Book Finder

A very poor, young couple, who are deeply in love, want to buy each other Christmas presents but have no money to do so. They each figure out a way to get the money to buy each other gifts. What unpleasant surprises await them on Christmas Day?

Suraya, a twelve-year-old Malaysian girl, inherits her grandmother’s pelesit and becomes best friends with the ghostly demon, whom she names Pink. 

Molly and her Dad always shared a love of baseball — especially the hard-luck Chicago Cubs — and he taught her how to throw a tricky knuckleball. After her father passes away, Molly wants to try out for the boys’ baseball team, as a way of keeping her connection to her Dad. This tender novel combines sports action with Molly’s struggle to accept her loss.

The novel focuses on Josh Swenson, a teenager who preaches his anti-consumerism beliefs under his online pseudonym of “Larry” and must deal with the sudden popularity of his web presence.

The feline adventures begin when Marco and Polo, always indoor cats, taste freedom (and the Burger King dump). The cat brothers meet others memorable mousers along the way in this first of a series of books about the Cat Pack.

This nonfiction work is the description of how this heroine of the anti-Nazi underground in Holland and her family hid persecuted Jews in their home. Eventually they were betrayed, and they, too, spent some time in concentration camps.

This classic of Latin American literature tells the story of Esperanza, who lives in a poor Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. Told in a series of vignettes, Esperanza tries to leave, while realizing the house on Mango Street will always be with her.

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium — a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster — except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn’t even suspect.

This dystopian fantasy features a televised reality show in which two teenage representatives from each “district” must fight until only one is left standing. 

Image and text combine in a unique presentation to tell the story of an orphan boy who lives between the walls of a Paris train station and repairs its clocks. Monochromatic illustrations change perspective and move in and out, and alternate with text to tell this mysterious, breathtaking, and riveting tale. Winner of the 2008 Caldecott Medal.

Seventeen-year-old Biddy Owens is part of the Birmingham Black Barons baseball team and dreams of becoming a major league baseball player. However, in 1948 most black players can only play for the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson has just recently integrated and is playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the white owners are reluctant to add too many blacks to their rosters. The Birmingham Black Barons are some of the best players in the league. But as they travel around playing ball, Biddy realizes that not everyone is ready for blacks and whites to play on the same team. 

The tale of a young Irish-American who aspires to be a reporter, while supporting his widowed mother and siblings by selling newspapers. From the My Name is America series.

Twelve-year-old Charlie is down on his luck: His sharecropper father just died and Cap’n Buck has come to collect a debt. Fearing for his life, Charlie strikes a deal with Cap’n Buck and agrees to track down some folks accused of stealing. It’s not too bad of a bargain until he comes face-to-face with the fugitives and discovers their true identities. Torn between his guilty conscience and his survival instinct, Charlie needs to figure out his next move - and soon.

When an out-of-season hurricane sweeps through Corinne’s seaside village, Corinne knows it’s not an ordinary storm. At first Corinne believes Mama D’Leau, the powerful and cruel jumbie who rules the ocean, has caused the hurricane. Then an even more ferocious storm wrecks the island, sending villagers fleeing their houses for shelter in the mountains, and Corinne discovers the storms weren’t caused by a jumbie, but by the angry god Huracan. Now Corinne, with the help of her friends and even some of her enemies, must race against time to find out what has angered Huracan and try to fix it before her island home is destroyed forever. 

Corinne La Mer claims she isn’t afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They’re just tricksters made up by parents to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest, and shining yellow eyes follow her to the edge of the trees. They couldn’t belong to a jumbie. Or could they? Based on the stories she heard as a child growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, Tracey Baptiste weaves folklore from the Caribbean throughout this spooky tale. First book in The Jumbies series.

Soledad has always been able to escape into the stories she creates, just like her mother always could. And Soledad has needed that escape more than ever in the five years since her mother and sister died, and her father moved Sol and her youngest sister from the Philippines to Louisiana. After her father leaves, all Sol and Ming have is their evil stepmother, Vea. Sol has protected Ming all this time, but then Ming begins to believe that Auntie Jove — their mythical, world-traveling aunt — is really going to come rescue them. Can Sol protect Ming from this impossible hope?

Twelve-year-old Tom leaves his family to apprentice with The Spook, whose job is to protect the village from witches, boggarts, and other creatures. When Tom makes some terrible mistakes, he seems destined for a horrific fate.

Higuera’s middle-grades dystopian novel, weaves together Mexican folklore and science fiction through the eyes of aspiring storyteller Petra Peña who awakens on a new planet hundreds of years after Earth’s destruction, the only person alive who holds the stories of the past, and any hope for the future.

When adventurous Black cousins Otto and Sheed Alston accidentally extend the last day of summer by freezing time, they find the secrets hidden between the unmoving seconds, minutes, and hours are not the endless fun they expected.

Rook Barkwater lives in the network of sewer-chambers beneath Undertown, the bustling main city of the Edgeworld. He dreams of becoming a librarian knight – one of those sent out to explore the mysteries of their world. Breaking all the rules, he sets out on a journey to the Free Glades and beyond. His luck and determination lead him from one peril to another until, buried in the heart of the Deepwoods, Rock encounters a mysterious character—the last sky pirate—and is thrust into a bold adventure that dares to challenge the might of the dreaded Guardians of the night.

Percy Jackson is a 21st century son of the ancient Greek god Poseidon on the biggest adventure of his young life — a quest to find out who stole Zeus’s lightening bolt! Together with his trusted friends, Percy travels through the United States, battling monsters and hunting the elusive title character.

The lives and times of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln are presented through written and pictorial information in a scrapbook-like format. A well developed, tragic portrait of Mary Lincoln emerges as her life is presented beyond the assassination of the President.

As twelve-year-old Marlee starts middle school in 1958 Little Rock, it feels like her whole world is falling apart. Until she meets Liz, the new girl at school. Liz is everything Marlee wishes she could be: she’s brave, brash and always knows the right thing to say. But when Liz leaves school without even a good-bye, the rumor is that Liz was caught passing for white. Marlee decides that doesn’t matter. She just wants her friend back. And to stay friends, Marlee and Liz are even willing to take on segregation and the dangers their friendship could bring to both their families. Winner of the New-York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize .

Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye, but after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off — except Salim. Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners and follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. Ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own very unique way, to find the key to the mystery.