All Alone by Claire Huchet Bishop is the 1954 Newbery Honor. Ten-year-old Marcel is entrusted with his family’s cows for the entire summer on the high French Alp mountain tops. Entirely alone. He has always been taught that it’s best to keep to oneself. In fact, his entire village all keep to themselves. Nobody is [...]
Witness by Karen Hesse is told from the viewpoints of eleven different townspeople in a small town of Vermont in 1924. A town in which the Klu Klux Klan has moved in and ultimately changes everything. I adore free-verse novels and Witness is as powerful as they come. Based on true characters, there are photographs [...]
Oh my. This is my type of book. All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg and I were made for each other. And had it not been for the Cybils, this middle grade free verse novel might have flown under my radar (despite that I now see the reviews for it – all of which [...]
Ghost in the Machine by Patrick Carman is the follow up book to Skeleton Creek. I love this series because of it’s creativity . If you are not familiar with Skeleton Creek (which you can check out my review and details here), it’s a book which is told in two different formats. One is the [...]
Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry is the 1940 Newbery Medal winner. Set in the Polynesian Islands before the traders and missionaries first came to the South Seas, it is the story of Mafatu who is known as The Boy Who Was Afraid. What was it that he was so afraid of? The ocean. In [...]