My Mother The Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow

Louise Collins is 13 years old when she is yanked out of school to protest desegregation in New Orleans. Instead of going to class, Louise spends her days helping out around the boardinghouse her mother runs. Her mother, Pauline, spends her days participating in protests down at the school. Pauline is one of the Cheerleaders, a group of women who lead the crowd in hate filled chants as 6 year old Ruby Bridges walks up the steps to the school every morning.. But Louise doesn’t really mind not going to school, and she doesn’t think much about the fact that her mother spends her mornings heckling a 6 year old girl.

“Looking back people tend to think that there were two sides of the line on the segregation issue in the Ninth Ward, but there weren’t, at least not where I lived. Not at the beginning, anyway. Just about everyone in the Ninth Ward believed in segregation, including the Negroes, It was one of those things that you assumed everyone agreed on or you didn’t think that much about. I was in the latter category. I never thought to think any other way.” (pg 53-54)

But when Morgan Miller, a man with a mysterious past comes to town everything Louise knows about her mother, her world, and herself changes—forever. An unflinching look at hate, violence, and courage—My Mother the Cheerleader is a tour de force that shows just how slow, confusing and dangerous change can be.

Jade Green by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Recently orphaned Judith is sent to live with her Uncle outside of Charleston in South Carolina with only one instruction-she is not to bring anything that is green. While she finds the request a bit odd she is thankful that her Uncle is taking her in and leaves everything that contains the color green behind. Everything that is, except for a green silk picture frame that her mother had given her. Buried deep in her trunk Judith is sure that the picture frame won’t offend anyone—after all, no one will even know she has it. But then weird things begin to happen around the house. Unexplainable things. Frightening things.  As she tries to figure out what is going on, Judith learns about the houses horrid past and that she is not the first person to come and stay with her uncle, and his last guest… did not leave the house alive.  

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Begin the booktalk with an excerpt from the story’s first two paragraphs on page 1:

 “I am running. This is the first thing I remember. Running . I carry something, my arm curled around it, hugging it to my chest. Bread, of course. Someone is chasing me. Stop! Thief! I run. People. Shoulders. Shoes. Stop! Thief!. “
Meet Misha. He’s a young boy with nothing left to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to fear. But fearcan keep you safe. It can keep you out of trouble.And it can keep you from getting killed. But Misha doesn’t know fear. He doesn’t know how dangerous  the Nazis are. And if Misha doesn’t know how much danger he is in, how can he survive it?

Hitler’s Canary

Bamse is a young Danish boy who is forced to grow up quickly. Bamse comes from a family of theater people. His mother is a famous actress, his father is a talented set designer and up until now he has lived in a wonderful world of make-believe. But there is nothing make believe about the Nazis who now rule the streets of Denmark or the fear that his Jewish friend feels. Bamse own family is torn on how to proceed. Should he lay low like his Mother and Father suggest and keep a low profile to protect his family?Or, like his older brother is doing, should he risk everything and take a stand against the German invaders? Nothing is clear to Bamse anymore. The one thing that Bamse is beginning to understand is perhaps the most confusing thing of all-that not all of the Germans are bad and not all of the Danes are good. There are just some good people and some bad people, and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference.

Will Bamse be able to make the decisions necessary to save both his family and his friends? Based on a true story Hitler’s Canary by Sandi Toksvig is both a funny and gripping novel about the extraordinary courage it takes to survive.

On The Wings Of Heroes by Richard Peck

Begin the booktalk by reading from opening pages of the book:
Before the War…the evenings lingered longer, and it was always summer when it wasn’t Halloween, or Christmas. Long, lazy light reached between the houses, and the whole street played our version of hide-and-seek, called only by olly-olly-in-free and supper time. Before I could keep up, I rode my brother’s shoulders, hung in the crook of Dad’s good arm. I rode them across the long shadows of afternoon, high over hedges, heading for home base, when our street was the world, before the war, when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.”

When America enters WWII life changes drastically for Davy Boman. Instead of playing in the street, the neighborhood children spend their time collecting for the war effort. The blue star that hangs in Davey’s window means someone in his family is away fighting in the war. There is also his new teacher Miss Eulilia Tulis who happens to look like, “a walnut with a mustache” and the pranks that are played on his friends and his neighbors. A a cast of odd ball characters and outrageous situations keep the adventures and misadventures of Davey Bowman from being anything but mundane as everyone waits to see who will safely return home from the war. On The Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck.

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

Its 1943, there’s a war going on, and Dewey Kerrigan lives in a place that “officially doesn’t exist.” She lives on “The Hill” with her mathematician father who is working with scientists from all over the world, racing to invent “the gadget”- a secret weapon that will end the war. Dewey enjoys life on the hill despite the fact that she is shunned by most of the children her own age. Most of the girls she knows call her “Screwy Dewy” and can’t understand why she would want to spend so much time with her nose buried in a book called “The Boy Mechanic.” Dewey enjoys inventing things on her own, and spends most of her time in the company of both boys and men who share her interest in building and inventing things.  Things become a bit more complicated for Dewey when she is forced to live with Suze, a girl in her class who tries too hard to fit in and often makes fun of Dewey as a way of getting attention.   But Suze and Dewey aren’t the only ones who are being forced to make adjustments.  Life for everyone on The Hill intensifies as the grownups race to finish the gadget, and everyone faces difficult questions of their own.
Can Suze and Dewey learn to become friends? Will the Gadget work and if it does, what will happen? People are saying that when “the gadget” is tested the air will catch on fire. Will it? With all that is going on around them, how will Suze and Dewey cope with the information they receive on the afternoon that everything changed?
Read from the book pg 225.

“Girls, sit down,” Mrs. Gordon said, and her voice quavered. Suze had never heard her sound like that before. The sat, one on each chair, and Suze braced herself for the biggest lecture of her whole life. Then Oppie spoke.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He held up a piece of flimsy yellow paper, a telegram. “There’s been an accident.”
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages.