Perseverance
Perseverance is the ability to continue to work through challenges. Students will learn how protagonists solved problems and maintained their motivation to not give up on their goals and dreams.
13 Days
During the thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Beardance
Cloyd Atcitty returns to the high country with his rancher friend Walter. Walter is searching for a lost cache of Spanish gold and Cloyd is hoping to find a family of grizzly bears.
Breaking Through
Since coming from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields, fighting to "break through" to improve his life and complete his education.
Buried Onions
See the barrio life seen through the eyes of a young man desperately seeking a way out. All Eddie wants is to get by, hold down a job, and walk a straight line into the future.
Dragonwings
In 1903 Moonshadow travels from a remote village in China to California to join his father, whom he has never seen. Despite tremendous difficulties and disasters, father and son struggle to build a life in San Francisco, working toward their dream of creating a dragon-like flying machine.
Esperanza Rising
This novel tells of a Mexican girl's fall from riches and her immigration to California in the 1930s. The story highlights her awareness of Mexico's post-revolution tensions, the rivalry with Oklahoma Dust Bowl victims, and struggles of Mexican workers trying to organize themselves to ask the U.S. government for better living conditions.
Falling Leaves
Born in 1937 in a port city a thousand miles north of Shanghai, Adeline Yen Mah was the youngest child of an affluent Chinese family who enjoyed rare privileges during a time of political and cultural upheaval.
Goodbye, Vietnam
When they realize that grandmother faces arrest in present-day Vietnam for following the old religion and practicing healing, the Vinh family decides to flee their small rice-growing village in the Mekong Delta and escape by sea to Hong Kong.
Grapes of Wrath
The hardships faced by migrant agricultural workers who arrived in California during the Great Depression are depicted by this Nobel Prize-winning California author.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The exciting experiences of Harry Potter are described as he goes from being an ordinary boy to being an unusual student at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Jesse
To escape a home dominated by his alcoholic stepfather, 17-year-old Jesse abruptly leaves high school, moves into an apartment with his older brother, and takes classes at Fresno City College.
Nightjohn
Nightjohn, an enslaved African American, risks severe punishments by teaching a young slave girl to read.
Sarny
The Civil War is over, and Sarny has been released from the shackles of slavery. This sequel to Gary Paulsen's acclaimed novel, Nightjohn, follows Sarny as she searches for her children after the war.
Stuck in Neutral
A fourteen-year-old boy with cerebral palsy is unable to communicate and longs to make contact with others. Through his words, the reader learns that Shawn is bright, funny, occasionally sarcastic, and astonishingly optimistic.
Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti
Seventeen-year-old Dijo (a victim in the real-life 1991 firebombing of a boys' shelter) is remembered by a girl named Jeremie, who cares for him in the hospital after he has been beaten in an unprovoked attack
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Malawi was a land withered by drought and hunger and where modern science was a mystery. William read about windmills and dreamed about building one to bring electricity and water to his village.
The Breadwinner
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, 11-year-old Parvana has rarely been outdoors. Barred from attending school, shopping at the market, or even playing in the streets of Kabul, the heroine of The Breadwinner is trapped inside her family's one-room home.
The Circuit
These 12 poignant short stories about a family of migrant workers in the California fields are based on the author's own experiences. Each story describes the tenacity and courage of a family determined to build on its limited opportunities.
The Contender
Alfred begins going to Donatelli’s Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it’s the effort, not the win, that makes the man.
The Hobbit
In the land of Middle Earth - inhabited by dwarves, elves, goblins, dragons, and humans - Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, encounters many adventures when he is persuaded to join a band of dwarves on an expedition to recover a stolen treasure hidden by a thieving dragon.
The Outside Shot
Recruited by a small Midwestern college to play basketball, Lonnie Jackson, a Harlem boy has many new experiences, including working with a child who needs physical therapy and dealing with corruption in college sports.
The View From Saturday
It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too.
Where the Red Fern Grows
This is a story of a boy's childhood in the Ozarks which features his intense relationship with two coonhounds and the many adventures they have while hunting.
Whirlgig
Brent Bishop discovers the meaning of accountability when his drunken action causes the death of Lea Zamora.