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Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan is a powerful story about a rich and spoiled Mexican girl whose sudden impoverishment in the 1930s takes her in to the migrant worker camps of California. It teaches...
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Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by Sandra Dallas
Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by Sandra Dallas is an appropriate book for reading just before our country’s Independence Day. It focuses on a Japanese American family during the early part of...
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Tomorrowland by Steven Kotler
Tomorrowland by Steven Kotler (New Harvest, May 2015) is a collection of previously published essays about the new frontiers available in science. The subtitle suggests that the text provides examples...
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The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron
The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron (originally published 1987) is a clever early chapter book about a boy and his younger brother, along with the crazy stories Julian makes up to explain the world...
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Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson (originally published 2012) is an amazing nonfiction account of the Titanic disaster, drawn directly from first-hand accounts written by the...
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Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2011 National Book Award for Young People and Newbery Honor Award) is a novel in poetry about a young girl’s relocation to American from Vietnam during the...
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The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman
The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman is a clever chapter book written from the perspective of four different preteens who have been caught cheating on their homework with a “homework machine.” The book...
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Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (published serially from 1838-1839) meets the Dickensian stereotype of a very long book. I began reading it when my daughter was newborn and I finally finished it,...
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In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord (published 1984) tells of one girl’s journey from her traditional Chinese home to New York City in 1947. How can Shirley hold on to her...
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Picture Book Sunday: For the Right to Learn by Rebecca Langston-George
For the Right to Learn by Rebecca Langston-George (Capstone, September 2015) is a picture book biography of Malala Yousafzai, giving younger readers a background of just what she was able to...
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Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy is an inspiration inspirational book for anybody needing motivation to put off procrastination and become more efficient in using their time, their energy, and their...
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Fortunately, the Milk by Neal Gaiman
Remember the last dream you had that seemed to be completely random? One minute it makes sense: the next minute it doesn’t. Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman is a strange, dream-like story. It is a...
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Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo
Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo (translated by Ann Leonori) is a young adult novel based on the true story about a boy who, as a child slave in Pakistan, changed the outlook for the hopeless children who...
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A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park is a fictionalized version of two related stories in the recent history of Sudan. It tells two parallel stories, one in the 1980s and the other just a few years...
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Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Velchin
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Velchin is a lighthearted look at a serious time in Russian history. From the other books I reviewed this week about Pakistan child slavery and the Sudanese civil war,...
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Picture Book Sunday: The Queen’s Shadow by Cybele Young
The Queen’s Shadow by Cybele Young (Kids Can Press, March 2015) is a most unusual picture book for older readers about how animals see. It is difficult to identify as a fiction or a nonfiction, simply...
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The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller
The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller is a helpful book for educators and parents to gain ideas on how to help children embrace and love free reading time. The...
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Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie was a book that read on a whim. I was testing out my new phone and wondered how well the OverDrive app would sync with the app on my tablet. To...
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The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss
The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination by Barry Strauss (Simon & Schuster, March 2015) examines the traditions of the assassination of Julius Caesar, clearing up the...
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Covenant Motherhood by Stephanie Dibb Sorensen
Covenant Motherhood by Stephanie Dibb Sorensen is an inspiring book for Latter-day Saint mothers who wish to refresh their understanding of the Atonement and how covenants, the atonement, and the life...
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