The Incredible Journey

 

Title: The Incredible Journey

Author: Sheila Burnford

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 8 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    Home lay to the west, his instinct told him; but he could not leave the other two - so somehow he must take them with him, all the way.

    Three beloved pets - Luath, a young Labrador retriever; Tao, a Siamese cat; and Bodger, an old bull terrier - have been separated from their family. Luath makes the decision to head for home, setting out with his companions on an incredible journey through the wilderness of northwestern Ontario.

    They do not know the dangers they will face. They do not know that winter is approaching, or that home is four hundred kilometres away. They will be separated by a rushing river and attacked by wild animals. They will face injury, starvation, cold and sheer exhaustion. Individually, they would never survive. But together, can they find their way home?

Up from Slavery

Title: Up from Slavery

Author: Booker T. Washington

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Ages: 15 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    The autobiography of Booker T. Washington is a startling portrait of one of the great Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The illegitimate son of a white man and a Negro slave, Washington, a man who struggled for his education, would go on to struggle for the dignity of all his people in a hostile and alien society. 

Caddie Woodlawn

 

Title: Caddie Woodlawn

Author: Carol Ryrie Brink

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 8 - 15

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Caddie Woodlawn is a real adventurer. She'd rather hunt than sew and plow than bake, and tries to beat her brothers' dares every chance she gets. Caddie is friends with Indians, who scare most of the neighbors - neighbors who, like her mother and sisters, don't understand her at all. 

    Caddie is brave, and her story is special because it's based on the Life and memories of Carol Ryrie Brink's grandmother, the real Caddie Woodlawn. Her spirit and sense of fun have made this book a classic that readers have taken to their hearts for more than seventy years. 

Minn of the Mississippi

Title: Minn of the Mississippi

Author: Holling Clancy Holling

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 6 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    A turtle hatched at the source of the Mississippi is carried through the heart of America to the Gulf of Mexico.

Old Yeller

Title: Old Yeller

Author: Fred Gipson

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 10 - 16

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    It was lucky that old yellow-haired dog came along. Travis couldn't have managed without him. When his dad goes off on a cattle drive, 14-year-old Travis is left in charge. First a bear attacks his kid brother . . . then he hears about a terrifying disease that turns animals and humans into mad creatures! Before his dad returns, that "Old Yeller" dog has become the best-loved friend a boy could ever want. 

Small Acts of Amazing Courage

Title: Small Acts of Amazing Courage

Author: Gloria Whelan

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 13 - 18+

     Back Cover Synopsis: 

    As an English girl in India in 1918, Rosalind is alone. Ever since the death of Rosalind's brother, Edward, Rosalind's mother hasn't been the same. Her father, away at war, wishes for Rosalind to live in England and get a proper British education. England is "home" to Rosalind, but she has never been there. 

    Rosalind awaits the return of her father from the war, and more and more she ventures out onto the streets. There she learns of a man named Gandhi and hears talk of how India must be free to rule itself. Then late one night she makes a fateful discovery. She knows that she should not be seeking out the beggars who live under the bridge near the river, but she wants to help, even if her parents will never understand.

    National Book Award recipient Gloria Whelan weaves a captivating story of love and family, secrets and sisterhood, and most of all, identity.

The Hawk and the Dove

Title: The Hawk and the Dove

Author: Penelope Wilcock

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Father Peregrine is appointed Abbot of St Alcuin's Benedictine abbey. An arrogant, impatient man, a hawk trying hard to be a dove - his name in religion is "Columbia" - he is respected, but not loved. 

    A sudden, shocking act of violence changes everything. As the story unfolds, this community of monks, serious about their calling but as flawed and human as we are, come to love their ascetic but now vulnerable leader. 

    They lived six centuries ago, yet their struggles are our own. Finding our niche; coping with failure; living with impossible people; and discovering that we are the impossible ones. 

Pride and Prejudice

Title: Pride and Prejudice

Author: Jane Austen

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 14 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. 

    With its wit, its social precision and, above all, its irresistible heroine, Pride and Prejudice has proved one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language. 

Pagoo

 

Title: Pagoo

Author: Holling Clancy Holling

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 6 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    An intricate study of tide pool life is presented through the story of Pagoo, a hermit crab.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Title: Island of the Blue Dolphins

Author: Scott O'Dell

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 8 - 16

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as San Nicolas Island. Blue Dolphins splash in the water surrounding it, sea otters play in the kelp beds, and seabirds roost in its crags. Once, Indians also lived on the island - until one day they decided to leave and sailed to the east. 

    A young girl was left behind.

    Karana is that girl. Year after year, she waits for the ship to come back. But it never does. Finally, she realizes she must make a fateful choice: follow her people on her own or remain alone on the island for the rest of her life. 

The Little Prince

 

Title: The Little Prince

Author: Antoine de Saint Exupery

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    The little prince lived alone on a tiny planet no larger than a house. He owned three volcanoes, two active and one extinct. He also owned a flower, unlike any flower in all the galaxy, of great beauty and of inordinate pride. It was this pride that ruined the serenity of the little prince's world and started him on the interplanetary travels that brought him to Earth, where he learned, finally, from a fox, the secret of what is really important in life.

    There are few stories that in some way, in some degree, change the world forever for their readers. This is one.

A Long Walk to Water

Title: A Long Walk to Water

Author: Linda Sue Park

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    Nya goes to the pond to fetch water for her family. She walks eight hours every day. 

    

    Salva walks away from his war-torn village. He is a "lost boy" refugee, destined to cover Africa on foot, searching for his family and safety. 

    Two young people . . . two stories.

    One country: Sudan.

    This mesmerizing dual narrative follows two threads -- one unfolding in 2008 and one in 1985 -- with one hopeful message: that even in a troubled country, determined survivors may find the future they are hoping for.

Adam of the Road

 

Title: Adam of the Road

Author: Elizabeth Janet Gray

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 8 - 15

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Eleven-year-old Adam loved to travel through the open roads of thirteenth-century England with his father, a wandering minstrel, and his red spaniel, Nick. But when his father suddenly disappears and Nick is stolen, Adam finds himself alone searching these same roads filled with rich merchants, Pilgrim's with cockleshells upon their hats, farming folk driving pigs to the fair, minstrels and priests, saints and thieves - and somewhere in the crowd his father and his dog. 

The Magician's Nephew

 

Title: The Magician's Nephew

Author: C. S. Lewis

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 9 - 15

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    NARNIA . . . where the woods are thick and cool, where Talking Beasts are called to life . . . a new world where adventure begins. 

    Digory and Polly meet and become friends one cold, wet summer in London. Their lives burst into adventure when Digory's Uncle Andrew, who thinks he is a magician, sends them hurtling to . . . somewhere else. They find their way to Narnia, newborn from the Lion's song, and encounter the evil sorceress Jadis before they finally return home. 

To Kill a Mockingbird

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 15 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy, Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill a Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pultizer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

    Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into ten languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American Literature.

The Swiss Family Robinson

 

Title: The Swiss Family Robinson

Author: Johann Rudolf Wyss

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 10 - 16

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    The Swiss Family Robinson is a story of the happy discovery of the wonders of natural history by a family shipwrecked on a desert island, who remain united through all the adversities that they encounter. 

A Wrinkle in Time

 Title: A Wrinkle in Time

Author: Madeleine L'Engle

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 10 - 16

 Back Cover Synopsis: 

    It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and their mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger. 

    "Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such thing as a tesseract."

    A tesseract (in case you don't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell mroe would spoil your enjoyment of Madeleine L'Engle's unusual book.

Hatchet

Title: Hatchet

Author: Gary Paulsen

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single-engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a tattered Windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present - and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parents' divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity, or despair - it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.  

Animal Farm

Title: Animal Farm

Author: George Orwell

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Ages: 15 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    First published in 1945, Animal Farm has become the classic political fable of the twentieth century. Adding his own brand of poignancy and wit, George Orwell tells the story of a revolution among animals of a farm, and how idealism was betrayed by power, corruption and lies. 

Johnny Tremain

 

Title: Johnny Tremain

Author: Esther Forbes

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    The year is 1773; the scene is Boston.

    Johnny Tremain is fourteen and apprenticed to a silversmith. He is gifted and clever and lords his talent over the other apprentices - until tragedy strikes. A crucible of molten silver breaks and the silver spills over Johnny's right hand. The hand is so badly burned, it's useless - and now, so is Johnny. 

    Since he is no longer able to become a silversmith, Johnny's life takes a new path, one that will bring him in touch with Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other Boston patriots and with all the exciting currents that will lead to the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington. Johnny's dream of being a silversmith may be dead, but he has discovered a new dream that will make him a part of American history.