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by Holly Goldberg Sloan

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praise:
* “A graceful, meaningful tale featuring a cast of charming, well-rounded characters who learn sweet—but never cloying—lessons about resourcefulness, community, and true resilience in the face of loss.”—Booklist starred review

* “What sets this novel apart from the average orphan-finds-a-home book is its lack of sentimentality, its truly multicultural cast (Willow describes herself as a “person of color”; Mai and Quang-ha are of mixed Vietnamese, African American, and Mexican ancestry), and its tone. . . . Poignant.”—The Horn Bookstarred review

* “Willow’s story is one of renewal, and her journey of rebuilding the ties that unite people as a family will stay in readers’ hearts long after the last page.”—School Library Journal starred review

(https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/310923/counting-by-7s-by-holly-goldberg-sloan/9780142422861)

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As the heated - and very productive - discussion on Read Roger reflects, readers are clamoring for more books that represent, as author/illustrator Yuyi Morales eloquently put it, "the experience of other cultures 'other than the dominant one.'" There's no question that there aren't enough such books to choose from; here are four of our recent favorites.

The protagonist of Holly Goldberg Sloan's perceptive and poignant (and funny) Counting by 7s is awkward genius middle schooler Willow Chance. After her parents die in a car accident, she's taken in, on a temporary basis, by her new friend Mai Nguyen's family: mother Pattie (née Dung) and surly brother Quang-ha. These disparate characters, plus cabdriver Jairo Hernandez, ultimately connect with one another, forming a new family. What sets this novel apart is its lack of sentimentality, its truly multicultural cast (Willow describes herself as a "person of color"; Mai and Quang-ha are of mixed Vietnamese, African American, and Mexican ancestry), and its precise, observational tone. (Dial, 11-14 years)

Lewis Blake, star of Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here, is a brainiac kid from the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in 1970s upstate New York. Beginning his second year (seventh grade) in a mostly white county junior high school, he's tired of feeling like an outsider, but he also worries that fitting in would mean "stripping my Indian life away completely first." The arrival of newcomer George Haddonfield - an Air Force kid and fellow Beatles fan - allows Lewis to make a friend and helps him cope with the extreme bullying he experiences at school. It's a fine story with depth and heart; like Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, it is engaging and authentic. (Scholastic/Levine, 11-14 years)

Tara Sullivan's Tanzania-set Golden Boy follows Habo, a zeruzeru (albino) whose family falls in with an ivory poacher. Alasiri forces Habo and his brother to help with his grisly trade in exchange for a ride to Mwanza. Once there, Habo's situation worsens: in the northern regions of Tanzania, superstition holds that the hands, legs, skin, and hair of a zeruzeru can be used to make powerful good luck charms, and Alasiri tries to murder Habo for his body parts. Sullivan excels at conveying Habo's feelings of freakishness and alienation, as well as his mortal terror during Alasiri's attack. Sullivan's understanding of human emotion and personal growth is deep and genuine, and her efforts to draw attention to this human rights abuse are commendable. (Putnam, 13-16 years)

A move to a new neighborhood in Queens means a new high school for Piddy (short for Piedad) Sanchez, star of Meg Medina's Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. Instead of a welcoming committee, she gets word that someone she doesn't even know has it in for her. Yaqui Delgado may think she's tough, but it's Piddy and some of the other female characters, namely Piddy's mother and her mother's flamboyant best friend Lila, who make more lasting impressions. Medina's setting stands out as well, especially her portrayal of the bustling Latina-owned beauty salon where Piddy works. As the bullying intensifies, Piddy wonders: is it easier to give up and become a "nobody," or should she fight back? Teens will identify with Piddy's struggle to decide. (Candlewick, 13-16 years)

From the August 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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Indigenous protagonists and people of color

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As the heated - and very productive - discussion on Read Roger reflects, readers are clamoring for more books that represent, as author/illustrator Yuyi Morales eloquently put it, "the experience of other cultures 'other than the dominant one.'" There's no question that there aren't enough such books to choose from; here are four of our recent favorites.

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by Holly Goldberg Sloan

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Counting by 7s book. Read 6,972 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature a...

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by Suzanne Collins

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.

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Read 204k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live...

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by Suzanne Collins

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The Hunger Games Book 1 Trailer | Scholastic

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Teenagers are forced to battle each other while the nation watches. In the end, only one will survive. Let the games begin in the first book of the bestselling series by

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by S.E.Hinton

Ponyboy can count on his brothers. And on his friends. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a goo d time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.

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student made book trailer

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Student-made book trailer for The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

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School Library Journal book review

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#4 The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)
260 points

The original dystopian. - Jennifer Padgett

My 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Morgan, read this aloud to us. My best friend and I checked a copy out of the library and finished it on a sleepover, sharing a single copy until we finished it because we could not wait. - Jessalynn Gale

It's likely that Lois Lowry's 1994 Newbery Medal winner has introduced more readers to dystopian fiction than any other book. Covering themes of mortality and religion, it's also a regular on the most challenged list. One thing is for sure - you'll never forgot it. - Travis Jonker

One of the cooler things about getting old is when you meet adults younger than you who, for instance, may have read an amazing book you first read when you were 18 but THEY read at that perfect book age, when they were 10 or 11, and it is for them what YOUR #1 is for you, and it's like, WHOA. Awesome. I loved it enough when I was 18. - Amy M. Weir

I think I might have an little bit of a Lois Lowry addiction. I had such a strong need to read The Giver while I was abroad in the Middle East that I wept with joy when I happened to find a copy of it in a used bookstore in Damascus. - Dana Chidiac

Blew my little mind. - Miriam Newman

The plot description from the publisher reads, "December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man-the man called only the Giver-he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world."

As per usual we turn to good old 100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey for the skinny on the creation of this title. It was her twenty-first novel, you know. No newbie to the children's literature biz (as the fans of Anastasia Krupnik will all attest) the book was inspired by both the old and the young. On the one hand, Lowry was visiting her parents in the nursing home. Her mother had retained her memory but lost her sight. Her father could see but was losing her memory. This became coupled with a comment from Lowry's grandson while on a Swan Boat ride in the Boston Public Garden. "He said to her 'Have you ever noticed that when people think they are manipulating ducks, actually ducks are manipulating people?' " Mrs. Mallard from Make Way for Ducklings would have something to say about that, I think. Whatever the case, these seemingly disparate thoughts combined in Lowry's brain giving us the book we have today.

It was a big time hit from the start. Maybe this was partly due to the fact that it was the first middle grade dystopian novel to get any attention since the early 1980s. For a while there, folks were convinced that the ending of the book was ambiguous. Does Jonas live? Does he die? In her Newbery speech Ms. Lowry said, "Those of you who hoped that I would stand here tonight and reveal the 'true' ending, the 'right' interpretation of the ending, will be disappointed. There isn't one. There's a right one for each of us, and it depends on our own beliefs, our own hopes." Ambiguity sort of went out the window, though, when the sequels Gathering Blue, Messenger and Son (out this fall) came out and Jonas was wandering about.

It gets challenged in libraries and schools on a regular basis, unfortunately. Indeed I was a little shocked when I read the USA Today headline Suicide book challenged in schools. Excuse me, whaaa? Then they go on to misspell the word "Newbery" as "Newberry". Real crack journalism there. Apparently folks are under the impression that the book is "dangerous because of its portrayal of suicide, euthanasia and infanticide in a neutral to positive light." Which is to say, they haven't read the book.

I love the story about the original cover, by the way. According to Silvey, "A photographer as well as a writer, Lowry had worked on an article about the painter Carl Nelson, who had a wonderful sense of color but became blind in later years. For this piece she shot a mesmerizing portrait of him. She kept the photograph in her studio and realized when hunting for a jacket image that it would be perfect for The Giver."

It won itself a shiny little Newbery Award in 1994. Honor books in that particular year included Crazy Lady by Jane Leslie Conly, Dragon's Gate by Laurence Yep, and Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery by Russell Freedman. It would be Lowry's second Newbery Award.

A year ago the announcement went out that Jeff Bridges was hell-bent on bringing this book to the screen. IMDB says it's slated for 2013. We shall see what we shall see.

Best first sentence: "It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened."

Publishers Weekly gave it a star saying, "Lowry is once again in top form... unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers."

School Library Journal said, "The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time."

There are fewer covers out there than most books on this Top Ten, but more than I had expected.

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Top 100 Children's Novels #4: The Giver by Lois Lowry

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4 The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993) 260 points The original dystopian. - Jennifer Padgett My 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Morgan, read this aloud to us. My best friend and I checked a copy out of the library and finished it on a sleepover, sharing a single copy until we finished it because we could not wait.

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by S.E. Hinton

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The Outsiders book. Read 28,632 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions publ...

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School Library Journal article

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Fans gathered in New York City on April 25 to celebrate the golden anniversary of the publication of the classic by S.E. Hinton.

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by S.E. Hinton

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by Lois Lowry

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

Newbery Medal winner 1994

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Publisher's Weekly book review

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Lois Lowry, Author Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $17 (192p) ISBN 978-0-395-64566-6

More By and About This Author

In the ``ideal'' world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are ``released''--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also ``released,'' but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. With a storyline that hints at Christian allegory and an eerie futuristic setting, this intriguing novel calls to mind John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Lowry is once again in top form--raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers. Ages 12-14. (Apr.)

Downloadable Audio - 1 pages - 978-0-7393-4456-9

Prebound-Sewn - 179 pages - 978-0-7807-4102-7

Paperback - 978-0-614-22196-1

Prebound-Other - 978-0-7857-3498-7

Paperback - 64 pages - 978-0-439-46356-0

Compact Disc - 4 pages - 978-0-8072-6203-0

Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-0-7393-7479-5

Prebound-Glued - 172 pages - 978-0-7807-6512-2

Hardcover - 226 pages - 978-0-7862-0055-9

Hardcover - 192 pages - 978-0-00-711182-4

Mass Market Paperbound - 208 pages - 978-0-440-22892-9

Paperback - 100 pages - 978-0-8220-0530-8

Analog Audio Cassette - 978-0-8072-8312-7

Prebound-Sewn - 180 pages - 978-0-606-06990-8

Mass Market Paperbound - 978-0-440-22727-4

Mass Market Paperbound - 978-0-440-90079-5

Paperback - 320 pages - 978-0-439-04391-5

Audio book sample courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio

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Children's Book Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry, Author Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $17 (192p) ISBN 978-0-395-64566-6

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Lois Lowry, Author Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $17 (192p) ISBN 978-0-395-64566-6 More By and About This Author In the ``ideal'' world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl.

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by Rodman Philbrick

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hannah bishop freak the mighty book trailer

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by Lois Lowry

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This haunting story centers on Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he's g...

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by Rodman Philbrick

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Two boys - a slow learner stuck in the body of a teenage giant and a tiny Einstein in leg braces - forge a unique friendship when they pa...

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by Lois Lowry