Scribble & Author By Miri Leshem-Pelly With a color spot plus a few pencil lines, Author creates Scribble. At first Scribble basks on the calm shore of The Beginning of the Story, safe and content, but she is alone…
Category: friendship
Black Flowers, White Lies by Yvonne Ventresca
I read Black Flowers, White Lies by Yvonne Ventresca in one sitting as we drove from northern California to the Arizona border last week, and it had me, quite literally, in my seat the entire way. The story sketches a young girl’s…
Focus on the William Morris Award : M-E Girard and Girl Mans Up
Welcome to the first of two reviews of William Morris Award finalists, given by the Young Adult Library Services Association of ALA (YALSA) to outstanding debut YA novels! Today’s finalist is M-E Girard’s Girl Mans Up, published by HarperTeen. Set…
Artist Fights the Inquisition in Caravaggio: Painter on the Run
Since antiquity, artists of all kinds have challenged regimes that have demanded mindless conformity. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church dominated, and the greatest thinkers of the time prospered by doing its work (Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the…
Nelson Beats the Odds by Ronnie Sidney, II, MSW, illustrated by Traci Van Wagoner
Nelson Beats The Odds By Ronnie Sidney, II, MSW Illustrated by Traci Van Wagoner Middle school is often a struggle for many kids, but especially for Nelson. Full of life, he considers school a place for socializing, daydreaming, and…
My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson
My Seneca Village By Marilyn Nelson Most people in the United States have heard about New York City’s Central Park, but few have heard of Seneca Village, a community built on a portion of land that later was developed…
A Tragedy of Race: Out of Darkness
On March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak led to a deadly explosion and collapse of the all-white school in New London, a town in East Texas. Ashley Hope Pérez, who grew up nearby, has mined her grandmother’s recollections, archives,…
Moo by Sharon Creech
Moo By Sharon Creech After twelve year old protagonist, Reena’s parents both lose their jobs in New York City, she and younger brother, Luke, can’t believe their family’s so-called flight plan: they will move to a small town in Maine…
The Pact: Growing Up in Nazi Germany
What is it like to live as a child in under fascist dictatorship? As voters in the United States ponder their choices in November, with one candidate setting himself up as a strongman who alone can solve the country’s problems,…
Radical by E.M. Kokie
The Pirate Tree’s own E.M. Kokie has a new book out (ta-da!) so we wanted to celebrate it here. Radical–the story of one girl finding and losing her identity in a radical community of survivalists–is one of those books that you have…