Summaries are the Library of Congress descriptors
Reviews are from Publishers Weekly
* Before a title: High School Level
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman / Ernest J. Gaines.Summary: Story of a black woman born into slavery on a Louisiana plantation, freed at the end of the Civil War, who lives for one-hundred more years.
*The Bean Trees / Barbara Kingsolver.“Feisty Marietta Greer changes her name to "Taylor" when her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Ill. By the time she reaches Oklahoma, this strong-willed young Kentucky native with a quick tongue and an open mind is catapulted into a surprising new life. A first novel, The Bean Trees is an overwhelming delight, as random and unexpected as real life.” From PW Review
Beauty / Robin McKinley. Summary: Kind Beauty grows to love the Beast at whose castle she is compelled to stay and through her love releases him from the spell which had turned him from a handsome prince into an ugly beast.
Bloomability / Sharon Creech.Summary: When her aunt and uncle take her from New Mexico to Lugano, Switzerland, to attend an international school, thirteen-year-old Dinnie discovers an expanding world and her place within it.
Catherine, Called Birdy / by Karen Cushman Summary:The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.
Daughter of Venice / Donna Jo Napoli.Summary: Frustrated with the restrictions her gender imposes on her life, fourteen-year-old Donata, disguised as a boy, sneaks out of her noble family’s house to roam the streets of late sixteenth-century Venice and then must confront the repercussions of her actions.
Dicey's Song / Cynthia Voigt. Summary: Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginnings require love, trust, humor, and courage.
Emily of New Moon / by L. M. Montgomery Summary: When Emily’s father dies, leaving her an orphan, she is sent to live with a stern aunt in Prince Edward Island, where her resourcefulness and love of writing help her adjust to a new way of life.
Escape from Egypt : a novel / by Sonia Levetin Summary: When Moses comes to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, Jesse, a Hebrew slave, finds his life changed by his growing faith in God and his attraction to the half-Egyptian, half-Syrian Jennat.
Esperanza rising / Pam Muñoz Ryan.Summary: Summary Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.
A Girl of the Limberlost / Gene Stratton-Porter.Summary: Deeply wounded by her embittered mother’s lack of sympathy for her aspirations, Elnora finds comfort in the nearby Limberlost Swamp, whose beauty and rich abundance provide her with the means to better her life.
Hang a thousand trees with ribbons : the story of Phillis Wheatley / Ann Rinaldi Summary: A fictionalized biography of the eighteenth-century African woman who, as a child, was brought to New England to be a slave, and after publishing her first poem when a teenager, gained renown throughout the colonies as an important black American poet.
*The House on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros. "Esperanza Cordero, a girl coming of age in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, uses poems and stories to express thoughts and emotions about her oppressive environment." From PW Review
Journey to the River Sea / Eva Ibbotson.Summary: In 1910, orphaned Maia, sent with her governess to live with eccentric relatives in Manaus, Brazil, endures many hardships before fulfilling her dream of exploring the Amazon River.
Letters from Rifka / Karen Hesse Summary: In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others immigrate to America.
A long way from Chicago : a novel in stories / Richard Peck.Summary: A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.
Many waters / Madeleine L'Engle.Summary: The fifteen-year-old Murry twins, Sandy and Dennys, are accidentally sent back to a strange Biblical time period, in which mythical beasts roam the desert and a man named Noah is building a boat in preparation for a great flood.
*Pigs in Heaven / Barbara Kingsolver.“Taylor Greer and her adopted Cherokee daughter Turtle, first met in The Bean Trees , will captivate readers anew in Kingsolver's assured and eloquent sequel, which mixes wit, wisdom and the expert skills of a born raconteur into a powerfully affecting narrative.” From PW review
The Queen of Attolia / by Megan Whalen Turner.Summary:Forsaken by the gods and left to his own devices, Eugenides, Royal Thief of Eddis, summons all his wit and wiles in an attempt to conquer the rival Queen of Attolia.
Riding Freedom /Pam Muñoz Ryan Summary: A fictionalized account of Charley (Charlotte) Parkhurst who ran away from an orphanage, posed as a boy, moved to California, and fooled everyone by her appearance.
* The Secret Life of Bees /Sue Monk Kidd. Summary: Fourteen-year-old Lily and her companion, Rosaleen, an African-American woman who has cared from Lily since her mother's death ten years earlier, flee their home after Rosaleen is victimized by racist police officers, and find asafe haven in Tiburon, South Carolina, at the home of three beekeeping sisters, May, June, and August.
Shadow Spinner / Susan Fletcher.Summary: When Marjan, a thirteen-year-old crippled girl, joins the Sultan’s harem in ancient Persia, she gathers for Shahrazad the stories which will save the queen’s life.
Shiva's fire / Suzanne Fisher Staples.Summary: In India, a talented dancer sacrifices friends and family for her art.
Singer to the Sea God / Vivien Alcock. Summary: When he and his companions flee their island home after the king’s court is turned to stone, Phaidon begins to believe in the gods and monsters that his uncle has always scorned.
A Single Shard / Linda Sue Park.
Summary: Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters’ village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.
Spying on Miss Müller / by Eve Bunting.Summary: At Alveara boarding school in Belfast at the start of World War II, thirteen-year-old Jessie must deal with her suspicions about a teacher whose father was German and with her worries about her own father’s drinking problem.
The Star of Kazan / Eva IbbotsonSummary: After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle / Avi. Summary: As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself caught between a murderous captain and a mutinous crew.
Under the Persimmon Tree / Suzanne Fisher Staples.Summary:During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her huband’s return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Walk two moons / by Sharon Creech.Summary:After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother’s route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
Victory / Susan Cooper.Summary: Alternating chapters follow the mysterious connection between a homesick English girl living in present-day America and a boy serving in the British Royal Navy in 1803, aboard the H.M.S. Victory, commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson.
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This list is a work in progress. Watch for updates, and be sure to check Ms. Scott's YA recommendations in
Minerva's Nest.This page created by Victoria Forrester