Good Reads

CCBC Choices - 2001
It is 1915 and Vahan Kendarian, the pampered youngest son of one of the most influential Armenian families in Turkey, is confident that his privileged world will always include the house he loves, the laughter of his brothers and sisters, a sense of belonging. But when his uncle disappears and his father is taken away, when two brothers are shot before his eyes in the family garden, Vahan's world shatters. "Be steel", his father had always said when something tested his son's character. "Steel is made strong by fire. "What is about to occur is Vahan's fire.

In the next three weeks he will lose his home and know hunger and thirst for the first time. In the next three years he will become an orphan, a prisoner, a beggar, a servant, a stowaway in order to survive. He will meet and be befriended by the Horsesho ...More

"A girl's struggle amid the African AIDS pandemic."

""As soon as I get back from the shabeen, I go next door to see Mrs. Tafa. I have to ask to use her phone to let our relatives know about Sara. I'm nervous. Mrs. Tafa would like to run the world. Since she can't run the world she's decided to run our neighborhood.""

So speaks sixteen-year-old Chanda, an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa.

While Mrs. Tafa's hijinks are often amusing, the fact is that Chanda's world is profoundly difficult. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges.

In this sensitive, swiftly-paced story readers will find echoes of "To Kill a Mockingbird" as Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma. Not afraid to explore the horrific realities of AID ...More

West meets East
Although Maya has done her best to avoid it, she is spending part of her summer in Chennai, India, with her mother, who is trying to sell her grandfather's old house. Soon Maya is drawn into a complicated friendship with eccentric Kamala Mami, who has been a housekeeper and cook for years in Maya's extended family. At the same time, Maya is thrust into an ocean of memories, all coming at her too quickly for her to understand. In particular, she is forced to examine the history of her parents' divorce -- all the more painful because she believes the trouble began with the choosing of her name. For years the tension has simmered in a cauldron of anxiety, secrets, and misunderstandings. It is only with the help of Kamala Mami and Maya's cousin Sumati that Maya is able to see what happened to her parents.
In this compe ...More

Like many girls her age in India, thirteen-year-old Koly is getting married. When she discovers that the husband her parents have chosen for her is a sickly boy with wicked parents, Koly wishes she could flee. According to tradition, though, she has no choice. On her wedding day, Koly's fate is sealed.

In the wake of her marriage, however, Koly's life takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself alone in a strange city of white-sariclad widows. Her only choice seems to be to shed her name and her future and join the hopeless hordes who chant for food.

Even then, cast out into a current of time-worn tradition, this rare young woman sets out to forge her own exceptional future. And a life, like a beautiful tapestry, comes together for Koly -- one stitch at a time. ...More

Young Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. The family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan. ...More

Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tio Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government's secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo's dictatorship.
Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.
From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl's struggle to be free. ...More

CCBC Choices - 2003
2002 Mitten Award Winner
Linda Sue Park seamlessly interweaves parallel stories, narrated by two unique adolescent voices, into a taut, compelling novel that illuminates a significant but little-know part of history--the Korean Resistance. ...More

The story of a young Mayan girl, who at the age of four is kidnapped from her parents on a crowded bus in Guatemala City, and the eight years that pass as she longs for the family she was stolen from. Accelerated Reader: Reading Level 4.6, 7 Points. ...More

CCBC Choices - 2001
When her sister is murdered while working as a volunteer at a school in South Africa, 16-year-old Berry sets out on a two-week trip to South Africa to attend a memorial service with her estranged father. While there, Berry's father arranges other activities that force them to look beyond their own grieving and bear witness to a country's tortured search for truth. ...More

Sixteen-year-old Thomas Wanninger wants to find out what his grandfather, a Nazi officer, did during World War II. Thomas is going to Israel to work on a kibbutz, where he will have access to a Jerusalem archive that may hold the information he seeks. His life is one of many to be affected by a terrorist attack that occurs on the day he arrives. ...More

A BookPage Notable Title

Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose name means "star," suddenly finds herself alone when her father and older brother are conscripted by the Taliban and her mother and newborn brother are killed in an air raid. An American woman, Elaine, whose Islamic name is Nusrat, is also on her own. She waits out the war in Peshawar, Pakistan, teaching refugee children under the persimmon tree in her garden while her Afghan doctor husband runs a clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Najmah's father had always assured her that the stars would take care of her, just as Nusrat's husband had promised that they would tell Nusrat where he was and that he was safe. As the two look to the skies for answers, their fates entwine. Najmah, seeking refuge and hoping to find her father and brother, begins the perilou ...More