Special Collections
Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winners
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People Are Important
by Eva Knox EvansExplains the origins of communication and languages and how customs and symbols mean different things to different peoples.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Stick-in-the-mud
by Jean KetchumTomba was a small boy who lived in a village where all the houses were made of mud. When the rains came every year, all the people sat around in the wet. Tomba had an idea that if the huts were put on sticks, they wouldn't have to be uncomfortable. But the villagers had always lived that way and didn't want to listen to a small boy. But many times a new approach to a problem will solve, and Tomba did.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Rainbow Round the World
by Elizabeth YatesThe author describes her travels with a young boy as they visit 10 countries where UNICEF funds were being used.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Story Of The Negro
by Arna Bontemps and Raymond LufkinA history of the Negro race, from the early tribes of Africa and empire of Ethiopia, through the practice of slavery in many areas, especially the United States, to early twentieth century achievements of American Negroes.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Blue Mystery
by Margot Benary-IsbertThe principal event is the disappearance of a blue gloxinia, [Blue Mystery] a special flower of Dr. Benninger's, and the clearance of Fridolin from suspicion.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Perilous Road
by William O. SteeleChris Brabson hates Yankees, plain and simple. Not only are the Union troops down in Tennessee where they don't belong, but they helped themselves to all the supplies his family had saved for winter. And to add to it all, his brother joined up with the Union Army. How could he betray the south, Chris wonders.
Chris wants to prove his loyalty to the Confederate cause, any way he can. When he sees a Union wagon train cutting through the valley, he has his chance. He tells a spy where and how the Confederates can attack. But then he finds out that Jethro could be driving one of those Yankee wagons! Has he just caused the death of his own brother?
A Newbery Honor book and Jane Addams Children's Book Award Medal Winner
What Then Raman
by Shirley L. AroraA boy in India is the first in his village to learn to read and longs to buy a special book. He comes from a poor country family which has barely enough money to buy food. To earn more money, Raman works gathering plants for an American woman, and learns that with education comes responsibility as well as privilege.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Road to Agra
by Armiee SommerfeltThe Road to Agra is a children's novel, written by Aimée Sommerfelt and published in Norwegian in 1959 as Veien til Agra. It is her most famous work and has been translated into 17 other languages. It is a tender story of the love between thirteen-year-old Lalu and his younger sister, Maya, who is seven. Lalu protects his sister and takes care of her needs. His concern for Maya's failing eyesight, the result of a contagious disease called trachoma, prompts Lalu to take his sister on a perilous, three-hundred-mile journey on foot to seek medical help. Lalu's desire to better his situation in life and his unwavering commitment to his goal will inspire young readers.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Monkey and the Wild, Wild Wind
by Ryerson Johnson and Lois LignellThis is the story of a monkey whose antics resulted in cooperation and friendship among the animals stranded in a cave.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Profiles in Courage Young Readers Memorial Edition
by John F. KennedyCourage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage, that they would stand up, that they could be counted on.
That is why this book so fitted his personality, his beliefs. It is a study of men who, at risk to themselves, their futures, even the well-being of their children, stood fast for principle. It was toward that ideal that he modeled his life. And this in time gave heart to others.
As Andrew Jackson said, "One man with courage makes a majority." That is the effect President Kennedy had on others.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Meeting with a Stranger
by Duane BradleyCantuffa is a thick thorn bush which once covered much of the land of Ethiopia, preventing any progress until it had been cut away. For this reason an emperor about to make a voyage across the country proclaimed, "Cut down the cantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I know not where I am going."
This story helps to shack away at some of the thorns which still obscure this nation. It describes the young boy Teffera, left in charge of his family's farm and sheep while his father was undergoing an operation. When a ferangi, an American, came to his small village to help teach new methods of caring for the sheep, Teffera had to decide whether he should accept this advice. His people had had substantial reason to mistrust the Westerners, and he was instilled with pride in own traditions, but on the other hand his flocks were dying.
This book has the dual value of illuminating the character of the Ethiopian peasant and of providing an insight into the problems they must face in adapting to progress while maintaining their national spirit.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Berries Goodman
by Emily Cheney NevilleThe Goodman family move to the suburbs and nine-year-old Berries finds his nearest playmate is a girl, Sandra. She is a year older than Berries, feels superior in many ways, and undertakes to teach him prejudice against Jews.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Queenie Peavy
by Robert BurchQueenie Peavy is the worst troublemaker at school and the best shot in Georgia with her father in jail, why shouldn't she be angry? But Queenie wonders what would happen if she tried to behave herself, just for one day...
The Little Fishes
by Erik Christian HaugaardThe story of a twelve-year-old Italian boy who, while suffering under German occupation, struggles to protect his spirit and humanity which was his late mothers only wish.
The Endless Steppe
by Esther HautzigA young Polish girl, her father, her mother, and her grandmother are taken prisoner by the Russians during World War II, evicted from their home, and shipped in a filthy cattle car to a forced-labor camp in a remote, impoverished Siberian village. For four terrible years, the family struggles for beds, food, clothing, fuel--all the everyday things that one takes for granted. Despite bitter hardships, the family makes a new life with new friends. And they never lose their deep affection and trust in one another. Esther Rudomin Hautzig's account of her childhood in Siberia is a magnificent story of the triumph of the human spirit.
A Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winner.
The Cay
by Theodore TaylorPhillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.”
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
· A New York Times Best Book of the Year
· A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
· A Horn Book Honor Book
· An American Library Association Notable Book
· A Publishers Weekly Children’s Book to Remember
· A Child Study Association’s Pick of Children’s Books of the Year
· Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
· Commonwealth Club of California: Literature Award
· Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People Award
· Woodward School Annual Book Award
· Friends of the Library Award, University of California at Irvine
· Jane Addams Book Award
Jane Addams Pioneer of Social Justice
by Cornelia MeigsJane Addams, the first women to receive the Nobel Peace prize, was a vivid example of the influence that can be achieved through courage, perseverance, personal integrity and respect for others regardless of social status. Not only is this book an interesting historical narrative, but it carefully reminds the reader of unsuitable urban living and working conditions of the past as it traces the development of social attitudes now taken for granted.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Tamarack Tree
by Betty Underwood and Bea HolmesIn 1833 Bernadette come to Canterbury dreaming of a better education. She found herself in the middle of an uproar over girls of color being admitted to a female seminary in a time when education for white women was hard to come by.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Riddle of Racism
by S. Carl HirschFor thousands of years men have known that the inhabitants of different parts of the world are often visibly different. But in America, for the first time anywhere on earth, three great racial groups met in large numbers on the same continent. White colonizers took the land from the native population they called Indians, whose physical traits linked them to Asian origins. Black people were brought here from Africa to serve the white settlers as slaves. "Under this set of conditions," observes S. Carl Hirsch, "the meeting of the three great races on America's soil was not likely to he a happy one." In this bold, challenging book, the author examines the historical record for the roots of the race hatred that has troubled our nation since its inception. Within a chronological framework, the book traces the search for scientific knowledge of race as a biological phenomenon against the background of political events that reveal its sociological aspects. The scientific struggle was focussed on the question of "superior" and "inferior races, from a time when white supremacy was the prevailing view of America's political, social, and religious leaders, including those opposed to slavery, to today's understanding of a concept of race its biological and cultural significance. Along the way the reader meets many individuals whose personal stories illuminate the perpetual questions underlying that irrational force which still continues to pervade our land: racism.
A Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winner.
The Princess And The Admiral
by Charlotte Pomerantz and Tony ChenA small patch of dry Asian land called the Tiny Kingdom serves as the home for a community of poor farmers and fisherfolk. The land, as poor as its people, holds no gold, silver, or other riches. For this reason, no country has ever waged war against the Tiny Kingdom, and the people have lived in peace for 100 years. But when Princess Mat Mat, ruler of the Tiny Kingdom, meets with her advisers to plan a great peace celebration, they bring bad news. A large fleet of warships is sailing toward them and will attack their people in just two days. With no army, no forts, and no arsenal, how can the princess defend her country? Her wisdom testifies that the most heroic action does not win wars, but prevents them. Princess Mat Mat devises a plan that includes, as an unexpected ally, the moon.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Paul Robeson (Crowell Biographies)
by Eloise GreenfieldA biography of the black man who became a famous singer, actor, and spokesman for equal rights for his people.
Never to Forget
by Milton MeltzerSix million Jews were killed in Europe between the years 1933 and 1945. What can that number mean to us today? We can that number mean to us today? We are told never to forget the Holocaust, but how can we remember something so incomprehensible?
Child of the Owl
by Laurence YepA young girl is sent to live with her grandmother in Chinatown and finds her Chinese heritage for the first time.
Amifika
by Lucille Clifton and Thomas DigraziaWhen Amifika hears that his mother is going to get rid of things his father won't remember, Amifika thinks he might be one of those things since he can't remember his father. So, he looks for a place to hide...
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Wheel of King Asoka
by Ashok DavarA brief account of King Asoka and how he ruled over his dynasty making it powerful and symbolized Ashoka Chakra. Throughout centuries the wheel of King Asoka has been there to inspire us to live as did this great king of India - in peace and love.