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the-journal-of-douglas-allen-deeds
Rodman Philbrick

The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds

Genre:
Historical Fiction

A title in the Dear America historical fiction book series, The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds tells the story of the doomed Donner Party expedition, as seen through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old orphan that survived the cold winter of starvation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The Journal of Finn Reardon
Susan Campbell Bartoletti

The Journal of Finn Reardon

Genre:
Historical Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade

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.

Drawn vignettes of a family moving
Francesca Sanna

The Journey

With haunting echoes of the current refugee crisis this beautifully illustrated book explores the unimaginable decisions made as a family leave their home and everything they know to escape the turmoil and tragedy brought by war. This book will stay with you long after the last page is turned.

The Journey of Little Charlie
Christopher Paul Curtis

The Journey of Little Charlie

Genre:
Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade

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.

Tracey Baptiste

The Jumbies

Genre:
Fairy Tales, Folktales and Myths
Age Level:
Middle Grade

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.

Tracey Baptiste

The Jumbie God's Revenge

Genre:
Fairy Tales, Folktales and Myths
Age Level:
Middle Grade

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. 

 

The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner

Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction
Age Level:
YA

Years after he flees Afghanistan, Amir, now an American citizen, returns to his native land and attempts to atone for the betrayal of his best friend before he fled Kabul and the Taliban.

The Known World
Edward Jones

The Known World

Genre:
Historical Fiction
Age Level:
YA

Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation—as well his own slaves. When he dies, things begin to fall apart at the plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

The Land of the Forgotten Girls
Erin Entrada Kelly

The Land of Forgotten Girls

Genre:
Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade

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?

 

The Language of the Common Core

Learn more from teachers and literacy experts about the language used in teaching with the Common Core. We’ve created a “video glossary” of terms such as close reading, sourcing documents, inference, essential questions, and disciplinary literacy.