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BUC |
The Big Wave
(age 8-11) by Pearl S. Buck survival ... growing up ... family ... illness/loss Kino lives on a farm on the side of a mountain in Japan. His friend, Jiya, lives in a fishing village below. Everyone, including Kino and Jiya, has heard of the big wave. No one suspects it will wipe out the whole village and Jiya's family, too. As Jiya struggles to overcome his sorrow, he understands it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be. |
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BOR |
Across the Blue Pacific: a World War II Story
(age 8-11) by Louise Borden illness/loss ... war ... historical When the United States enters World War II, Molly is attending Beechwood Elementary. But her thoughts are with Ted Walker, her neighbor, who is serving aboard a cruiser in the South Atlantic. Three years later, the war is still going on and Molly is in the fourth grade. Ted is still at sea, as a naval officer of the USS Albacore, a submarine in the Pacific Ocean. Orchard Road feels like the safest place on earth, but somewhere on the other side of the world, Ted and his crew are carrying out dangerous missions. No one knows when they will come home, and young Molly must find a way to live with fear during wartime. |
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GIF |
Rat Teeth
(age 8-11) by Patricia Reilly Giff illness/loss ... growing up ... family It's bad enough that his parents are divorced and his two front teeth stick out a mile, but when he loses a baseball game to the fourth graders, even a "toughie" like Cliffie feels he has no choice but to run away. |
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LOV |
A Year Without Rain
(age 8-11) by D. Anne Love illness/loss ... family Her mother's death and a year-long drought has made life difficult for twelve-year-old Rachel and her family on their farm in the Dakotas, but when she learns that her father plans to get married again, it is almost more than Rachel can bear. |
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COE |
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
(age 8-11) by Eleanor Coerr war ... folklore ... historical ... illness/loss Publisher comments: When Hiroshima-born Sadako falls gravely ill with leukemia, she recalls a Japanese legend that holds that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her healthy again. |
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BYA |
Good-bye, Chicken Little
(age 8-11) by Betsy Cromer Byars family ... illness/loss Publisher comments: Jimmie Little's life has been frightening and unpredictable, so much that he has begun to define himself by his fears. He learns, though, that with the help of his family he can let his fears go forever. |
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BRA |
Weaver's Daughter
(age 8-11) by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley illness/loss ... historical In 1791 after her family's journey from Pennsylvania, ten-year-old Lizzie suffers from the disease of asthma in her new home in the Southwest Territory (present-day Tennessee). |
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WIL |
Each Little Bird that Sings
(age 8-11) by Deborah Wiles friendship ... family ... illness/loss Comfort Snowberger is well acquainted with death since her family runs the funeral parlor in their small southern town, but even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series of heart-wrenching events that begins on the first day of Easter vacation with the sudden death of her beloved great-uncle Edisto. |
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PAT |
Flip-flop Girl
(age 8-11) by Katherine Paterson family ... friendship ... illness/loss Uprooted following the death of their father, nine-year-old Vinnie and her five-year-old brother, Mason, cope in different ways--one in silence--but both with the help of Lupe, the flip-flop girl. |
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WIL |
Love, Ruby Lavender
(age 8-11) by Deborah Wiles letters/journal ... illness/loss ... family When Ruby's grandmother, Miss Eula goes to visit her new grandbaby in Hawaii, Ruby is sure that she will have a lonely, empty, horrible summer without her in boring old Halleluia, Mississippi. What happens instead? She makes a new friend, saves the school play, writes plenty of letters to her favorite (and only) grandmother . . . and finally learns to stop blaming herself for her grandfather's death. Not too bad, for a nine-year-old. |
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HEN |
Sun and Spoon
(age 8-11) by Kevin Henkes family ... illness/loss It had been only two months since Spoon Gilmore's grandmother died, but already he was worried that he would forget her. That's why he needed something of Gram's - something special that had belonged to her, something to remember her by. Spoon wasn't quite sure what the something was, though he knew he would know it when he saw it. But Spoon's little sister, Joanie, did not leave him much time to look. She was always following him, demanding attention. Spoon didn't have the time he needed to think, or perhaps he wouldn't have done what he did. |
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GIF |
Lily's Crossing
(age 8-11) by Patricia Reilly Giff war ... illness/loss ... friendship ... historical Every summer Lily and her father go to her family's house in Rockaway, near the Atlantic Ocean. But the summer of 1944 is different. World War II has called Lily's father overseas, Lily's best friend Margaret had to move with her family to a wartime factory town, and Lily is forced to live with her grandmother. But then a boy named Albert, a refugee from Hungary, comes to live in Rockaway. He has lost most of his family to the war. Soon he and Lily form a special friendship, and they have secrets to share. But they have both told lies, and Lily's lie may cost Albert his life. |
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CRE |
Love That Dog
(age 8-11) by Sharon Creech illness/loss ... animals ... authorship ... school ... poetry Jack hate poetry. Only girls write it and every time he tries to, his brain feels empty. But his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, won't stop giving her class poetry assignments, and Jack can't avoid them. But then something amazing happens. The more he writes, the more he learns he does have something to say. sequel: Hate That Cat |