Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan is based on the true story of Pino Lella. A 16-year-old growing up during WWII in Milan, Italy. Pino is living the typical life of a teenager, until the Allied bombs begin to drop and everything changes. He is sent to a camp in the Alps where he helps Jews escape over the mountains into Switzerland.

As Pino nears his 18^th birthday, his family forces him to join the German army, in hopes he will be kept out of combat. He is injured in a bombing and becomes the driver for Hitler’s man in Italy, General Hans Leyers. He is then recruited by the resistance to spy on General Leyers and the German High Command.

Pino has to endure the hatred of family and friends who think he is a traitor by joining the German army, but finds love with the General’s maid, Anna.

This is another untold story of an ordinary citizen doing unordinary things during one of our darkest times in history.

Recommended by Mrs. Chojnacki

Leni Allbright, a thirteen-year-old girl, who is caught in the middle of her parents stormy relationship. Her father Ernt, who was a POW in Vietnam, came home a changed and volatile man. When Ernt finds out he has inherited his friend’s land in Alaska, he moves the family, hoping for a new start.

During the long sunlit hours of summer, the Allbrights working together, along with help from the neighbors, begin to prepare for the long winter. They all feel like Alaska has been the answer to their prayers, Ernt seems happy and Leni has made a friend at school.

As the long days of winter descend, Ernt’s fragile mental state begins to deteriorate, and he starts drinking more, and becomes more violent. Even as friends pose an intervention, sending Ernt to work on the pipeline to keep him away from his family, his paranoia grows.

Leni, in the meantime, has become the family provider. She has learned to hunt, field dress her kill, and learns the hard lessons of Alaska. She becomes a true frontier woman, but struggles to understand her mother and why she stays with her father.

With Alaska as the backdrop, “The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.”

Recommended by Mrs. Chojnacki

This book is one of my favorite. I have read and reread it (and the following books in the series) multiple times. It is a coming-of-age story placed in a world very different than our own. D.M. Cornish spent years world-building and creating something new. I think it is on par with Tolkien's works.

Rossamund is a young bookchild, an orphan, who has grown up at Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Girls and Boys. He's always been different than those around him, and when it comes time to get a job, he doesn't become a sailor as he so desires. He is to become a Lamplighter.

This is the story of his journey to get there. He has quite a few missteps along the way, but he eventually makes some powerful alliances and gets to where he needs to go.

Foundling is the first book in the series, and while I love this one, Lamplighter (which is the second) is surely my favorite. The last book is Factotum, and it is a satisfying conclusion to the tale. In a world of dissatisfying conclusions, this one takes the cake.

Recommended by Mrs. Ward