Moderate Fiction

266 pages

Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves—in a Tijuana jail—in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways.

226 pages

Bird Girl is a headstrong young woman who takes off to brave life on her own. Daagoo is a dreamer, curious about the world beyond. Their stories interweave and intersect as they each face the many dangers and challenges of life alone in the wilderness.

Michele's Book Review

Lesson Plan

128 pages

Paul Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen participants.

116 pages

Mafatu is son of the Great Chief of Hikueru, a race of Polynesians who worshipped courage. Mafatu faces his fears of the sea and paddles out to the ocean with his dog, Uri.

300 pages

Isabel and her sister, Ruth, become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. This novel shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

204 pages

Tyrel Sackett was born to trouble, but vowed to justice. Orrin brought law and order from Santa Fe to Montana, and his brother Tye backed him up every step of the way. Till the day the job was done, Tye Sackett was the fastest gun alive.

272 pages

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.

233 pages

Stanley Yelnats is under a curse and has been sent to a boys’ detention center, where the boys dig holes to build character. Stanley discovers the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.

272 pages

Kek comes from Africa, but is sent to America after his mother goes missing. As he waits for word of his mother's fate, Kek weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.

192 pages

Like many girls her age in India, thirteen-year-old Koly faces her arranged marriage with hope and courage. But she discovers she's been horribly misled—her life has been sold for a dowry. Can she forge her own future, even in the face of time-worn tradition?

64 pages

Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends. And there's 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor Jim...

192 pages

In the early 1800s, Karana spent eighteen years alone on the island of San Nicholas. Her quiet courage, her self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience.

128 pages

This is the story of four mothers and their daughters - the mothers born in China, and the daughters in America. Through their eyes we see life in pre-Revolutionary China, and life in downtown San Francisco; women struggling to find a cultural identity that can include a past and a future half a world apart.

Dianne's Book Review

Linda's Book Review

104 pages

Describes the efforts in the 1960s of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to organize migrant workers in California into a union which became the United Farm Workers.

70 pages

Elsie and Maisie write letters boasting about their respective families. A letter arrives from Chicago saying that Maisie's granddaughter is coming to stay with Elsie. With no fancy house and little in luxury, Elsie's working-class family sets to work on inventive interior design and the truth.

176 pages

It is a boy's coming of age in the barrio, parochial school, attending church, public summer school, and trying to fall out of love so he can join in a Little League baseball team.

208 pages

When Lyddie and her younger brother are hired out as servants to help pay off their family farm's debts. Hearing about all the money a girl can make working in Lowell, Massachusetts, she makes her way there, only to find that her dreams of returning home may never come true.

224 pages

Orphan Peter Augustus Duchene asks a fortune teller how to find his sister, and if she is still alive. The fortuneteller's mysterious answer (An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you will hardly dare to believe it’s true.

82 pages

Emelda is 46 years old. Her husband has just left her for a 23-year-old dancer and she is struggling with a new job at a supermarket. For comfort she turns to her only true friend – ice-cream. But lately there's a handsome man driving the ice-cream van. Could romance be about to blossom?

196 pages

During the journey there has been a mysterious murder that must be solved. Detective Hércules Poirot will be in charge of deciphering this dark crime that has taken place in one of the wagons of the train the previous night.

240 pages

All his life, Tim Meeker has looked up to his brother Sam. Sam is now a part of the American Revolution, while his father supports the British. Tim knows he'll have to make a choice--between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats...and between his brother and his father.

160 pages

As the German troops "relocate" all the Jews of Denmark, Annemarie Johansen’s family conceals her best friend, Ellen Rosen, as part of the family. Through the eyes of ten-year-old Annemarie, we watch as the Danish Resistance smuggles almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark across the sea to Sweden.

240 pages

Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. But when the sisters arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with their mother, Cecile is nothing like they imagined.

Carol's Book Review

208 pages

Sixteen-year-old Jesse Smoke has been studying at the Mission School, but it has been shut down and turned into a fort for the ever-increasing number of soldiers entering the territory. Jesse and his family are forced to march westward on the horrifying Trail of Tears during the long, cold winter months.

227 pages

Billie Jo loves playing the piano, but is wounded in a terrible accident. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

96 pages

In 1944, a six-year-old boy goes to spend the summer with his grandmother in a small town near the Canadian border. When his cousin Kristina goes into labor, women come to help and to work on a quilt together. This is no common, everyday quilt, but one that contains all the stories of the boy’s family.

182 pages

Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice.

128 pages

Gwen Lake is a forty-five-year-old police officer with a desk job and is bored. After her ex-husband is accused of his new wife's murder, Gwen decides to work the case on her own. Her life is about to get a lot less predictable and a lot more dangerous.

Book Reviews from Phal's Class

70 pages

A Vietnamese girl plants six lima beans in a Cleveland vacant lot. Looking down on the immigrant-filled neighborhood, a Romanian woman watches suspiciously. A school janitor gets involved, then a Guatemalan family...A sense of community sprouts and spreads.

Book Review

87 pages

For years Charlie has been alienated from his father. But when an email arrives from a young listener of his radio program that threatens to kill his father and his entire family. Charlie has just two hours to stop him from murder.

255 pages

Adjusting to life in the United States isn’t easy for Fadi’s family and as the events of September 11th unfold. When a photography competition with a grand prize trip to India is announced, Fadi sees his chance to return to Afghanistan and find his sister. But can one photo really bring Mariam home?

128 pages

When Linda learns that her son Dre needs a kidney transplant, she discovers that the only one who can help is his half-brother LeVon, a drug-dealing gangbanger. Though she is deathly afraid of LeVon, Linda is finally able to teach LeVon the value of doing something noble with his life

186 pages

Stories with a Twist is a collection of 15 fascinating stories, the “twist” adds a new meaning to the lives of the characters . . . and the readers. Innovative and heart-warming, these stories encourage learners to express important things about themselves, their lives, and their world.

160 pages

Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.

111 pages

Walter Davis prides himself on three things: his drive to succeed, his fine clothes and never having been late for anything in his life. Walter is also homeless. He meets and girl and tries to impress her, but when he's caught in a lie, she shuns his company. Only resilience, ingenuity and his drive to succeed can bring Walter back from the brink of despair.

320 pages

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.