This memoir by author Gary Paulsen vividly describes his sailing adventures. What would you do if you came face to face with a huge shark or had to sail a boat during a big storm? Read this book and you will find out what Gary did. It is filled with action from start to finish!

Reviewed by: jb

Date read: 2/1/2012

ISBN-10: 0786241608

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Segregation in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 meant paying attention to all the laws and rules if you were a negro: NEVER touch a white person, walk on the opposite side of the street as white people, pay your bus fare at the front of the bus but enter through the back door, NEVER sit in the first 10 rows, and give up your seat for a white person. There were severe consequences if you did anything the wrong way. On March 2, 1955, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested, thrown into a squad car and verbally insulted all the way to jail - she refused to stand and give up her seat to a white woman. So begins Claudette standing up for her rights as a citizen of the United States. This well-researched biography brings to life the civil rights movement of 1955-56 in Montgomery, Alabama including the bus boycott and the roles of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., and how Claudette contributed to changing the course of American history.

Awards nominated: 2009 National Book Award Finalist

Awards won: Newbery Honor 2010

Reviewed by: adf

Date read: 2/3/2010

ISBN-10: 0374313229

ISBN-13: 9780374313227

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The boy who tells this story of Roberto Clemente, the great baseball player, is named Clemente. His father is president of The Bronx Roberto Clemente Fan Club. The book is a tribute to a man considered to be one of the finest baseball players ever. Besides being a great baseball player, he was a wonderful human being. He never gave up even when people called him ugly names. Spanish words and phrases help tell the story. Sadly, the baseball player lost his life in an airplane accident as a group was taking supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Pictures by the artist, Bryan Collier, are bright, cheerful and help tell the story.

Awards nominated: 2013 Monarch Nominee

Reviewed by: cjones

Date read: 3/19/2012

ISBN-10: 0805082247

ISBN-13: 9780805082241

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What would it be like to come up with totally new colors? Brothers Bob and Joe Switzer did just that, creating fluorescent colors that glowed in sunlight. An accident left Bob temporarily confined to a dark basement. While he recovered, he and Joe experimented with ultraviolet light and fluorescent paints. After many attempts, they were the first to come up with colors that had the same glow-in-the-dark intensity in both daylight and ultraviolet light. These Day-Glo colors are now used on everything from billboards to safety equipment to golf balls. The illustrations in this book are a great complement to the story, as they start out in black and white and by the end are full of Day-Glo colors.

Awards nominated: 2013 Bluestem Nominee

Reviewed by: msp

Date read: 5/10/2012

ISBN-10: 157091673X

ISBN-13: 9781570916731

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This book is made up of excerpts from Susie King Taylor's actual diary. She was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1848, as a slave. When Susie was 6, she was able to go to a school taught by a freed slave. In April 1862, when the Yankees captured the island she was living on, the slaves were put under the protection of the Union fleet. The Captain, amazed that Susie could read and write, put her in charge of teaching school to the 40 children there. When the first black regiment to fight in the Civil War was created, Susie served as their nurse. She wrote about trying to keep herself, and her patients, warm, and fed. She mourned the many that died from malaria, smallpox, typhoid, pneumonia, and dysentery. After the war, she moved to the North. Years later, she returned to the South. From the injustices she experienced after the war, she realized that equality still had a long way to go. Her book was published in 1902, and she died in 1912.

Similar books: Dear America fiction series

Reviewed by: sc

Date read: 4/13/2009

ISBN-10: 076141648X

ISBN-13: 9780761416487

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