Summer Reading 2020: Blast from the Past and True Story

In the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, ten-year-old Sasha idolizes his father, a devoted Communist, but when police take his father away and leave Sasha homeless, he is forced to examine his own perceptions, values, and beliefs.

An unlikely young spy in World War II London forges a detective team with a strong-willed American girl, his Jewish refugee friend and his trusty pup to decipher a notebook containing clues about a young woman's disappearance.

Eleven-year-old Zomorod has moved four times between her native Iran and California, and her plan for fitting in at Newport Beach’s middle school starts with having a new American name, Cindy—just like on The Brady Bunch. In 1978, people don’t know much about Iran and her family is mostly mistaken for Mexican. Cindy makes friends and joins the Girl Scouts, but then Iran starts making the news. A revolution is underway, and when the Iranians take American hostages, Cindy’s family becomes the target of mean-spirited attacks and prejudice.

When the Berlin Wall went up, Gerta, her mother, and her brother Fritz were trapped on the eastern side where they were living, while her father, and her other brother Dominic were in the West--four years later, now twelve, Gerta sees her father on a viewing platform on the western side and realizes he wants her to risk her life trying to tunnel to freedom.

Forging a close friendship with an African American World War II veteran who has recently returned to their unwelcoming Jim Crow community, a 12-year-old white boy worries for his heroic friend's safety when racist locals threaten the man's family.

Fourteen-year-old Janie Scott, newly arrived in London from Los Angeles in 1952, becomes friends with a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows, and is drawn into a dangerous adventure with Benjamin when his father is kidnapped and Russian spies try to steal his book of secrets.

Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica--and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica.

In the dangerous world of the Mediterranean Bronze Age, Hylas, a lowly twelve-year-old goatherd, thief, and outsider, is hunted by powerful warriors who have kidnapped his sister and want him dead. While on the run, Hylas must use his skill and wits to survive a shipwreck and a great white shark attack, befriend a dolphin, and to help Pirra, the runaway daughter of a High Priestess. Hylas has to fight to find his sister before the warriors find them.

Fifteen-year-old Miss Penelope Lumley, a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, is hired as governess to three young children who have been raised by wolves and must teach them to behave in a civilized manner quickly, in preparation for a Christmas ball.

Twelve-year-old Franny Whitekraft lives quietly with her adopted parents on a farm on Vancouver Island until the spring of 1945 when the three Madden children move in, UFOs and ghosts appear, an important military airplane disappears, and wishes made in Old Tom's forbidden night garden will hopefully get everyone out of trouble.

In this memoir adapted for young readers, William Kamkwamba describes the drought that struck his tiny village in Malawi, his subsequent interest in science, and his idea to build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.

After World War II the United States and Britain airlifted food and supplies into Russian-blockaded West Berlin and to lift the spirits of the children who were suffering there, USAF Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen began dropping chocolate and gum by parachute, soon becoming known and beloved as "Uncle Wiggly Wings."

A deeply personal memoir-in-verse the heart of a quiet, young girl torn between two cultures.. The author's memories focus on the first 14 years of her life, beginning with idyllic summers spent in her mother's homeland of Cuba and ending during the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequent travel ban.

The world is changing for two girls in China in the 1970s. Da Qin—Big Piano—and her younger sister, Xiao Qin—Little Piano—live in the city of Wuhan with their parents. For decades, China's government had kept the country separated from the rest of the world. When their country's leader, Chairman Mao, dies in 1976, new opportunities begin to emerge. (Graphic nonfiction.)

The author gives an account of the 1944 civil rights protest involving hundreds of African-American Navy servicemen who were unjustly charged with mutiny for refusing to work in unsafe conditions after the deadly Port Chicago explosion.