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MCK
Run Away Home (age 8-11)
by Patricia C. McKissack
bigotry ... friendship ... historical
In 1886 in Alabama, an eleven-year-old African American girl and her family befriend and give refuge to a runaway Apache boy.
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WIL
The Aurora County All-Stars (age 8-11)
by Deborah Wiles
friendship ... family ... bigotry ... sports
Twelve-year-old House Jackson--star pitcher and team captain of the Aurora County All-Stars--has been sidelined for a whole sorry year with a broken elbow. He's finally ready to play, but wouldn't you know that the team's only game of the year has been scheduled for the exact same time as the town's 200th-anniversary pageant. Now House must face the pageant's director, full-of-herself Frances Shotz (his nemesis and perpetrator of the elbow break), and get his team out of this mess. There's also the matter of a mysterious old recluse who has died and left House a wheezy old dog named Eudora Welty--and a puzzling book of poetry by someone named Walt Whitman. Through the long, hot month of June, House makes surprising and valuable discoveries about family, friendship, poetry . . . and baseball.
F
LEE
Landed (age 8-11)
by Milly Lee
bigotry ... historical
Sun is ready to leave his village in China for America, the place known as Gum Saan, Gold Mountain. His father warns him, though, that passage will not be easy. Because of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, new immigrants like Sun are detained at Angel Island until they are called to take a difficult oral exam before they can "land"...leave Angel Island and go ashore. On the boat, Sun had studied maps of his village and memorized facts about his ancestors. But as the weeks pass in detainment, the map’s compass points swirl in his memory, and Sun worries that he will lose his direction and be turned away.
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FLE
Bandit's Moon (age 8-11)
by Sid Fleischman
bigotry ... friendship ... adventure ... historical
Newly orphaned, young Annyrose escapes from the villainous O.O. Mary and falls under the protection of a proud and fearless Mexican bandit, regarded as the Robin Hood of the California Gold Rush. Annyrose wants only to search for her older brother who had run off to the gold diggings, but she finds herself galloping beside the celebrated outlaw in his own quest. He is hunting down the last of a band of "Yankee" riffraff who wronged him, an event that turned the innocent young Mexican into an avenging terror of the roads.
F
GOI
The Liberation of Gabriel King (age 8-11)
by K. L. Going
growing up ... friendship ... bigotry
Gabriel King was a born chicken. Hes afraid of spiders, corpses, loose cows, and just about everything related to the fifth grade. Gabes best friend, Frita Wilson, thinks Gabe needs some liberating from his fears. Frita knows something about being brave she's the only black kid in school in a town with an active Ku Klux Klan. Together Gabe and Frita are going to spend the summer of 1976 facing down the fears on Gabes list. But it turns out that Frita has her own list, and while shes helping Gabe confront his fears, shes avoiding the thing that scares her the most.
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VOS
Hide and Seek (age 8-11)
by Ida Vos
war ... bigotry ... survival ... historical
A young Jewish girl living in Holland tells of her experiences during the Nazi occupation, her years in hiding, and the after shock when the war finally ends.
sequel: Anna Is Still Here
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VOS
The Key Is Lost (age 8-11)
by Ida Vos
bigotry ... survival ... historical
When the Germans occupy Holland in 1940 and begin to persecute the Jews there, twelve-year-old Eva and her family assume false names and move from one hiding place to another.
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TAY
The Well: David's Story (age 8-11)
by Mildred D. Taylor
historical ... bigotry
In Mississippi in the early 1900s, ten-year-old David Logan's family generously shares their well water with both white and African-American neighbors in an atmosphere of potential racial violence.
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TAY
The Friendship (age 8-11)
by Mildred D. Taylor
historical ... bigotry
Cassie Logan and her brothers have been warned never to go to the Wallace store, so they know to expect trouble there. What they don't expect is to hear Mr. Tom Bee, an elderly black man, daring to call the white storekeeper by his first name. The year is 1933, the place is Mississippi, and any child knows that some things just aren't done...
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UCH
A Jar of Dreams (age 8-11)
by Yoshiko Uchida
bigotry ... identity ... historical ... family
Eleven-year-old Rinko grows up in a closely-knit Japanese American family in Northern California during the Depression, a time of great prejudice.
sequel: The Best Bad Thing
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HOL
Paperboy (age 8-11)
by Isabelle Holland
bigotry ... family ... enterprise
In 1881 in New York City, teenaged Kevin O'Donnell, ever conscious of the prejudice against the Irish poor, struggles to support his sick father and young sister by working as a messenger for a prominent newspaper, but finds his job threatened when he is falsely accused of stealing from his employer.

Sat Aug 25 11:55:25 2012
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