HS+YSU

 Booklist (Vol. 96, No. 7 (December 1, 1999)) **  Gr. 7-12. Bartoletti's //Growing Up in Coal Country// (1996), a //Booklist// Editors' Choice, was a stirring account of child labor in the mines of Pennsylvania. Here the author uses the same combination of memoir, oral history, newspaper reports, and archival photographs for a broader history of child labor and the early fight against it. Much more detailed than Russell Freedman's //Kids at Work// (1994), this account focuses on white immigrant kids who worked in the factories, sweatshops, mills, and mines in the Midwest and the eastern U.S. during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The children joined with adults in the fight to unionize for better wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions, and there are chapters about Mother Jones (who led a children's crusade to try to reach the president) and other important leaders and landmark events. In fact, the kids' story is also an overview of labor history that will appeal to adults as well as YAs. Along with unforgettable photos by Lewis Hine and others on nearly every page, Bartoletti dramatizes the politics with individual stories of hardship and struggle. From the author’s website: [|www.scbartoletti.com/books/**kidsonstrike**.html]
 * //Kids on Strike// by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

//**The Warrior Heir**// **by Cinda W. Chima** Gr. 8-11. Sixteen-year-old Jack forgets to take his medicine one morning, and by afternoon is filled with such strength he sends his rival, Garrett Lobeck, sailing into the net at soccer tryouts--without even touching him. Jack soon discovers he is no ordinary teen and his medicine is not what he thought it was. Since the secret insertion of a warrior stone in his chest at infancy, Jack has been dosed with a suppressant designed to hold his powers as a Warrior Heir in check until his wizard sponsor can retrieve him and prepare him to fight in a death tournament for supremacy. With the aid of an aunt, old and new friends, and a magical sword, Jack fights to retain his identity and choose his own path. Check out this podcast (if it works) http://web.me.com/hloy/Podcast/Podcast/Entries/2008/6/8_The_Warrior_Heir.html The author’s website: [|www.cindachima.com/**Warrior**%20**Heir**/**Warrior**_**Heir**.htm]  Gr. 7-10. "My dad never hit me; never yelled at me. He was just a drunk."High-school senior Chance is a "ghost-walker"at school--barely talking, just passing, finding escape only in long, solitary, after-school runs. His hard-drinking father can't keep a job, and Chance worries how they will pay the mooring fees for their dilapidated, 30-foot sailboat home in Pugent Sound. When a marina worker offers him a job picking up secret packages, Chance can't turn down the lucrative opportunity, even though he's sure it's illegal. But as a friendship with smart student Melissa grows, so does Chance's concern about his job and its possible links to local smuggling rings. Deuker drops plenty of hints about what's in the packages, but the tragic blockbuster ending may still be a surprise. The author’s website: http://members.authorsguild.net/carldeuker/ //  **Booklist (March 1, 2003 (Vol. 99, No. 13))** Gr. 6-10. Like Virginia Euwer Wolff's //True Believer// (2001) and much contemporary YA fiction, this moving first novel tells the story in a series of dramatic monologues that are personal, poetic, and immediate, with lots of line breaks that make for easy reading, alone or in readers' theater. Keesha finds shelter in a house in her inner-city neighborhood and helps other troubled teens find home and family there ("like finding a sister when I'm old / enough to pick a good one"). Stephie is pregnant, and she's heartbroken that her boyfriend doesn't want the baby. Harris is gay; his dad has thrown him out. Carmen is fighting addiction. Dontay's parents are in jail, and he doesn't feel comfortable in his latest foster home. Interwoven with the angry, desperate teen voices are those of the adults in their lives: caring, helpless, abusive, indifferent. In a long note, Frost talks about the poetic forms she has used, the sestina and the sonnet. But most readers will be less interested in that framework than in the characters, drawn with aching realism, who speak poetry in ordinary words and make connections. The author’s website: [|www.**helenfrost**.net] This blog includes a video inspired by the book: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mwright2/iroots/cat_keeshas_house.html  **Eyes of the Emperor** **by Graham Salisbury** ** Notes: ** "Readers circle"--Cover. Following orders from the United States Army, several young Japanese American men train K-9 units to hunt Asians during World War II. **// Blue Skin of the Sea //**** by Graham Salisbury ** ** Notes: ** A series of eleven stories about a Hawaiian boy named Sonny Mendoza who never knew his late mother and struggles with his differences from the other boys in his fishing village, believing he is a coward and too sensitive. The author’s website: [|www.grahamsalisbury.com] An interview with the author: [|www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/lit_resources/authors/interviews/GrahamSalisbury.html]   // **The Book Thief** // **by Marcus Zusak** Death, "a companionable if sarcastic fellow," narrates this sophisticated novel set in small-town Germany during WWII. "It's a measure of how successfully Zusak has humanized these characters that even though we know they are doomed, it's no less devastating when Death finally reaches them," PW wrote in a starred review. This website includes information about the author and discussion questions: http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/libdev/OBOK/2008/discussionquestionsBookThief.pdf
 *  Booklist (April 1, 2006 (Vol. 102, No. 15)) **
 * Runner** **by Carl Deuker**
 *  Booklist (June 1, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 19)) **
 * Keesha’s House** // **by Helen Frost**
 *  Publishers Weekly (August 20, 2007) **