Content Finder

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Russell Freedman

The Voice That Challenged a Nation

Age Level:
Middle Grade
A Newbery Honor book that accounts the life and musical career of the great African American vocalist, Marion Anderson, in the context of the history of civil rights in the United States.
The Voting Booth
Brandy Colbert

The Voting Booth

Genre:
Fiction
Age Level:
YA

Marva Sheridan was born ready for this day. She’s always been driven to make a difference in the world, and what better way than to vote in her first election? Duke Crenshaw is so done with this election. He just wants to get voting over with so he can prepare for his band’s first paying gig tonight. Only problem? Duke can’t vote. When Marva sees Duke turned away from their polling place, she takes it upon herself to make sure his vote is counted. And that’s how their whirlwind day begins, rushing from precinct to precinct, cutting school, waiting in endless lines, turned away time and again, trying to do one simple thing: vote. They may have started out as strangers, but as Duke and Marva team up to beat a rigged system (and find Marva’s missing cat), it’s clear that there’s more to their connection than a shared mission for democracy.

Peter Sis

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

Genre:
Nonfiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade
Growing up in Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia, Sis craved Western pop culture, subverted authority in small ways, and maintained a strong fear of the secret police. This title won the Sibert medal for distinctive non-fiction for children.
Leonard Marcus

The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy

Marcus presents in-depth interviews with 13 renowned fantasy writers, including Susan Cooper, Nancy Farmer, Brian Jacques, Tamora Pierce, and Philip Pullman. Marcus unearths some common threads (many were inspired early on by J.R.R. Tolkien, for example) and elicits advice to aspiring writers. From Ursula Le Guin: “Read. Write. Read. Write. Go on reading. Go on writing,”
The War Outside
Monica Hesse

The War Outside

Genre:
Historical Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade, YA

Teens Haruko, a Japanese American, and Margot, a German American, form a life-changing friendship as everything around them starts falling apart in the Crystal City family internment camp during World War II.

 

The Watsons Go To Burmingham
Christopher Paul Curtis

The Watsons Go To Birmingham - 1963

Age Level:
Middle Grade

Fourth-grader Kenny goes with his older brother Byron and his parents on a road trip from Flint, Michigan to the South, where Byron will be spending the summer with his grandparents, away from the temptations of city life. Curtis mixes humor with the volatility of the South in the summer of 1963.

David Macaulay

The Way We Work

Age Level:
YA
Concerned about taking freshman biology? Get a leg up on the course by letting Macaulay take you on a whirlwind tour of the human body with detailed illustrations and succinct explanations of its building blocks and systems.
Tim Flannery

The Weather Makers

Age Level:
YA
What are melting glaciers, disappearing frogs and a season of perfect storms trying to tell us about the conditions of the planet we call home and what can we do to prevent a catastrophe?
Terry Pratchett

The Wee Free Men

Genre:
Fantasy
Age Level:
Middle Grade
Pratchett has written many Discworld books loved by teens and adults alike, but this was his first novel for a younger teen audience. Nine-year-old Tiffany is destined to be a witch, but she’s got a lot of learning to do first. Along with the drunken, brawling Nac Mac Feegles, Tiffany sets off to find her brother in this hilarious fantasy adventure.