Summer Reading 2021: Blast from the Past and True Story

When AIDS devastates thirteen-year-old Auma's village in Kenya during the 1980s, Auma must choose between staying to help her family and working toward a track scholarship that will take her away from home. Auma knows her family is depending on her, but leaving might be the only way to find the answers to questions about this new disease.

In Japan in 1853, at the time of U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's visit to Japan, Yoshi, a young Japanese boy who dreams of becoming a samurai one day, learns about America from Majiro and has adventures with Jack, a young cabin boy aboard one of the U.S. ships.

Patryk and Jurek are as much friends as rivals in the small Russian-occupied Polish village where they live. When, in August 1914, Patryk finds an old button on the forest floor, Jurek becomes wildly jealous. Not long after, World War I comes to Poland, bringing one invading army after another to the village. Jurek devises an exciting dare among the seven boys in their pack: whoever steals the best military button will be Button King. The boys agree. The contest is on. The competition escalates from stealing uniform buttons on a wash line to looting the bodies of dead soldiers to setting up an ambush. Leading the charge is Jurek, who will do anything to be Button King.

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

In 1911, Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Joan journeys from the muck of the chicken coop to the comforts of a society household in Baltimore (Electricity! Carpet sweepers! Sending out the laundry!), and discovers feminism and housework; religion and literature; love and loyalty; cats, hats, and bunions.

Draws on sensationalized, period newspaper articles to recreate the events of the infamous Borden murders and the trial and acquittal of Lizzie Borden, sorting out fact from fiction to explore Lizzie's story and consider what probably happened.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.

In the late 1990s, conservationist Anthony, who owned the Thula Thula game reserve, was asked to take in a herd of elephants that had been labeled "troubled"— if Anthony did not take them, or if he could not contain them, they would be shot. What began as a rocky relationship blossomed into a truly spectacular bond. An adaptation of Lawrence Anthony’s 2009 memoir of the same title.

Before landing a spot on the megahit Netflix show Orange is the New Black and before her incredible activism and work on immigration reform, Diane Guerrero was a young girl living in Boston. One day, while she was at school, her undocumented immigrant parents were taken from their home, detained, and deported. Guerrero's life, which had been full of the support of a loving family, was turned upside down. An adapted version of Guerrero's memoir In the Country We Love: My Family Divided.

Buffalo Bill’s rise as a mythic figure looms large in this entertaining and well-researched story of how Buffalo Bill popularized the legend of the West with his Wild West shows in the US and Europe. The book presents Buffalo Bill’s contributions to the Pony Express, the Battle of Little Big Horn, and Native American rights.

Disillusioned by the propaganda of Nazi Germany, Sophie Scholl, her brother, and his fellow soldiers formed the White Rose, a group that wrote and distributed anonymous letters criticizing the Nazi regime and calling for action from their fellow German citizens. The following year, Sophie and her brother were arrested for treason and interrogated for information about their collaborators. This novel in verse recounts the lives of Sophie and her friends and highlights their brave stand against fascism in Nazi Germany.

1919 was a world-shaking year. America was recovering from World War I and black soldiers returned to racism so violent that that summer would become known as the Red Summer. The suffrage movement had a long-fought win when women gained the right to vote. Laborers took to the streets to protest working conditions; nationalistic fervor led to a communism scare; and temperance gained such traction that prohibition went into effect. Each of these movements reached a tipping point that year. Now, one hundred years later, these same social issues are more relevant than ever.

Would you want to be a Civil War surgeon? Before modern medicine, injuries during the war were a grisly, life-and-death matter. Read about the heroes, leaders, and technology of the time in this colorful and surprising nonfiction title.

The author walks readers through the history and impact of six inventions that influence the modern world, organized into six topics: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, light. This fun survey describes how innovations, such as air conditioning and eye-glasses, evolved over time; these stories provide an appreciation of how ideas build upon each other.

On the night of October 30, 1938, thousands of Americans panicked when they believed that Martians had invaded Earth. What appeared to be breaking news about an alien invasion was in fact a radio drama based on H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds. Some listeners became angry once they realized they had been tricked, and the reaction to the broadcast sparked a national discussion about fake news, propaganda, and the role of radio.

A fast-paced, conversational history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted from the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning. “This is NOT a history book. This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are. A book about race.”

Set sail on the pirate ship Whydah, doomed to sink off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717 with its treasure aboard and Black Sam Bellamy at the helm. Not found until 1984, its artifacts have shed much light on the life of pirates.