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DOH |
Street Child
(age 10+) by Berlie Doherty survival ... historical ... school A novel based on the life of Jim Jarvis, a young orphan who escapes the workhouse in London in the 1860s and survives brutal treatment and desparate circumstances until he is taken by Dr. Barnardo, founder of a school for the city's ragged children. |
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DYG |
Backfield Package
(age 10+) by Thomas Dygard friendship ... school ... sports The decision of four high school friends to go to the same college so that they can continue playing football together is shaken when one of them begins to receive attention as a star quarterback. |
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SAC |
The Boy Who Lost His Face
(age 10+) by Louis Sachar school ... growing up ... friendship David is only trying to be cool when he helps some of the popular kids steal Old Lady Bayfield's cane. But when the plan backfires, he's the one the "old witch" curses. Now David can't seem to do anything right. Is it the Bayfield curse at work? Or is David simply turning into a total loser? |
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AND |
The Bus People
(age 10+) by Rachel Anderson identity ... school ... friendship The lives of the passengers on Bertram's "fruit-cake bus" are shaped by the experiences and problems each has faced because of different disabilities. |
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HAL |
Princess Academy
(age 10+) by Shannon Hale princesses ... fantasy ... friendship ... school Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates. |
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FLE |
Flying Solo
(age 10+) by Ralph Fletcher friendship ... school ... illness/loss Rachel, having chosen to be mute following the sudden death of a classmate, shares responsibility with the other sixth-graders who decide not to report that the substitute teacher failed to show up. |
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FIN |
Bad Dreams
(age 10+) by Anne Fine spooky ... school ... friendship Despite her preference for books over friends, Melanie gradually becomes involved with a new classmate, and realizes that her her friend has a special gift that is also a burden. |
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NAY |
The Alice Series (age 10+) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor friendship ... school ... identity ... realistic ... growing up Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she needs a gorgeous role model who does everything right. Denied her wish to be in lovely Miss Cole's class, she learns that what she needs is not always what she expects. title: The Agony of Alice title: All But Alice title: Alice in Rapture, Sort of title: Alice in April title: Reluctantly Alice |
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HON |
Don't Pat the Wombat!
(age 10+) by Elizabeth Honey school ... humor Mark Ryder gives us the good, the bad, and the messy in this antic account of his friends' misadventures during a week of school-camp in the Australian Outback. Camp is everything the boys expect and more...there are caves to explore, mud fights, bad showers, great food, hidden candy, wombats, and leeches. Then disaster strikes: Mr. Cromwell (a.k.a. Crom the Bomb) arrives as a substitute chaperon. |