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CAB
The Princess Diaries (age 10+)
by Meg Cabot
princesses ... letters/journal ... growing up ... authorship ... school ... humor
Publisher comments: She's just a New York City girl living with her artist mom... News Flash: Dad is prince of Genovia. (So that's why a limo meets her at the airport!) Downer: Dad can't have any more kids. (So no heir to the throne.) Shock of the Century: Like it or not, Mia Thermopolis is prime princess material. Mia must take princess lessons from her dreaded grandmere, the dowager princess of Genovia, who thinks Mia has a thing or two to learn before she steps up to the throne. Well, her father can lecture her until he's royal-blue in the face about her princessly duty, no way is she moving to Genovia and leaving Manhattan behind. But what's a girl to do when her name is Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo?
title: Princess in the Spotlight
title: Princess in Love
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BLO
Letters From the Corrugated Castle: a novel of Gold Rush California, 1850-1852 (age 10+)
by Joan W. Blos
adventure ... letters/journal ... historical
"Dear Cousin Sallie, I begin with words I never thought to write: I am not an orphan!" Thirteen-year-old Eldora has always believed that her mother died when she was very little, and for nine years she has lived with people that she calls Aunt and Uncle. The year is 1850, and all three have exchanged their quiet lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for new ones in San Francisco, the rapidly growing city that is the heart of the California Gold Rush. Shortly after their arrival, they receive a letter from an unknown woman who believes she is Eldora's mother. She is eager to meet her long-lost daughter, and a visit is arranged. As Eldora deals with her conflicting feelings about this news, she must also adjust to the challenges ... and dangers ... of living in a brash and growing city. She finds herself teaching English to two Mexicano children and beginning to learn Spanish, and an unlikely friendship with a boy named Luke introduces her to the hard, sometimes humorous, and often violent world of the mining camps. Every day seems to bring something different and new to consider. But can Eldora discover where ... and to whom ... she belongs?
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HES
Out of the Dust (age 10+)
by Karen Hesse
letters/journal ... historical ... poetry
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Hoover Elementary School, Sat Aug 25 11:55:31 2012
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