Author

Title

Publisher

Publication Year

Annotation

Anderson, M. T.

Whales on Stilts

Harcourt

2005

Racing against the clock, shy middle-school student Lily and her best friends, Katie and Jasper, must foil the plot of her father's conniving boss to conquer the world using an army of whales.

Birdsall, Jeanne

The Penderwicks: a summer tale of four sisters, two rabbits, and a very interesting boy

Knof

2005

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his mother.

Fleischman, Sid

The Whipping Boy

HarperTrophy

2003

A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws.

Fritz, Jean

Around the World in a Hundred Years: from Henry the Navigator to Magellan

Putnam & Grosset Group

1998

Examines the great wave of European exploration during the fifteenth century which resulted in more accurate maps.

George, Jean C.

My Side of the Mountain

Dutton

1988

A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.

George, Jean C.

Julie of the Wolves

HarperCollins

1972

While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

Howe, James

Bunnicula Strikes Again

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

1999

When Bunnicula the rabbit starts acting strangely, the Monroe dogs and cat renew their suspicions that he is a vampire.

Howe, James and Deborah

Bunnicula: a rabbit tale mystery

Atheneum

2004

Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.

Hudson, Wade

Five Brave Explorers

Scholastic

1995

Presents the life stories of five African American explorers: Esteban Dorantes, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, Matthew A. Henson, Mae C. Jemison, and James Pierce Beckwourth.

Ibbotson, Eva

The Star of Kazan

Dutton Children’s Book

2004

Annika, a twelve-year-old foundling in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, and soon afterwards a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

Keller, Helen

Helen Keller: the Story of my Life

Signet Classic

2002

An autobiography of Helen Keller, written while she was young woman, in which she tells of her early life, her relationship with her teacher Anne Sullivan, and her struggles to triumph over blindness and deafness.

O’Dell, Scott

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers

1978

Records the courage and self-reliance of an Indian girl who lived alone for eighteen years on an isolated island off the California coast when her tribe emigrated and she was left behind.

Parks, Rosa

Rosa Parks, My Story

Dial Books

1992

Rosa Park's life story reveals the deliberate choices she made that earned her the title "Mother to a Movement."

Polacco, Patricia

Pink and Say

Philomel Books

1994

Chronicles the friendship of Pink, a fifteen-year-old African-American Union soldier, and Say, his poor white comrade, as one nurses the other back to health from a battle wound and the two of them are imprisoned at Andersonville. Based on a true story.

Pullman, Philip

The Scarecrow and His Servant

Knof

2005

A scarecrow and his boy servant, Jack, set off on a dangerous adventure as they try to outwit the crooked Buffaloni family and stake their claim to valuable Spring Valley.

Banks, Lynne

Reid

The Return of the Indian

Doubleday

1986

A year after he sends his Indian friend, Little Bear, back into the magic cupboard, Omri decides to bring him back only to find that he is close to death and in need of help. Sequel to "The Indian in the Cupboard."

Banks, Lynne Reid

The Secret of the Indian

Avon

1990

Omri and his friend Patrick must risk grownups' discovering their secret when they find themselves in need of a friend's toy plastic doctors to save wounded people from the dangerous world of the Old West.

Sachar, Louis

Holes

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

1998

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Silverstein, Shel

Falling Up: Poems and Drawings

HarperCollins

1996

A collection of poems by American poet and humorist, Shel Silverstein including the poems My nose garden, Little Hoarse, Strange Restaurant, Sharing, Noise Day, and many more.

Winter, Jeanette

Follow the Drinking Gourd

Knopf

1988

By following the directions in a song, "The Drinking Gourd," taught them by an old sailor named Peg Leg Joe, runaway slaves journey north along the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada.

Woodruff, Elvira

Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail

Yearling

2000

Twelve-year-old Austin Ives writes letters to his younger brother describing his three-thousand-mile journey from their home in Pennsylvania to Oregon in 1851.