Book List - 18 Chapter Books and 11 Picture Books

Pura Belpre Award Books

1.  Chapter Book - The Dreamer

2.  Chapter Book - Return to Sender

Coretta Scott King Award

3.  Chapter Book - One Crazy Summer

4.  Chapter Book - Watsons Go to Birmingham

Bluebonnet Nominees

5.  Picture Book – One Potato ,Two Potato

6.  Chapter Book – Down Girl and Sit: On the Road

7.  Picture Book – Seadogs: an Ocean Operetta

8.  Picture Book – Help Me Mr. Mutt  

Caldecott Award

9.  Picture Book – Interrupting Chicken

10.  Picture Book – Polar Express

11.  Picture Book - House in the Night

12.  Picture Book - All the World 

Newbery Award or Honor Books

13.  Picture Book – Dark Emperor and other poems

14.  Chapter Book – Criss Cross

15.  Chapter Book – After Tupac and D Foster

16.  Chapter Book – Pictures of Hollis Woods  

Notable Books for Children listed on ALA website

17.  Chapter Book – Evolution of Calpurnia Tate        

18.  Chapter Book – The Higher Power of Lucky 

19.  Chapter Book – Holes

NY Times bestseller books

20.  Chapter Book - Dork Diaries 

21.  Picture Book – The Very Hungry Caterpillar  

22.  Picture Book – The Lion and the Mouse

Challenged Books

23. Chapter Book - The Giver

24.  Chapter Book - To Kill a Mockingbird

25.  Chapter Book – Goosebumps

26.  Chapter Book - The Outsiders

27.  Picture Book - Where’s Waldo? 

Other

28.  Chapter Book - Twilight

29.  Chapter Book – The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

By Suzanne Collins

I really can’t think of anything I didn’t like about this book. I was hooked from beginning to end and I loved it. The characters were well developed, the plot is action-packed and fast-paced, there are conflicts and sub-conflicts, and, in the end, I wanted to keep reading.

The world of Hunger Games is dreary, difficult, and should be unbelievable, but I believed it. The whole idea of the Games reminded me of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, in which the main event of the story is equally shocking, brutal, and partaken by the whole community.

The idea that the community watches the brutality of the Hunger Games for the purposes of entertainment reminds me of the current fame-induced destruction of celebrities the public craves via all forms of media or any other type of public shows of destruction and brutality. That comparison may be a little extreme, but I think there are similarities.

Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc. 

One Crazy Summer

By Rita Williams-Garcia
Coretta Scott King Award

One Crazy Summer is the story of the summer of 1968 when Delphine and her two younger sisters are sent from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA for four weeks so that they can “get to know” their mother who had abandoned them seven years before. Their mother, Cecile, is a poet and a Black Panther. She resents their visit and does not mother the girls at all.

Williams-Garcia does so many things well in this book. Her characters have depth, the plot moves along nicely, the setting creates interest, and the conflict causes the reader to empathize with Delphine, the caretaker of her younger sisters, and at the same time causes the reader to wonder why Cecile walked away from her daughters.

It didn’t seem to me like the girls needed their mother at all. They were well cared for in Brooklyn by their father and grandmother. They were safe. They were smart and talented. As the story unfolds, the truth and meat of the whole story stands clearly: children need their mother, no matter who they are. At first they appear to have nothing in common, but as the story unfolds their connections become clear and undeniable, even to them.

Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York, NY: Amistad.    

The Lion and the Mouse

By Jerry Pinkney
NY Times Bestseller

This picture book tells Aesop’s story beautifully and wordlessly. The colorful and textured illustrations are a mixture of extreme close-ups, panoramic views, and full scenes that bring the lion and the mouse to life. The book also gives the main characters context by showing the lion and mouse’s families and how everyone benefits from their merciful encounter. It’s a beautiful book with a powerful lesson.

Pinkney, J. (2009). The lion and the mouse. New York : Little, Brown and Co. Books for Young Readers.

The Higher Power of Lucky

By Susan Patron
2007 ALA Notable Children’s Books

One of the things I found intriguing about this book is the title – The Higher Power of Lucky. The title is explained in the first chapter when the main character, a ten and a half year old girl named Lucky, eavesdrops on an AA meeting and listens to Short Sammy’s story about the day he hit rock bottom and decided he had to quit drinking and find his higher power. Chapter one ends, “..she still had doubts and anxious questions in all the crevices of her brain, especially about how to find her Higher Power.”

The reader learns about Lucky’s story and why she is doubtful and anxious. The setting is described beautifully. The characters are interesting and help the reader understand Lucky’s place in the world.

This book got me wondering about stories that are written about 9 – 11 year old girls who are smart and have been abandoned by people who should love them, such as Pictures of Hollis Woods and One Crazy Summer. These protagonists are forced to grow up too fast and to find their place in the world and who in the world really loves and cares about them. Perhaps it is the nurturing nature of young girls that makes these characters so appealing. Perhaps they can relate to the characters’ conflict.

Patron, S. (2007). The higher power of lucky. New York, NY: Thomson Gale.

Dork Diaries – Tales of a Not-So-Popular Party Girl

By Rachel Renee Russell
NY Times Bestseller

Dork Diaries – Tales of a Not-So-Popular Party Girl was written for tween girls, ages 9 – 13. I think they would find the characters funny and familiar. The plot is wild, wacky, and fun when Nikki commits to being with three different people on the Halloween night, the night of the big middle school dance: at the dance being the clean-up crew with her two best friends (also self-proclaimed dorks), doing face-painting on kids at another event (for which she gets paid $150 in advance!), and being on a date at the dance with her big crush, the gorgeous Brandon.

The book is written as a diary with some illustrations and is an easy, fun read for the target audience.

This is one of those books that I would not call quality literature but would still approve of my children and students reading it for the sake of reading for entertainment.

Russell, R. R. (2010). Dork diaries – Tales of a not-so-popular party girl. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

To Kill a Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

Challenged Books

While I generally would not consider To Kill a Mockingbird for students younger than high school age, many middle school students read this classic novel. First published in 1960, the book has remained on reading lists across the country despite objections from groups and individuals over the past 50 years. Included in the plot are issues of racism, racial inequality, Jim Crow, rape, and alcohol abuse – not nice issues, but issues  that are part of the American experience. But the voice of Scout is so true that these issues are just there as if to say, “This is what happened and this is how it affected my life and my family.” And her voice is so real that we want to keep reading. I think older children will understand this. Most of them have seen injustice and intolerance in some form, but I agree that the content is not appropriate for most younger-than-high-school-age children.

Lee, H. (1988). To kill a mockingbird. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing.