Special Collections
Jane Addams Children's Book Award Winners
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The Well
by Mildred D. TaylorAnother powerful story in the Logan Family Saga and companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Newbery Award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
For David Logan, a time of distress means taking the higher road. During a drought, the Logan family shares their well water with their neighbors, black and white alike. But David's brother Hammer finds it hard to share with Charlie Simms, who torments them because they are black. Hammer's pride and Charlie's meanness are a dangerous combination, and tensions between the boys build and build--until they explode.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
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?
Through My Eyes
by Ruby Bridges and Margo LundellOn November 14, 1960, a tiny six-year-old black child, surrounded by federal marshals, walked through a mob of screaming segregationists and into her school. From where she sat in the office, Ruby Bridges could see parents marching through the halls and taking their children out of classrooms. The next day, Ruby walked through the angry mob once again and into a school where she saw no other students. The white children did not go to school that day, and they wouldn't go to school for many days to come. Surrounded by racial turmoil, Ruby, the only student in a classroom with one wonderful teacher, learned to read and add. This is the story of a pivotal event in history as Ruby Bridges saw it unfold around her. Ruby's poignant words, quotations from writers and from other adults who observed her, and dramatic photographs recreate an amazing story of innocence, courage, and forgiveness. Ruby Bridges' story is an inspiration to us all.
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.
A Spirit to Ride the Whirlwind
by Athena V. LordTwelve-year-old Binnie, whose mother runs a company boarding house in Lowell, Massachusetts, begins working in a textile mill and is caught up in the 1836 strike of women workers.
Molly Bannaky
by Alice Mcgill and Chris K. SoentpietOn a cold gray morning in 1683, Molly Walsh sat on a stool tugging at the udder of an obstinate cow. When she spilled the milk, she was brought before the court for stealing. Because she could read, Molly escaped the typical punishment of death on the gallows. At the age of seventeen, the English dairymaid was exiled from her country and sentenced to work as an indentured servant in British Colonial America. Molly worked for a planter in Maryland for seven long years. Then she was given an ox hitched to a cart, some supplies-and her freedom. That a lone woman should stake land was unheard of. That she would marry an African slave was even more so. Yet Molly prospered, and with her husband Bannaky, she turned a one-room cabin in the wilderness into a thriving one hundred-acre farm. And one day she had the pleasure of writing her new grandson's name in her cherished Bible: Benjamin Banneker.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
Marching For Freedom
by Elizabeth PartridgeAn inspiring look at the fight for the vote, by an award-winning author Only 44 years ago in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading a fight to win blacks the right to vote. Ground zero for the movement became Selma, Alabama. Award-winning author Elizabeth Partridge leads you straight into the chaotic, passionate, and deadly three months of protests that culminated in the landmark march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Focusing on the courageous children who faced terrifying violence in order to march alongside King, this is an inspiring look at their fight for the vote. Stunningly emotional black-and-white photos accompany the text.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
With Courage and Cloth
by Ann BausumFor grades 5 and up. With Courage and Cloth tells the story of how women fought for and won the right to vote in the United States. Over the course of seven compelling, fact-filled chapters-"Parade," "Rights," "Momentum," "Protest," "Prison," "Action," and "Victory"-the story of a brave struggle unfolds, showing how women used the democratic system that excluded them in order to become full voting citizens of their nation. The book starts with basic history on the struggle for women's rights, other groups' battles for the vote, and background on the 19th-century women's suffrage movement before focusing on the ultimately successful 20th century efforts to enfranchise women. It details and illustrates the political lobbying and public protests organized by women's groups led by suffragists like Alice Paul and the backlash against these efforts, including intimidation, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and forced feeding of prisoners. The book explains how support for women's suffrage grew, leading to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, and the battle to get it ratified by three-fourths of the nation's 48 states. An afterword includes a discussion of the evolution of voting rights and women's rights since 1920, including the efforts to pass an equal rights amendment. This political struggle for equal rights under the law makes for an exciting story that demonstrates democracy in action and how people have worked to improve the system.
A Long Hard Journey
by Patricia C. Mckissack and Fredrick L. Mckissack"An exciting labor history . . . an excellent introduction to the subject". --School Library Journal.
Coretta Scott King 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
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.
Separate Is Never Equal
by Duncan Tonatiuh
Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California.
An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school.
Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court.
Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.
2015 Jane Addams Younger Reader Award,
2015 Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Book
2015 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
by Amy Lee-TaiWhile she and her family are interned at Topaz Relocation Center during World War II, Mari gradually adjusts as she enrolls in an art class, makes a friend, plants sunflowers and waits for them to grow.
Seven Brave Women
by Betsy Hearne and Bethanne AndersenTake a journey through time as a young girl recounts the exploits of her female ancestors, seven brave women who left their imprints on the past and on her. Beginning with the great-great-great-grandmother who came to America on a wooden sailboat, these women were devout and determined and tireless and beloved.
Esperanza Rising (Scholastic Gold)
by Pam Muñoz RyanEsperanza Rising joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depression, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When Mama gets sick and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances-because Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.
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
Marianthe's Story, Painted Words
by AlikiTwo separate stories in one book, the first telling of Mari's starting school in a new land, and the second describing village life in her country before she and her family left in search of a better life.
Sugar
by Jewell Parker RhodesTen-year-old Sugar lives on the River Road sugar plantation along the banks of the Mississippi. Slavery is over, but laboring in the fields all day doesn't make her feel very free.
Thankfully, Sugar has a knack for finding her own fun, especially when she joins forces with forbidden friend Billy, the white plantation owner's son.
Sugar has always yearned to learn more about the world, and she sees her chance when Chinese workers are brought in to help harvest the cane.
The older River Road folks feel threatened, but Sugar is fascinated. As she befriends young Beau and elder Master Liu, they introduce her to the traditions of their culture, and she, in turn, shares the ways of plantation life.
Sugar soon realizes that she must be the one to bridge the cultural gap and bring the community together.
Here is a story of unlikely friendships and how they can change our lives forever.
From Jewell Parker Rhodes, the author of Ninth Ward (a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a Today show Al's Book Club for Kids pick), here's another tale of a strong, spirited young girl who rises beyond her circumstances and inspires others to work toward a brighter future.
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
We Are One
by Larry Dane BrimnerBayard Rustin's life was dedicated to helping others-fighting injustices and discriminations-so that people could live as one. Protesting segregation long before there was a civil rights movement, he was often arrested for his beliefs and actions. As an organizer, Bayard was largely responsible for bringing people together to walk for freedom and jobs in Washington, D. C., on that memorable summer day, August 28, 1963.
A Long Walk to Water
by Linda Sue ParkA Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985.
The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours' walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya's in an astonishing and moving way.
Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
First Woman In Congress
by Florence Meiman WhiteA biography of the first woman elected to Congress, who spent the 92 years of her life as a leader for woman suffrage, a lobbyist, and a social reformer.
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
We've Got A Job
by Cynthia Y. LevinsonWe've Got a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black elementary-, middle-, and high school students who voluntarily went to jail in Birmingham, Alabama, between May 2 and May 11, 1963. Fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi s and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. s precept to fill the jails, they succeeded where adults had failed in desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America. Focusing on four of the original participants who have participated in extensive interviews, We've Got a Job recounts the astonishing events before, during, and after the Children's March.
Waiting For The Rain
by Sheila GordonThis novel shows the bonds of friendship under the strain of apartheid as two lifelong friends, Tengo and Frikkie, come of age amidst the tragedy of South Africa.