Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is middle-grade historical fiction as it should be. Author Dan Gutman takes the facts about Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers’ first flight, and weaves them into the journal entries of Johnny Moore, a boy who lived in Nags Head at the time and actually witnessed the first flight. Through Johnny’s journal we learn all kinds of interesting details...
Mama’s Window by Lynn Rubright (Lee and Low, 2005) tells the story of “Sugar” Martin, a young black boy who lives with his uncle in a Mississippi Delta swamp. For as long as Sugar can remember, his mother has worked to raise funds for a stained glass window for the Sweet Kingdom Church. Some think her idea is foolish, but she insists that the window is important, that beauty is important. After his mother’s illness and...
Special thanks to my son, co-writer of this blog entry. Steampunk fiction is a sub-genre of sci-fi “set in an era or world where steam power is widely used” (wikipedia). Think 19th century Victorian England with a fantasy/sci-fi twist. Scott Westerfeld’s steampunk novel Leviathan (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is set during the beginning of World War I, and follows many of the historical events of World War I. A big part of what makes this novel...
What if your family had no soap, milk, sugar or shoes? Such is the case for Katje and her family in Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). Set in Holland just after World War II, Katje and her little town of Olst are struggling to get by. Katje is thrilled when one spring morning she gets a surprise package from America, “the land of plenty.” The box contains a cake...
Like historical fiction? Then try Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster, 2008). It looks at slavery from a different vantage point, that of the American Revolutionary War. With their mother dead and their father sold long ago, thirteen year old Isabel and her younger sister Ruth are slaves at the mercy of their mistress in Rhode Island. Although she promised to free the children after her death, their mistress’ greedy relative sells...
