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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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LIT |
Mine for Keeps
(age 8-11) by Jean Little school ... illness/loss ... family Sarah Jane Copeland expects special treatment when she returns home after spending five years at a cerebral palsy center, but her family treats her as an able member. |
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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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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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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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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 |