Last Days of Summer

Kluger, Steve. Last Days of Summer.  New York, NY: Perennial Books, 1998. ISBN: 0-380-79763-1. PBK $13.00.

Awards: n/a

Reviews:

Publishers Weekly 1998

Library Journal 1998

Parade 1998

Kirkus 1998

Annotation: A coming of age novel about a 13 year-old-boy told through letters, telegraphs, interviews and newspaper clippings. Enjoyable and realistic characters you'll grow close too and want to join for a baseball game in Brooklyn circa 1941.

Booktalk:

It's April 1940--the rest of the world is at war with Hitler. You're just a Jewish kid in Brooklyn whose been abandoned by your father and you're best friend is deported because he is Japenese. The school bully keeps targeting you and you have no faith in FDR. Who do you call on? No one but Charlie Banks, 3rd baseman for the NY Giants. Even though his last letter stated: "Dear Kid: Last week it was the plague. Now it's malaria. What do I look--stupid to you? Your lucky I don't send somebody over there to tap you on the conk. I am inclosing 1 last picture. Do not write to me again. --Chas Banks, 3d Base." Well, there's always the next letter during these Last Days of Summer.

Image courtesy of: www.stevekluger.com

This Vast Land

Ambrose, Stephen E. This Vast Land. 1st Edition. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003. ISBN: 0-689-86448-5. Hardcover $17.95.

Awards: n/a

Reviews:

School Library Journal 2003

Booklist 2003

Annotation: A fictional journal kept by young George Shannon as he joins the adventure of the lifetime, travelling with Lewis and Clark on the mission sanctioned by President Jefferson. 

Booktalk:

"Aug. 30, 1803: 

This day capt. Lewis said I could accompany him and his party on their trip to St. Louis and then up the Missouri River. It has taken me six weeks to presuade him...

Oct. 20, 1803:

I killed my first deer today, it was fit and fine...[they] annointed me with the deer's blood, smearing it on my forehead...this is always done for a man's first deer..."

Just the opening months alone will prove to change George Shannon's life forever as he follows Lewis and Clark across the American wilderness of This Vast Land. 

Image courtesy of: www.swaptree.com

Bloody Jack

Meyer, LA. Bloody Jack: Being n Account of the Curious adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ships Boy. New York, NY: Harcourt Children's Books, 2002. Print. ISBN: 0152167315. Hardcover. 336 pp. $17.00.

Awards: N/A

Reviewed: 

Publishers Weekly 2002

Library School Journal 2002

Booklist *Starred Review*

Annotation: The heroine in this novel--the first of a series is Mary "Jacky" Faber, she's been a orphan for almost as long as she can remember in early 19th Century London. But her luck is about to change as she heads out on the start of a swashbuckling adventure disgused as "Jacky" the ship's boy. 

Booktalk:

If you thought the adventures of Cap'n Jack Sparrow of the Black Pearl were wild and wonderful then you are in for a rollercoaster of a ride. Join the Jacky on the M/S Dolphin to escape life as an orphan in the streets of London. She may be hiding out as a boy but when she earns her her nickname "Bloody Jack" in a sea battle to rival any other, you'll be glad you followed along! Join, suit up and get ready for some blood! 

Image courtesy of: www.uflimho.blogspot.com

Bread Givers

Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. New York, NY: Persea Books, 2003. Print. ISBN: 0892552905. PBK. $8.00.

Awards:N/A

Reviews:

Included in Jesse Larsen's 500 Great Books by Women

Annotation: The first quarter of the 20th Century proved to be a groundbreaking period for women across the United States. In this novel the struggle for one young Jewish woman of the New World is to find her place while her father desperately tries to keep her living in the Old World's ways.

Booktalk:

Why cannot my father leave me be? I want to experience the world. I want to have a taste of everything and then decide for myself if it is good or bad. I am tired of being told how a nice young Jewish maiden must only busy herself with becoming ready for her pending marriage to a nice young Jewish man. But here in America, "where girls pick out for themselves the men they want for husbands, how grand would it be if the children could also pick out their fathers and mothers" (76).

Image courtesy of: www.tower.com

A Wrinkle in Time

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1962. ISBN 0-440-49805-8. $6.50. Paperback edition. Awards:  Newbery Medal (1963) Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1965) Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (1963) Annotation: This title is the first in a series by L'Engle surrounding the Murry and O'Keefe families. Meg Murry must save her father whose mysterious disappearance has answered no questions. Joined by the Calvin O'Keefe (who thinks quite a lot of himself) and her young brother, they travel through the tesseract--a folding of space and time.   Book talk: "It was a dark and stormy night" in which an unimaginable adventure began for the unsuspecting Meg Murry, her brother and schoolmate as they pass through A Wrinkle in Time. Image courtesy of: www.kidsource.com