| 
Fiction You Can't Put Down
By Holly E. Newton
Are you looking for a great fiction book that you can't put down? I've got a collection of books with different genres that will appeal to anyone who loves to read and loves to be thrown completely into the action of the book. Except for the second book, all of these are great read-aloud stories for ages 7 through adult.
The first four books are historical fiction books based on three different times in history. The Boy Who Dared: A Novel Based on the True Story of a Hitler Youth, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, is an incredible, interesting and inspiring story inside Germany at the beginning of World War II. Helmuth Hubener is 17 and is in jail. The year is 1942. The reader doesn't know the reason of his imprisonment or the outcome until the end of the book, but Helmuth reflects back in time beginning in his early teens. This reflection approach allows the reader to better understand the evolution of the intolerance of Jews.
Helmuth was a very courageous young teenager who couldn't stand to see the atrocities beginning to take place in his neighborhood with the closings of Jewish businesses, rights taken away from all Germans [like only being able to listen to their native radio stations, which were giving false information] and so on. He wanted his fellow Germans to know the truth, and he risked his life in doing so.
And the story documents how his Mormon religion helped promote tolerance, acceptance and concern for others. The author, who wrote the nonfiction Newbery Honor Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, was so impressed with Helmuth, and his heroic acts, that she fleshed out a fictionalized story of his thoughts and actions in this impressive and intensely researched account.
The Arrival, written and illustrated by Shaun Tan, is a most extraordinary and graphic novel. As the story unfolds through wordless pictures, you see a man leave his family and country to travel across the ocean to begin life in a new country with a new language and a completely different culture. The powerful messages throughout this amazing and accomplished story are the great sacrifices that took place, the extreme difficulties and hardships but more than anything else the hope, kindness and love shown to this man and others who have immigrated.
Fearless, by Elvira Woodruff, is an exciting story full of page-turning adventure and cliffhangers on almost every page. The story is about two young brothers who are traveling to Plymouth to see if their father survived a ship that sank. They run into Henry Winstanley, whom the story is loosely based on. He invented the lighthouse to help save many ships that hit rocky shores. The story takes place in the early 1700's and gives the reader an accurate feel for life along the Eastern coast of America at that time.
Susan Cooper is one of my favorite authors and she has recently written an account of life aboard Vice Admiral Lord Nelson's battleship. Victory takes place during the nineteenth century but alternates in time between modern Molly and Sam who live aboard the ship. The time-shift makes for a most adventurous and exciting tale of life and the comparisons between these two protagonists.
The rest of the books are fantasy tales with the power to sway you to another place entirely! Puddlejumpers , by Mark Jean and Christopher C. Carlson, is my pick so far for the best fantasy book this year. Ernie is an unhappy, problematic 13-year-old who has lived almost his entire parentless life at Lakeside Home for Boys. He wears a crystal acorn around his neck and has a strange birthmark at the bottom of his foot. He is now being sent to a juvenile detention facility, but first he is being allowed three weeks at a working farm. While he is there, he learns that the farmer's baby was kidnapped years before and he sets out to solve the case. But his life is about to be altered as he sets out beyond the farm and into the forest, where something mystical and mysterious lives.
James Matthew Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan , bestowed all money made from his book after his death to go to the Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. This foundation held a competition for the first official sequel to Mr. Barrie's classic. Peter Pan in Scarlet , by Geraldine McCaughrean, won the award and is definitely deserving of all accolades. The story continues where the other book left off, only now the children are all grown and well into their adult lives working in establishments and raising families.
Why, then, are the Lost Boys, as well as John and Wendy, beginning to dream of their long-ago and magical Neverland? And, it seems that when they dream, parts of their dream are left over when they wake up and they find a part of Neverland right with them. They all decide that there's a message in their dreams and they must go back to Neverland. What awaits the reader will rival even the original book. And the illustrations, by Scott M. Fischer, seem reminiscent of the original.
Man in the Moon, by Dotti Enderle, is a sweet tale of love, kindness and acceptance. Janine feels stuck in her rural life, where she has to help keep her sickly younger brother happy and inside almost daily. But everything changes when a stranger comes and stays for a short while. As mysterious as Mr. Lunas is, he is about to give Janine a gift of a lifetime.
Chicken Feathers, by Joy Cowley, and illustrated by David Elliot, is a story about a chicken who talks, but only to Josh. When eggs start disappearing, Semolina (the chicken) informs Josh that it's the fox. There are many layers in this tender story, which may be read again and again. Enjoy!
Return
to Top of Article
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates
© 1999-2008
Meridian Magazine.
All Rights Reserved.
|
