Special Collections
Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winners
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The Tamarack Tree
by Betty Underwood and Bea HolmesIn 1833 Bernadette come to Canterbury dreaming of a better education. She found herself in the middle of an uproar over girls of color being admitted to a female seminary in a time when education for white women was hard to come by.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Mangrove Tree
by Susan L. Roth and Cindy TrumboreFor a long time, the people of Hargigo, a village in the tiny African country of Eritrea, were living without enough food for themselves and their animals. Then along came a scientist, Dr. Gordon Sato, who helped to change their lives for the better. And it all started by planting some special mangrove trees. This fascinating story of environmental innovation is a celebration of creativity, hard work and the ability of one man to make a positive difference in the lives of many.
Freedom's Children
by Ellen S. LevineIn this inspiring collection of true stories, thirty African-Americans who were children or teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s talk about what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South-to sit in an all-white restaurant and demand to be served, to refuse to give up a seat at the front of the bus, to be among the first to integrate the public schools, and to face violence, arrest, and even death for the cause of freedom."Thrilling...Nothing short of wonderful."-The New York TimesAwards:( A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year( A Booklist Editors' Choice
Profiles in Courage Young Readers Memorial Edition
by John F. KennedyCourage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage, that they would stand up, that they could be counted on.
That is why this book so fitted his personality, his beliefs. It is a study of men who, at risk to themselves, their futures, even the well-being of their children, stood fast for principle. It was toward that ideal that he modeled his life. And this in time gave heart to others.
As Andrew Jackson said, "One man with courage makes a majority." That is the effect President Kennedy had on others.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Brave Girl
by Michelle MarkelFrom acclaimed author Michelle Markel and Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet comes this true story of Clara Lemlich, a young Ukrainian immigrant who led the largest strike of women workers in U. S. history.
Wilma Unlimited
by Kathleen KrullBefore Wilma was five years old, polio had paralyzed her left leg. Everyone said she would never walk again. But Wilma refused to believe it. Not only would she walk again, she vowed, she'd run. And she did run--all the way to the Olympics, where she became the first American woman to earn three gold medals in a single olympiad.
The Road from Home
by David KherdianAn extraordinary biography, this is also a record and reminder of yet another infamous holocaust in our century. Veron Dumehjian was born to a prosperous Armenian family, who lived in the Armenian quarter of the city of Aziziya, Turkey. Her early childhood was idyllic, until 1915, when the Turkish government, after years of persecuting its Christian minorities, decided to rid Turkey of its Armenian population. Veron was deported with her family and survived incredible hardship and suffering until, at the age of 16, she left for America as a "mail-order" bride. Poet-anthologist David Kherdian's story of his mother is a unique and gripping story of courage, survival and hope.
Newbery Medal Honor book
The Composition
by Antonio SkármetaIn a village in Chile, Pedro and Daniel are two typical nine-year-old boys. Up until Daniel's father gets arrested, their biggest worry had been how to improve their soccer skills. Now, they are thrust into a situation where they must grapple with the incomprehensible: dictatorship and its inherent abuses. "The Composition" is a winner of the Americas Award for Children's Literature and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.
Let Me Play
by Karen BlumenthalIn 1972, Congress passed a modest little law called Title IX, that said any school receiving money from the government couldn't treat boys and girls differently because of their sex. For the first time, girls across the United States got a real chance to play on the athletic field and that little law took on a role far greater than anyone ever imagined it could.
Weedflower
by Cynthia KadohataTwelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new "home." Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land. With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal-winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.
The Endless Steppe
by Esther HautzigA young Polish girl, her father, her mother, and her grandmother are taken prisoner by the Russians during World War II, evicted from their home, and shipped in a filthy cattle car to a forced-labor camp in a remote, impoverished Siberian village. For four terrible years, the family struggles for beds, food, clothing, fuel--all the everyday things that one takes for granted. Despite bitter hardships, the family makes a new life with new friends. And they never lose their deep affection and trust in one another. Esther Rudomin Hautzig's account of her childhood in Siberia is a magnificent story of the triumph of the human spirit.
A Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winner.
Selavi, That Is Life
by Youme Landowne"Not so long ago and not so far away, people with guns could take a family, burn a house and disappear, leaving a small child alone in the world. " So begins the true story of Selavi, a small boy who finds himself on the streets of Haiti.
Selavi finds other street children who share their food and a place to sleep with him. Together they proclaim a message of hope through murals and radio programs. Youme is an artist and activist who has worked with communities in Kenya, Japan, Haiti and Cuba to make art which honors personal and cultural wisdom.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Cay
by Theodore TaylorPhillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.”
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
· A New York Times Best Book of the Year
· A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
· A Horn Book Honor Book
· An American Library Association Notable Book
· A Publishers Weekly Children’s Book to Remember
· A Child Study Association’s Pick of Children’s Books of the Year
· Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
· Commonwealth Club of California: Literature Award
· Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People Award
· Woodward School Annual Book Award
· Friends of the Library Award, University of California at Irvine
· Jane Addams Book Award
Anthony Burns
by Virginia HamiltonThe &“unforgettable&” novel from the Newbery Medal–winning author tells the true story of a runaway slave whose capture and trial set off abolitionist riots (Kirkus Reviews).Anthony Burns is a runaway slave who has just started to build a life for himself in Boston. Then his former owner comes to town to collect him. Anthony won&’t go willingly, though, and people across the city step forward to make sure he&’s not taken. Based on the true story of a man who stood up against the Fugitive Slave Law, Hamilton&’s gripping account follows the battle in the streets and in the courts to keep Burns a citizen of Boston—a battle that is the prelude to the nation&’s bloody Civil War.
Ain't Gonna Study War No More
by Milton MeltzerA history of those who have protested war with emphasis on the United States.
The Wheel of King Asoka
by Ashok DavarA brief account of King Asoka and how he ruled over his dynasty making it powerful and symbolized Ashoka Chakra. Throughout centuries the wheel of King Asoka has been there to inspire us to live as did this great king of India - in peace and love.
The Escape of Oney Judge
by Emily Arnold MccullyWhen General George Washington is elected the first President of the United States, his wife chooses young Oney Judge, a house slave who works as a seamstress at Mount Vernon, to travel with her to the nation's capital in New York City as her personal maid. When the capital is moved to Philadelphia, the Washingtons and Oney move, too, and there Oney meets free blacks for the first time. At first Oney can't imagine being free - she depends on the Washingtons for food, warmth, and clothing. But then Mrs. Washington tells Oney that after her death she will be sent to live with Mrs. Washington's granddaughter. Oney is horrified because she knows it is likely that she will then be sold to a stranger - the worst fate she can imagine. Oney realizes she must run.
Kids at Work
by Russell FreedmanLewis Hine's photographs expose the chilling reality of the inhumane working conditions American children endured during the early twentieth century. Hines's photographs of children at work were so devastating that they convinced the American people that Congress must pass child labor laws.
Bat 6
by Virginia Euwer WolffThe sixth-grade girls of Barlow and Bear Creek Ridge have been waiting to play in the annual softball game -- the Bat 6 -- for as long as they can remember.
But something is different this year. There's a new girl on both teams, each with a secret in her past that puts them on a collision course set to explode on game day. No one knows how to stop it. All they can do is watch...
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Journey of the Sparrows
by Fran Leeper BussMaria and her brother and sister, Salvadoran refugees, are smuggled into the United States in crates and try to eke out a living in Chicago with the help of a sympathetic family.
Sitti's Secrets
by Naomi Shihab NyeA young girl describes a visit to see her grandmother in a Palestinian village on the West Bank.
The Surrender Tree
by Margarita EngleIt is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.
Black, white, Cuban, Spanish—Rosa does her best for everyone. Yet who can heal a country so torn apart by war? Acclaimed poet Margarita Engle has created another breathtaking portrait of Cuba.
The Surrender Tree is a 2009 Newbery Honor Book, the winner of the 2009 Pura Belpre Medal for Narrative and the 2009 Bank Street - Claudia Lewis Award, and a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Blue Mystery
by Margot Benary-IsbertThe principal event is the disappearance of a blue gloxinia, [Blue Mystery] a special flower of Dr. Benninger's, and the clearance of Fridolin from suspicion.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Patrol
by Walter Dean MyersVietnam. A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy. He crouches and waits -- heart pounding, tense and trembling, biting back tears. When will it all be over? Walter Dean Myers joined the army on his seventeeth birthday, at the onset of American involvement in Vietnam, but it was the death of his brother in 1968 that forever changed his mind about war. In a gripping and powerful story-poem, the award-winning author takes readers into the heart and mind of a young soldier in an alien land who comes face-to-face with the enemy.
Looking Out
by Victoria BoutisThough pleased to be part of the "in" crowd at her new school, Ellen's growing awareness of her parents' social concerns, expressed in their support of the condemned Rosenbergs, forces her to make a choice about what really matters in life.