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Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winners
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Marianthe's Story, Painted Words
by AlikiTwo separate stories in one book, the first telling of Mari's starting school in a new land, and the second describing village life in her country before she and her family left in search of a better life.
Martin's Big Words
by Doreen RappaportThis picture book biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brings his life and the profound nature of his message to young children through his own words. Martin Luther King, Jr. , was one of the most influential and gifted speakers of all time. Doreen Rappaport uses quotes from some of his most beloved speeches to tell the story of his life and his work in a simple, direct way. A timeline and a list of additional books and web sites help make this a standout biography of Dr. King.
Winner of the Caldecott Honor
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Meeting with a Stranger
by Duane BradleyCantuffa is a thick thorn bush which once covered much of the land of Ethiopia, preventing any progress until it had been cut away. For this reason an emperor about to make a voyage across the country proclaimed, "Cut down the cantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I know not where I am going."
This story helps to shack away at some of the thorns which still obscure this nation. It describes the young boy Teffera, left in charge of his family's farm and sheep while his father was undergoing an operation. When a ferangi, an American, came to his small village to help teach new methods of caring for the sheep, Teffera had to decide whether he should accept this advice. His people had had substantial reason to mistrust the Westerners, and he was instilled with pride in own traditions, but on the other hand his flocks were dying.
This book has the dual value of illuminating the character of the Ethiopian peasant and of providing an insight into the problems they must face in adapting to progress while maintaining their national spirit.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Middle Passage
by Tom Feelings and John Henrik ClarkeThe Middle Passage is the name given to one of the most tragic ordeals in history: the cruel and terrifying journey of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean.
In this seminal work, master artist Tom Feelings tells the complete story of this horrific diaspora in sixty-four extraordinary narrative paintings. Achingly real, they draw us into the lives of the millions of African men, women, and children who were savagely torn from their beautiful homelands, crowded into disease-ridden "death ships", and transported under nightmarish conditions to the so-called New World.
An introduction by noted historian Dr. John Henrik Clarke traces the roots of the Atlantic slave trade and gives a vivid summary of its four centuries of brutality. The Middle Passage reaches us on a visceral level. No one can experience it and remain unmoved. But while we absorb the horror of these images, we also can find some hope in them. They are a tribute to the survival of the human spirit, and the humanity won by the survivors of the Middle Passage belongs to us all.
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Medal
Midnight without a Moon
by Linda Williams JacksonWashington Post 2017 KidsPost Summer Book Club selection! New York Public Library Best Books for Kids! "Jackson pulls no punches in the characters&’ heated discussions and keeps dialogue raw and real..." —Bulletin "Jackson&’s debut does an excellent job dramatizing the injustice that was epidemic in the pre–civil rights South and capturing the sounds and sensibilities of that time and place. Her sympathetic characters and their stories will make this thoughtful book especially good for classroom use." —Booklist "A powerful story." —Kirkus "This nuanced coming-of-age story by a debut author is deftly delivered, with engaging characters set against a richly contextualized backdrop of life for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. It&’s also an authentic work of historical fiction...about a pivotal incident in the civil rights movement." —Horn Book "An unflinching and sensitively-told coming-of-age story from the perspective of a smart and thoughtful young girl in 1950s Mississippi." —SLJ &“Midnight Without a Moon offers readers an unflinching bird's eye view of 1955 Mississippi. Young Rose Lee has one foot steeped in the segregated South and the other in the new world where Negroes and girls are expecting more, doing more, and willing to risk all to live lives of their own choosing. Bravo to Jackson, for a magnificent piece of writing!&” —Sharon G. Flake, Coretta Scott King Award winning author of Unstoppable Octobia May and The Skin I'm In &“Rose shines bright in the darkness -- brave, beautiful, and full of hard-won hope. She'll be an inspiration to every reader who meets her, as she has been to me.&” –Caroline Starr Rose, author of May B and Blue Birds —
Molly Bannaky
by Alice Mcgill and Chris K. SoentpietOn a cold gray morning in 1683, Molly Walsh sat on a stool tugging at the udder of an obstinate cow. When she spilled the milk, she was brought before the court for stealing. Because she could read, Molly escaped the typical punishment of death on the gallows. At the age of seventeen, the English dairymaid was exiled from her country and sentenced to work as an indentured servant in British Colonial America. Molly worked for a planter in Maryland for seven long years. Then she was given an ox hitched to a cart, some supplies-and her freedom. That a lone woman should stake land was unheard of. That she would marry an African slave was even more so. Yet Molly prospered, and with her husband Bannaky, she turned a one-room cabin in the wilderness into a thriving one hundred-acre farm. And one day she had the pleasure of writing her new grandson's name in her cherished Bible: Benjamin Banneker.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Monkey and the Wild, Wild Wind
by Ryerson Johnson and Lois LignellThis is the story of a monkey whose antics resulted in cooperation and friendship among the animals stranded in a cave.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Nasreen's Secret School
by Jeanette WinterBased on a true story. After her parents are taken away by the Taliban, young Nasreen stops speaking. But as she spends time in a secret school, she slowly breaks out of her shell.
Natural History
by M. B. GoffsteinText and illustrations descibe the riches of the earth and how people can promote peace and goodwill by sharing equitably with each other and their fellow creatures.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Never to Forget
by Milton MeltzerSix million Jews were killed in Europe between the years 1933 and 1945. What can that number mean to us today? We can that number mean to us today? We are told never to forget the Holocaust, but how can we remember something so incomprehensible?
New Shoes
by Susan Lynn Meyer and Eric VelasquezWhen her brother's hand-me-down shoes don't fit, it is time for Ella Mae to get new ones. She is ecstatic, but when she and her mother arrive at Mr. Johnson's shoe store, her happiness quickly turns to dejection.
Ella Mae is forced to wait when a customer arrives after her and is served first. Ella Mae is unable even to try on the shoes because of her skin color. Determined to fight back, Ella Mae and her friend Charlotte work tirelessly to collect and restore old shoes, wiping, washing, and polishing them to perfection.
The girls then have their very own shoe sale, giving the other African American members of their community a place to buy shoes where they can betreated fairly and "try on all the shoes they want. "
Set in the South during the time of segregation, this stunning picture book brings the civil rights era to life for contemporary readers.
Jane Addams Children's Book Award Medal Winner
The Night Diary
by Veera HiranandaniA 2019 NEWBERY HONOR BOOK"A gripping, nuanced story of the human cost of conflict appropriate for both children and adults." -Kirkus, starred reviewIn the vein of Inside Out and Back Again and The War That Saved My Life comes a poignant, personal, and hopeful tale of India's partition, and of one girl's journey to find a new home in a divided countryIt's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders.Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore. When Papa decides it's too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train but later on foot to reach her new home. The journey is long, difficult, and dangerous, and after losing her mother as a baby, Nisha can't imagine losing her homeland, too. But even if her country has been ripped apart, Nisha still believes in the possibility of putting herself back together.Told through Nisha's letters to her mother, The Night Diary is a heartfelt story of one girl's search for home, for her own identity...and for a hopeful future.
Nobody Wants A Nuclear War
by Judith VignaWhen a mother discovers her small daughter and son have built a shelter to protect themselves from nuclear attact, she explains that grownups all over the world are working hard to make the world safe for children to grow up in.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Other Side of Truth
by Beverley NaidooWill the truth harm them -- or save them?
When Nigeria's corrupt military government kills their mother, twelve-year-old Sade and her brother Femi think their lives are over. Out of fear for their safety, their father, an outspoken journalist, decides to smuggle the children out of Nigeria and into London, where their uncle lives.
But when they get to the cold and massive city, they find themselves lost and alone, with no one to trust and no idea when -- or if -- they will ever see their father again. The Other Side of Truth is a gripping adventure story about courage, family, and the power of truth.
Out of Bounds
by Beverley NaidooWe are the young people,
We will not be broken!
We demand freedom
And say
"Away with slavery
In our land of Africa!"
For almost fifty years apartheid forced the young people of South Africa to live apart as Blacks, Whites, Indians, and "Coloreds." This unique and dramatic collection of stories -- by native South African and Carnegie Medalist Beverley Naidoo -- is about young people's choices in a beautiful country made ugly by injustice.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner Each story is set in a different decade during the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, and features fictional characters caught up in very real events. Included is a Timeline Across Apartheid, which recounts some of the restrictive laws passed during this era, the events leading up to South Africa's first free democratic elections, and the establishment of a new "rainbow government" that leads the country today. A Junior Library Guild Selection
Parvana's Journey
by Deborah EllisIn this sequel to "The Breadwinner, " the Taliban still control Afghanistan, but Kabul is in ruins. Twelve-year-old Parvana's father has just died, and her mother, sister, and brother could be anywhere in the country. Parvana sets out alone to find them, masquerading as a boy, and she meets other children who are victims of war.
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.
Paul Robeson (Crowell Biographies)
by Eloise GreenfieldA biography of the black man who became a famous singer, actor, and spokesman for equal rights for his people.
People Are Important
by Eva Knox EvansExplains the origins of communication and languages and how customs and symbols mean different things to different peoples.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Perilous Road
by William O. SteeleChris Brabson hates Yankees, plain and simple. Not only are the Union troops down in Tennessee where they don't belong, but they helped themselves to all the supplies his family had saved for winter. And to add to it all, his brother joined up with the Union Army. How could he betray the south, Chris wonders.
Chris wants to prove his loyalty to the Confederate cause, any way he can. When he sees a Union wagon train cutting through the valley, he has his chance. He tells a spy where and how the Confederates can attack. But then he finds out that Jethro could be driving one of those Yankee wagons! Has he just caused the death of his own brother?
A Newbery Honor book and Jane Addams Children's Book Award Medal Winner
Piecing Me Together
by Renée Watson2018 Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.
Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed.
Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And she has.
She accepted a scholarship to a mostly-white private school and even Saturday morning test prep opportunities. But some opportunities feel more demeaning than helpful.
Like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Except really, it's for black girls. From "bad" neighborhoods.
And just because Maxine, her college-graduate mentor, is black doesn't mean she understands Jade.
And maybe there are some things Jade could show these successful women about the real world and finding ways to make a real difference.
NPR’s Best Books of 2017
A 2017 New York Public Library Best Teen Book of the Year
Chicago Public Library’s Best Books of 2017
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2017
Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books of 2017
2018 Josette Frank Award Winner
A New York Times Bestseller
Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honors Book
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
by Amy Lee-TaiWhile she and her family are interned at Topaz Relocation Center during World War II, Mari gradually adjusts as she enrolls in an art class, makes a friend, plants sunflowers and waits for them to grow.
Planting the Trees of Kenya
by Claire A. NivolaWangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Green Belt Movement, grew up in the highlands of Kenya, where fig trees cloaked the hills, fish filled the streams, and the people tended their bountiful gardens. But over many years, as more and more land was cleared, Kenya was transformed. When Wangari returned home from college in America, she found the village gardens dry, the people malnourished, and the trees gone. How could she alone bring back the trees and restore the gardens and the people? Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, says: “Wangari Maathai’s epic story has never been told better—-everyone who reads this book will want to plant a tree!” With glowing watercolor illustrations and lyrical prose, Claire Nivola tells the remarkable story of one woman’s effort to change the fate of her land by teaching many to care for it. An author’s note provides further information about Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement. In keeping with the theme of the story, the book is printed on recycled paper.
The Princess And The Admiral
by Charlotte Pomerantz and Tony ChenA small patch of dry Asian land called the Tiny Kingdom serves as the home for a community of poor farmers and fisherfolk. The land, as poor as its people, holds no gold, silver, or other riches. For this reason, no country has ever waged war against the Tiny Kingdom, and the people have lived in peace for 100 years. But when Princess Mat Mat, ruler of the Tiny Kingdom, meets with her advisers to plan a great peace celebration, they bring bad news. A large fleet of warships is sailing toward them and will attack their people in just two days. With no army, no forts, and no arsenal, how can the princess defend her country? Her wisdom testifies that the most heroic action does not win wars, but prevents them. Princess Mat Mat devises a plan that includes, as an unexpected ally, the moon.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
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