three new adventures to share.  Here is where–and when–the latest titles will take you.

I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 (Scholastic 2013) Thomas and his little sister Birdie are slaves on a Virginia plantation.  When they hear that their master wants to sell Thomas, they flee into the woods to search for freedom.  They are lucky enough to meet up with some Union soldiers who take them in.  Corporal Henry Green looks out for Thomas and Birdie as they travel with the army and tells them stories of his home in Vermont.  Soon the army receives orders to march to Gettysburg.  Will Thomas and Birdie survive this bloodiest, deadliest battle of the Civil War?  

I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 (Scholastic 2014) When my students first start reading about the Holocaust, many of them ask why the Jews didn’t fight back.  The answer is that some Jews–along with Resistance fighters from different countries and faiths–did fight back.  Max looks out for his little sister Zena (and she looks out for him, too) while they are trapped in the Jewish ghetto in their town in Poland.  After a daring escape, they encounter Resistance fighters, including one who surprises them.  As they are traveling to the secret camp deep in the forest, German fighter planes drop bombs throughout the forest and German soldiers sweep through the trees with machine guns.  Will Max and Zena survive the explosions and fire and be able to reunite with their family?

I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 (Scholastic 2013) Ben, his little brother Harry, and their mother are visiting their dad’s hometown in Japan.  The visit brings back painful memories of Ben’s dad, who died a few months earlier in a car crash.  But Ben’s memories of his dad and his dad’s stories from the Air Force give Ben the strength and courage to survive the devastating earthquake and tsunami that swept across Japan.  The roiling waters rip Ben from his family and he must fight to survive all alone.

If you want even more about these survival stories, check out the Scholastic I Survived Website.  You can learn more about each of the disasters, see what I Survived book is coming up next, and even take a quiz to test your survival skills.

I want a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository.  It’s like a library, but it lends out objects of all kinds–teacups and spoons, paintings and sculptures, clothes and wigs (even one of Marie Antoinettes’s  wigs).  Deep in its basement is a secret collection–the Grimm Collection–where there are shelves and cabinets filled with magical objects straight out the tales from the Brother’s Grimm.

Elizabeth is thrilled when her history teacher recommends her for a job at the Repository, and she can hardly believe it when she learns that magic is real.  As is usually the case with magic, things start to go wrong.  Some of the items from the Grimm Collection are disappearing or losing their magic.  Someone on the inside must be helping the thief, but who can it be?  Who can Elizabeth trust?  Surely she can count on her new friends Anjali, Marc, and even Aaron.  All of them are hiding secrets, and soon their paths lead them to adventure and danger and even romance–but not too much.

I loved this modern take on fairy tale fantasy.  What could be more magical than a room full of charmed objects?  Well, I would not want the magic mirror (from Snow White’s stepmother) hanging in my bedroom, though I did laugh at the evil images it showed.  It may not be able to lie, but that doesn’t mean it has to tell the whole truth.  There are fairy tale tropes–an act of kindness to a homeless woman leads to Elizabeth getting the job, and the act of kindness is repaid in a magical way in her time of need.  There are evil witches (want anyone turned into a doll? )  and annoying little sisters.  There’s even a stepmother and stepsister who, while not evil, make life difficult for Elizabeth.

You never know what you might find lurking in the stacks or flitting between the pages of The Grimm Legacy (Scholastic 2010) by Polly Shulman.

Feathers (Puffin Books 2007) is a quiet book packed with the power of hope.  You know hope–the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.  Jacqueline Woodson weaves this snippet of poetry from Emily Dickinson throughout Frannie’s story, and in reading it, I find that hope is weaving its way into my thinking, too.

Frannie has much to hope for–or worry about–that snowy winter in the 1970s when she is eleven.  Mean girls make fun of her older brother Sean because he is deaf.  Her mother is pregnant, and everyone worries she might lose this baby, too.  At school, a new boy–a white boy–moves into her class and challenges all of them to reconsider who belongs. She doesn’t hold go much to church, but her best friend Samantha sees Jesus in the new boy.

Through it all, Frannie thinks and thinks and thinks.  Woodson’s lyrical prose doesn’t provide all the answers for faith and family and friendship life and death and racism, but her words do sing with hope.