Jr. High Titles Trending in Youth Literature

Engle, M. (2013).The lightning dreamer, Cuba’s greatest abolitionist. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

            This author is a weaver of stories that can surround the reader in softly lyrics and gentle tones that discuss serious issues.  The story of the Lightning Dreamer, girls are not supposed to think, read or write.  They are supposed to marry well and just be.  This causes a bit of a problem for Tula, a young girl just wanting to read and be free to not hide while she does it.  She doesn’t want her mother to be so greedy and to marry her off to anyone with the most money.  She wants her friend, and slave, Caridad, to be free too. Her father let her read, and read to her, but her new step father won’t allow it.  Tula’s mother is expecting her to marry so she will regain her grandfather’s approval and inherit more money for the family. Tula identifies with the gift her grandfather gives her (in an implied metaphor) a caged yellow bird, that can’t fly and can only sit and sing. Watching her pet makes her feel useless and lifeless.  She recites poems from others writing about freedoms and justice. 

I love the way the words flow in this story, how the author makes you understand the feelings and wishes of the characters while using the least amounts of words.  She mentions in the story how words in the poems are like the flight pattern of birds swooping and flying high and low.  Her poem like story keeps you reading and makes it quickly a favorite of very sad and great story that will affect the way readers see those from other countries and make you thankful for the freedoms we take for granted every day.

Halperin, W. (2013). Peace. New York: Simon & Schuster.

            This book is beautiful collage pictures in soft pastels that lead the eyes on a visual journey across great lands of people who have stood up for peace throughout the world.  It is very diverse book. The book is filled with quotes from famous important people in the world, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Dalai Lama, who promote peace around them. It allows you to use your senses in the book, so you can see peace?  For touching, may your hands be peaceful it says. And even includes senses of tasting to promote peace in the choices we make around the world with our food.  This book has depth and complexity that readers can wonder on each page about how peacefully they can surround themselves with a better world. This book could be a great asset to any classroom for writing about one quote or page of pictures.  I would like to ask students to use the quotes to identify something in their life they could relate to in a more peaceful way.

Schroeder, L. (2013). Falling for you. New York: Simon & Schuster. 

       I heart you, you haunt me. In this story Rae is a high school student trying to hide from the abusive step dad and her worthless mother.  This story is told in backwards order, so it is like a rewound movie that begins at the end and shows the reader what led up to that fateful day.  This was a bit hard to follow but gave the read some neat little foreshadowing of what is to come.  Rae meets a boy who she thinks is her friend, yet he doesn’t really want her as much as he wants the image of a girlfriend.  He is pushy and demanding, this book is a good example of what NOT to put up with in relationships.  She enjoys her job and finds her real family there at her work in the flower shop.  Rae also begins a new friendship that is more calm and friendly with the barista from the neighboring coffee shop.  The story involves poetry as, Schroeder loves to weave into her story.  This book also brings up the argument; of should anonymous submissions be allowed in the school poetry contest.  Does it let students hide their pain, or should students say how they really feel and be free of belittlement or teasing. Falling for You has the theme of finding oneself and understanding you should not let others abuse you. But to learn that lesson will Rae survive?

 

  She finally found something right in her life, how could it turn out to be so wrong.  This story by Lisa

Schroeder is unlike her other books in that, she wrote this one as a story format, instead of poetry format,

like her first book,