Anna is a lonely little orphan sent to live with foster parents who are kind but unable to penetrate her thick wall of sadness and introspection. Anna does not care for anything, she is indifferent to the girls at school who don’t invite her to play, and she is almost deadened to her feelings. She doesn’t expect to make friends – she has decided she is always on the outside.
It’s Junie B Jones’ first day in Grade 0 and she has to ride on a bus. She manages to get to school but when it’s home time she decides there’s no way she’s repeating that experience – so she hides in the school until everyone leaves.
Madonna’s books about The English Roses have done well. With cute names, Grace, Nicole, Binah, Amy and Charlotte, the ‘five funky fashionable friends’ are schoolgirls in London who go to school in Hampstead and spend their time doing things like shopping, hanging out, cooking, having sleep overs and boy watching – you get the picture. The illustrations are gorgeous and raise the book to a designer level.
A very different “Holocaust novel” for young people, this one is really ideal for boys aged 13 – 16. It tells the story of young Karl Stern, who is taken under the wing of the champion boxer and German hero, Max Schmeling, and who works hard at re-inventing himself as a boxer to cope with the growing anti-semitic violence of Nazis both in school and on the streets of Berlin in the 1930’s.
What happens when the new boy in your class is so different, you can’t help but stare when he walks by. And shudder? We’ve all had moments when we’ve hissed at our children not to stare at someone different from them, whether it was a beggar or disabled person. Now we hear the story form the other side, from the boy being stared at. This is one of those books every child should read to get a better idea of the human-ness behind other-ness.
Toddlers love this original tale of a very civilized tiger who decides he wants to go wild. First he starts walking on all fours. Then he jumps in the fountain and roars and finally he takes all his clothes off! His animal friends are not impressed and tell him to go be wild in the wilderness.
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