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Africville
By Shauntay Grant. 2018
Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, Young People’s Literature – Illustrated BooksWhen a young girl visits the site of…
Africville, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the stories she’s heard from her family come to mind. She imagines what the community was once like — the brightly painted houses nestled into the hillside, the field where boys played football, the pond where all the kids went rafting, the bountiful fishing, the huge bonfires. Coming out of her reverie, she visits the present-day park and the sundial where her great- grandmother’s name is carved in stone, and celebrates a summer day at the annual Africville Reunion/Festival.Africville was a vibrant Black community for more than 150 years. But even though its residents paid municipal taxes, they lived without running water, sewers, paved roads and police, fire-truck and ambulance services. Over time, the city located a slaughterhouse, a hospital for infectious disease, and even the city garbage dump nearby. In the 1960s, city officials decided to demolish the community, moving people out in city dump trucks and relocating them in public housing.Today, Africville has been replaced by a park, where former residents and their families gather each summer to remember their community.Amber and clay
By Laura Amy Schlitz. 2021
The Newbery Medal–winning author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! gives readers a virtuoso performance in verse in this profoundly original…
epic pitched just right for fans of poetry, history, mythology, and fantasy. Welcome to ancient Greece as only genius storyteller Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, "ringed by a restless sea," live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto is a spoiled aristocrat, a girl as precious as amber but willful and wild. She'll marry and be tamed—the curse of all highborn girls—but risk her life for a season first to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos—Amber and Clay—never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force. Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archaeological "artifacts," this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate the over—and underworlds of human historySiege: how General Washington kicked the British out of Boston and launched a revolution
By Roxane Orgill. 2018
A novel in verse. Story of the siege of Boston that launched the war to defeat the British. Follows the…
events from the summer of 1775 to the spring of 1776, and gives voice to the soldiers and civilians of that time. For grades 6-9. 2018Hope on the plains: the Dakota series, Book 2 (Dakota Series #2)
By Linda Byler. 2017
Hannah and her family still struggle with the events of The Homestead (DB 88593), but they are settling into life…
in North Dakota when tragedy strikes. As other Amish families decide to return to Lancaster, Hannah and her family face the same decision, even as she is being courted. 2017Jazz owls: a novel of the Zoot Suit Riots
By Margarita Engle, Rudy Gutierrez. 2018
A novel in verse. In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day, then…
jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot-suit wearing younger brother, Ray. But one night, racial violence leads to murder. Some violence. For junior and senior high and older readers. 2018The colors of the rain
By R. L. Toalson. 2018
A novel in verse. In 1972, after his father is killed, Paulie is sent to live with his Aunt Bee…
in Houston, a city fighting desegregation. But as Paulie gets into fights with a black student, he is forced to understand the circumstances surrounding his father's death. For grades 4-7. 2018White Rose
By Kip Wilson. 2019
A novel in verse. Sophie Scholl, a young German college student, challenges the Nazi regime during World War II as…
part of the White Rose, a nonviolent resistance group. For grades 6-9 and older readers. 2019It rained warm bread: Moishe Moskowitz's story of hope
By Hope Anita Smith, Lea Lyon, Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet. 2019
A novel in verse and fictionalized account of the experiences of a Polish Jew, Moishe, who, with his parents, brother,…
and a sister, struggles to survive the Nazi invasion and the Holocaust. For grades 4-7 and older readers. 2019The homestead: the Dakota series, book 1 (Dakota Series #1)
By Linda Byler. 2017
Teenaged Hannah resents her parents when they leave Lancaster County after losing the farm during the Depression. Settling in North…
Dakota, the family struggles without the support of the Amish community. Hannah seeks help from ranch hand Clay Jenkins and wrestles with her feelings for him. 2017Lion Island: Cuba's warrior of words
By Margarita Engle. 2016
Novel in verse. In 1870s Cuba, Antonio Chuffat, a messenger boy of Chinese, African, and Cuban descent, becomes a translator…
and documents the freedom struggle of indentured Chinese laborers in his country. For grades 5-8. 2016Freedom over me: eleven slaves, their lives and dreams brought to life
By Ashley Bryan. 2016
Eleven enslaved people narrate their experiences as pieces of property and talk about personal dreams and desires that could never…
be taken away from them. Based on original slave auction and plantation estate documents. For grades 3-6. 2016Finding wonders: three girls who changed science
By Jeannine Atkins. 2016
Biographical novel in verse featuring three notable women scientists in three different time periods: Maria Merian, a naturalist and scientific…
illustrator; Mary Anning, a fossil collector and paleontologist; and Maria Mitchell, an astronomer. For grades 4-7. 2016You can fly: the Tuskegee Airmen
By Carole Boston Weatherford, Jeffery Boston Weatherford. 2016
History in verse that celebrates the Tuskegee Airmen. Recounts the challenges faced by the African American pilots in WWII, who…
triumphed in the skies and blew past the color barriers as fighter squadrons. For grades 5-8. 2016One today
By Dav Pilkey, Richard Blanco. 2015
Full cicada moon
By Marilyn Hilton. 2015
Novel in verse. In 1969, seventh-grader Mimi and her family move to an all-white town in Vermont, where Mimi's mixed-race…
background and interest in "boyish" topics like astronomy and carpentry make her feel like an outsider. For grades 4-7. 2015Midkemia: the chronicles of Pug
By Raymond E. Feist, Stephen Abrams. 2013
In a series of journal entries, Pug of Crydee reflects on his life as a magician in the land of…
Midkemia. Notes from his son Magnus supplement Pug's descriptions of the adventures he had during the Chaoswar Saga. 2013My man Blue: poems
By Nikki Grimes, Jerome Lagarrigue Lagarrigue. 2002
A collection of poems tells the story of a young, impressionable boy moving to a city neighborhood with his mother.…
He meets his mother's tough-looking friend Blue, and as the older man watches out for the boy a bond develops. For grades 2-4 and older readers. 1999Inside out & back again
By Thanhha Lai, Thanhhà Lai. 2011
Ten-year-old H ̉writes poems to chronicle the life-changing year of 1975, when H,̉ her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam…
and resettle in Alabama. For grades 4-7. National Book Award. 2011All the broken pieces: a novel in verse
By Ann E. Burg. 2009
Matt Pin was nine when he was airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975 and adopted by an American couple. Two…
years later Matt is still haunted by a terrible secret from his war-torn past, one that his new parents and Vietnam veterans help him confront. For grades 5-8. 2009African town
By Charles Waters. 2022
Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning…
novel-in-verse. In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda . Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they'd been delivered. At the end of the Civil War, the survivors created a community for themselves they called African Town, which still exists to this day. Told in 14 distinct voices, including that of the ship that brought them to the American shores and the founder of African Town, this powerfully affecting historical novel-in-verse recreates a pivotal moment in US and world history, the impacts of which we still feel today. * This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF with a glossary and additional resources