F
HUN
Warriors Super Edition (age 10+)
by Erin Hunter
war ... adventure ... fantasy
Publisher comments: There is peace at last between the warrior Clans, and all four are thriving. Then Firestar, legendary leader of ThunderClan, discovers a shocking secret: StarClan, the warrior ancestors who guide his paw steps, have lied to him. Firestar must embark on a perilous quest to discover a long-forgotten truth. Whatever he finds at the end of his journey, he’s sure of one thing: Nothing will ever be the same again.
title: Firestar's Quest
title: Bluestar's Prophecy
title: SkyClan's Destiny
F
SPI
Milkweed: A Novel (age 10+)
by Jerry Spinelli
bigotry ... war ... survival ... historical
Publisher comments: He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody. Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable...Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II...and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan.
F
KAD
Weedflower (age 10+)
by Cynthia Kadohata
friendship ... bigotry ... historical ... war ... identity
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new home. Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land.
F
KAD
Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam (age 10+)
by Cynthia Kadohata
historical ... adventure ... friendship ... animals ... war
CRACKER IS ONE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY'S MOST VALUABLE WEAPONS: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She's a Big Deal, and she likes it that way. Sometimes Cracker remembers when she was younger, and her previous owner would feed her hot dogs and let her sleep in his bed. That was nice, too. Rick Hanski is headed to Vietnam. There, he's going to whip the world and prove to his family and his sergeant (and everyone else who didn't think he was cut out for war) wrong. But sometimes Rick can't help but wonder that maybe everyone else is right. Maybe he should have just stayed at home and worked in his dad's hardware store. When Cracker is paired with Rick, she isn't so sure about this new owner. He's going to have to prove himself to her before she's going to prove herself to him. They need to be friends before they can be a team, and they have to be a team if they want to get home alive.
F
KEI
Rifles For Watie (age 10+)
by Harold Keith
war ... historical
Sixteen-year-old Jefferson Davis Bussey cannot wait to join the Army and defend the Union against the dreaded Colonel Watie, but when he is assigned to infiltrate the enemy camp as a spy, he discovers the rebels are boys and men just like him, and he must then decide whether to betray his enemies or join them.
F
LAW
Lord of the Nutcracker Men (age 10+)
by Iain Lawrence
family ... historical ... war
Ten-year-old Johnny eagerly plays at war with the army of nutcracker soldiers his toymaker father whittles for him. He demolishes imaginary foes. But in 1914 Germany looms as the real enemy of Europe, and all too soon Johnny's father is swept up in the war to end all wars. He proudly enlists with his British countrymen to fight at the front in France. The war, though, is nothing like what any soldier or person at home expected. The letters that arrive from Johnny's dad reveal the ugly realities of combat ... and the soldiers he carves and encloses begin to bear its scars. Still, Johnny adds these soldiers to his armies of Huns, Tommies, and Frenchmen, engaging them in furious fights. But when these games seem to foretell his dad's real battles, Johnny thinks he possesses godlike powers over his wooden men. He fears he controls his father's fate, the lives of all the soldiers in no-man's land, and the outcome of the war itself.
F
COL
My Brother Sam is Dead (age 10+)
by James Lincoln Collier
war ... family ... historical
Publisher comments: All his life, Tim Meeker has looked up to his brother Sam. Sam's smart and brave, and is now a part of the American Revolution. Not everyone in town wants to be a part of the rebellion. Most are supporters of the British, including Tim and Sam's father. With the war soon raging, Tim know he'll have to make a choice ... between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats ... and between his brother and his father.
F
FLE
Bull Run (age 10+)
by Paul Fleischman
war ... historical
Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.
F
HUN
Warriors, Power of Three Series (age 10+)
by Erin Hunter
war ... adventure ... fantasy
In a troubled time for the Clans, three young cats, grandchildren of the legendary Firestar, begin their training as warriors and, in the course of many adventures, discover their true destiny.
title: The Sight
title: Dark River
title: Outcast
title: Eclipse
title: Long Shadows
F
HUN
The Warriors Series (age 10+)
by Erin Hunter
war ... adventure ... fantasy
In the first book, Into the Wild, Rusty starts out as an ordinary house kitten, but his travels deep into the forest involve him in the epic battles of the cat warrior clans who roam (and rule) the wild. With a new name, Firepaw, and a position as a ThunderClan apprentice, our feline hero faces his destiny, struggles with issues of friendship, honour, courage, and betrayal, and learns what it truly means to be a warrior.
title: Into the Wild
title: A Dangerous Path
title: The Darkest Hour
title: Dawn
title: Fire and Ice
title: Forest of Secrets
title: Sunset
title: Twilight
title: Midnight
title: Moonrise
title: Rising Storm
title: Starlight
title: Cats of the Clans
F
PRA
The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy (age 10+)
by Terry Pratchett
action ... war ... science fiction ... humor ... adventure
The alien spaceship is in his sights. His finger is on the Fire button. Johnny Maxwell is about to set the new high score on the computer game Only You Can Save Mankind. Suddenly: ``We wish to talk.'' Huh? ``We surrender.'' The aliens aren't supposed to surrender. Now what is Johnny going to do with a fleet of alien prisoners who know their rights under the international rules of war and are demanding safe-conduct? It's hard enough trying to save Mankind from the Galactic Hordes. It's even harder trying to save the Galactic Hordes from Mankind. But it's just a game, isn't it? Isn't it?
title: Only You Can Save Mankind
title: Johnny and the Dead
title: Johnny and the Bomb
F
RIN
Amelia's War (age 10+)
by Ann Rinaldi
war ... family ... historical
As the Civil War rages, Amelia's Maryland town is beset by divisions. Even she and her best friend Josh disagree. Amelia vows not to take sides, until the Confederate troops march into town...led by Josh's uncle.
F
O'D
Sarah Bishop (age 10+)
by Scott O'Dell
war ... survival ... family ... historical
Left alone after the deaths of her father and brother who take opposite sides in the War for Independence, and fleeing from the British who seek to arrest her, Sarah Bishop struggles to shape a new life for herself in the wilderness.
F
MER
The Pushcart War (age 10+)
by Jean Merrill
war ... humor ... enterprise
A satire on modern city life depicting an outbreak of war between truck drivers and pushcart peddlers.

Duveneck Elementary School, Sat Aug 25 11:55:27 2012
Other themes and genres