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Pre-kindergarten through Grade 8 Book-loving adults conduct an ongoing search for stellar read-alouds for our children, seeking unforgettable books that will expose them to people from cultures other than their own. Here are 100 recent winners that will enlighten, entertain, and satisfy. Adaline Falling Star Adaline Carson, 11-year-old daughter of scout Kit Carson and an Arapaho woman, is left behind at her father's cousins in St. Louis, where she is expected to work as a servant. ------------------------------------------------------- The Adventures of Sparrowboy Paperboy Henry's almost-collision with a sparrow enables him to fly and make things better in his neighborhood. ------------------------------------------------------- Ali: Child of the Desert Separated from his father during a Saharan desert sandstorm, Ali and his camel are given food and shelter for the night by a goatherder and his grandson. ------------------------------------------------------- All the Colors of the Earth A stunning portrait poem of children worldwide compares their skin colors to "roaring browns of bears and soaring eagles," and "whispering golds of late summer grasses." ------------------------------------------------------- Alphabet City Ballet New York City girl Marisol wins a scholarship to the Manhattan Ballet School. ------------------------------------------------------- American Too Humiliated when other girls taunt her for not being American enough, Rosina decides to change her name to Rosie and stop speaking Italian. ------------------------------------------------------- The American Wei On the day he is to become an American citizen, young Wei Fong loses and then drops his first tooth outside the federal courthouse, right before the ceremony. ------------------------------------------------------- Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems / Los çngeles Andan en Bicicleta y Otros Poems de Oto In 21 brief astute poems, written in both English and Spanish and illustrated with upbeat, vivid paintings, a young Latino narrator observes his life in Los Angeles with a keen eye, describing his family, school, and neighborhood. ------------------------------------------------------- Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky Harriet Tubman, conductor of a phantom train, shows Cassie and her brother Bebe how their ancestors survived during slavery times. ------------------------------------------------------- Away from Home An alphabetical around-the-world stage performance features each of 26 boys acting out his arrival in a city that starts with the first letter of his name. ------------------------------------------------------- Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad In a heart-stopping, dramatic picture book, the animals of the woods aid an escaped slave elude his pursuers. ------------------------------------------------------- Baseball Saved Us A Japanese American child describes life and baseball in the internment camp where he and his family are sent during World War II. ------------------------------------------------------- The Bat Boy & His Violin Reginald's father, manager of the Dukes, the worst team in the Negro National League in 1948, is skeptical about his son's violin playing and brings him to the field as a bat boy. ------------------------------------------------------- Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of the Nun's Kung Fu Sent to tutors to learn as if she were a son, Jingyong becomes a master at kung fu and joins the Shaolin Monastery as a Buddhist nun in 17th century China. ------------------------------------------------------- The Birchbark House In 1847, 7-year-old Native American Omakayas spends and eventful year with her family on their island in Lake Superior, tanning hides, taking care of her baby brother, and taming a crow for a pet until bad times come. ------------------------------------------------------- The Blizzard's Robe Teune, a robemaker for her Arctic clan, the People Who Fear the Winter Night, makes an ice robe for Blizzard who repays her with the gift of the Northern Lights. ------------------------------------------------------- Bud, Not Buddy During the Great Depression, in 1936, motherless 10-year-old Bud runs away from his latest foster family in search of the man he believes is his father. ------------------------------------------------------- Can You Count Ten Toes?: Count to 10 in 10 Different Languages There are 10 objects one can count on each friendly page, with a wide sampling of world languages from Chinese to Zulu, and phonetic spellings beside each word so children can sound it out easily. ------------------------------------------------------- Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella On a Caribbean island, a nannin' or godmother explains how she came to be the helpmate for Cendrillon, whose mother has died and whose stepmother works her like a serving girl. ------------------------------------------------------- Chato and the Party Animals "Pobrecito," says cool cat Chato when his best barrio buddy, stray cat Novio Boy, confesses he has never had a birthday party, and plans a surprise bash. ------------------------------------------------------- Chicken Sunday The author recalls the time she and her best friends were falsely accused of throwing eggs at an old man's hat shop. ------------------------------------------------------- The Color of My Words Growing up poor in the politically repressive Dominican Republic, 12-year-old Ana Rosa, who wants to be a writer, discovers the power and danger of words. ------------------------------------------------------- Countdown While on a mission on the space shuttle Endeavor, 14-year-old American Elliot makes radio contact with Vincent, a boy from Kenya. ------------------------------------------------------- Cuckoo Beautiful but lazy cuckoo is disdained by the other birds until she comes to Mole's aid by rescuing the seeds threatened by a fire that blackens her colorful feathers.
Dave at Night At the Hebrew Home for Boys in Harlem, newly orphaned Dave, a born troublemaker, sneaks outside at night, where he is befriended by an elderly fortune teller. ------------------------------------------------------- Down the Road Coming home from the market, young Hetty tips over all the eggs in her basket by mistake. ------------------------------------------------------- Earthdance In a stirring free verse poem about our planet, Earth, we imagine ourselves as bodies larger than the moon, wrapped in a colored quilt of seas and woods and deserts, where children and animals dance as we carry them through space. ------------------------------------------------------- Echoes of the Elders: The Stories and Paintings of Chief Lelooska This sterling collection of five traditional Northwest Coast Indian tales is illustrated in traditional style, and accompanied by a CD. ------------------------------------------------------- Elizabeti's Doll In her village in Tanzania, Elizabeti watches Mama care for her new baby brother, and then finds a big rock just the right size to hold and names it Eva. ------------------------------------------------------- Esperanza Rising Born into a prosperous Mexican ranching family, Esperanza lives a life of privilege and plenty until the eve of her fourteenth birthday in 1924, when her Papa is murdered by bandits, and she and her mother come to California to work picking crops. ------------------------------------------------------- Everybody Bakes Bread Children will yearn to taste the Barbadian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Jewish, and El Savadorian breads Carrie samples when she visits her ethnically diverse neighbors in search of a three-handled rolling pin. ------------------------------------------------------- Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior Fa Mulan disguised herself as a man and joined the Khan's army to fight against the invading Tartars more than 1,000 years ago. ------------------------------------------------------- Feliciana Feydra LeRoux: A Cajun Tall Tale Feliciana Feydra wants the one thing she can't do: go alligator hunting in the bayou. ------------------------------------------------------- The Fire Children: A West African Creation Tale In a charming "pourquoi" tale of how the races of the world came to be, two spirit people get lonely and bake little clay children to keep them company. ------------------------------------------------------- Francie Growing up in the tiny segregated town of Noble, Alabama, 12-year-old Frankie lives for the day she, her mother, and 10-year-old brother can move to Chicago where her father lives. ------------------------------------------------------- The Girl Who Lived with the Bears The spoiled and haughty daughter of the chief of the Raven clan speaks disrespectfully about bears and is taken away by the Bear People as punishment. ------------------------------------------------------- The Girl Who Spun Gold In an elegant West Indiant variant of Rumpelstiltskin, young Quashiba's mother tells Big King her daughter can spin the finest golden thread. ------------------------------------------------------- The Girl-Son In Korea in 1903, the mother of bright 7-year-old Induk arranges to send the girl to school disguised as a boy. ------------------------------------------------------- Gloria's Way With the sometimes help of her good friends Huey and Julian, their dad, Mr. Bates, and her own busy dad, Gloria makes a special valentine for her mom, dumps an apple pie upside down, and figures out fractions. ------------------------------------------------------- Gold Dust Baseball fanatic Richard becomes friends with new classmate Napoleon Charlie Ellis, a black boy from Domenica who enrolls in St. Colmcille's Catholic school at the height of the Boston school busing crisis in 1975. Halmoni and the Picnic Yunmi's grandmother, Halmoni, newly arrived in New York City from Korea, is having a difficult time acclimating to unfamiliar American ways, and Yunmi's friends pledge to help. ------------------------------------------------------- Holes For stealing a famous basketball player's sneakers, overweight, unlucky, but innocent Stanley Yelnats, is sentenced to a stay at hot, desolate Camp Green Lake in Texas, a detention center for bad boys. ------------------------------------------------------- Homeless Bird Married off to a young husband who is dying of tuberculosis, 13-year-old Koly becomes a widow and lives as a servant in the house of her parents-in-law in a rural Indian village. ------------------------------------------------------- The Honest-to-Goodness Truth After Libby is caught lying to her mother, she decides from now on she'll tell only the truth, even if it hurts. ------------------------------------------------------- The Hunterman and the Crocodile In this West African variant of a well-known folktale, a hunter who helps Bamba the crocodile across the river looks for a way out when the croc plans to eat him. ------------------------------------------------------- Jalapeno Bagels Pablo's parents own a bakery, and when he needs to bring a treat to school to help celebrate International Day, he chooses his parents' special recipe: bagels with chopped jalapenos, a mixture of both of their cultures. ------------------------------------------------------- Joseph Had a Little Overcoat In an adaption of an old Yiddish folksong, Joseph turns his old and worn overcoat into a jacket, a vest, a scarf, a necktie, a handkerchief, a button, and a book, proving you can always make something out of nothing. ------------------------------------------------------- The Khan's Daughter: A Mongolian Folktale Shepherd Mšngke believes his late father's words about becoming rich some day and marrying the Khan's daughter, so he heads for the great city. ------------------------------------------------------- The Lion's Whiskers: An Ethiopian Folklore Seeking a magic potion to cause her new stepson to love her, Fanaye visits a medicine man who instructs her to collect three whiskers from the chin of a fierce lion. ------------------------------------------------------- Marco's Monster Jealous when his best friend, Tyrone, is given the role of Main Monster in the class play, Marco gets him in trouble. ------------------------------------------------------- Marianthe's Story: Painted Words, Spoken Memories When Marianthe emigrates with her family from her poor country to America, she learns to tell her story, first in pictures, and then in English, with the caring, patient support of her new teacher, Mr. Petrie. ------------------------------------------------------- Market! At markets around the world, we watch vendors selling potatoes and woolens in Ecuador; thatch and flutes in Nepal, horses in Ireland, meat, fruits, and fish in Uganda; and fish at the Fulton Fish Market in New York City. ------------------------------------------------------- Marvin of the Great North Woods In 1918, as the terrible influenza epidemic reached Duluth, the Russian Jewish immigrant parents of 11-year-old Marven decide to send him to a logging camp to keep him safe. ------------------------------------------------------- Mayfield Crossing A Japanese American child describes life and baseball in the internment camp where he and his family are sent during World War II. ------------------------------------------------------- More Stories Huey Tells Huey, with the sometimes help of his big brother Julian, grows sunflowers, plays basketball, and tries to get his dad to quit smoking. ------------------------------------------------------- More Than Anything Else In a poignant and inspirational slice-of-life picture book, we meet 9-year-old Booker T. Washington who works from sunup to sundown packing salt in barrels and burns with the desire to learn to read. ------------------------------------------------------- My Man Blue In 14 sober, introspective, casually rhymed poems, the narrator, a sensitive inner city African American boy, describes his growing friendship with a grown man, Blue, "rugged dude," "gold-toothed guardian angel." ------------------------------------------------------- My Very Own Room / Mi Proprio Cuartito Craving space after years of sharing a room with her five little brothers, a 9-year-old Mexican-American girl decides she should take over the storage closet for her very own. ------------------------------------------------------- Nadia's Hands In preparation for her aunt's traditional Pakistani wedding, flower girl Nadia has her hands decorated with mehndi, or henna, in beautiful flowers and swirls. ------------------------------------------------------- New Shoes for Sylvia The beautiful red buckled shoes T’a Rosita sends in the mail to Sylvia in Latin America don't fit yet, so the little girl uses them as doll beds, toys, and pebble holders until one day she is overjoyed to find they are just the right size for her. ------------------------------------------------------- Nim and the War Effort Determined to gather together the most newspapers for her class paper drive during World War II, Nim competes for first place with Garland, a classmate who belittles her for being Chinese and not American, though she is proud of being both. ------------------------------------------------------- No Dinner!: The Story of the Old Woman and the Pumpkin Act out this lively folktale from India, with elements of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "The Three Little Pigs," where an old woman tricks three dangerous forest animals into not eating her. ------------------------------------------------------- Nursery Tales Around the World Compare and contrast these 18 easy-to-tell stories, arranged in groups of three variants on these themes: Runaway Cookies; Incredible Appetites; Victory of the Smallest; Chain Tales; Slowpokes & Speedsters; Fooling the Big Bad Wolf. One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale Rani, a clever village girl, happens upon a plan to teach the greedy raja a lesson and feed the people when she asks for a reward of a single grain of rice, to be doubled each day for 30days. ------------------------------------------------------- The Orphan of Ellis Island: A Time Travel Adventure Visiting Ellis Island on a class trip, fifth grader Dominic accidentally gets locked in overnight and finds himself transported back to an Italian village in 1908. ------------------------------------------------------- The Paper Dragon Mi Fei, a humble painter, must complete three seemingly impossible tasks to save his people from Sui Jen, the dragon. ------------------------------------------------------- The Paperboy In the predawn hour, a young African-American boy and his dog prepare for and set out on their daily paper route, after which they crawl back into bed for a final dream. ------------------------------------------------------- Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story In 1940, when Hiroki Sugihara was a boy, his father, a Japanese diplomat working in a small town in Lithuania, disobeyed his own government and issued thousands of visas to Jews who were desperate to escape the Nazis. ------------------------------------------------------- Punia and the King of Sharks: A Hawaiian Folktale A poor, hungry, but clever young boy whose fisherman father was devoured by lobster-hoarding sharks foils them four times. ------------------------------------------------------- Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution Ji-li grew up in Shanghai where, in 1966, Mao's Cultural Revolution caused her "bourgeois" family to become outcasts. ------------------------------------------------------- The Rough-Face Girl In this solemn Algonquin Indian Cinderella variant, a young girl, scarred and burned from tending the fire, sets out in tattered moccasins and a dress fashioned from birch bark to meet the Invisible Being, whom only she can see. ------------------------------------------------------- Run Away Home In Alabama in 1888, 11-year-old African-American Sarah Crossman crosses paths with an Apache boy who has escaped from the train transporting his people to a prison camp. ------------------------------------------------------- Sacajawea Told to 7-year-old Pomp in Sacajawea and William Clark's alternating viewpoints, this is the riveting story of the Lewis and Clark expedition that set out in Missouri in 1804 and reached the Pacific Ocean more than a year later. ------------------------------------------------------- Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo Sam outwits the tigers who take his clothes. ------------------------------------------------------- Satchel Paige Leroy "Satchel" Paige becomes pitcher extraordinaire for the Negro Leagues in the 1920s, and the first black pitcher to be drafted in the major leagues in 1948, as recounted in this energetic picture book biography. ------------------------------------------------------- Say Hola to Spanish Your students will effortlessly acquire a vocabulary of more than 70 Spanish words after reading this jazzy and entertaining picture book, a rhyming language lesson where each new word is defined in context. ------------------------------------------------------- Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story Seven quarreling brothers from a village in Ghana must learn to work together to make gold out of spools of thread to earn their late father's inheritance. ------------------------------------------------------- Snapshots from the Wedding Flower girl Maya describes each photo taken at Isabel and Rafael's Mexican-American wedding. ------------------------------------------------------- The Storytellers In the ancient, walled city of Fez, Morocco, Abdul and his grandfather set off through the bustling cobblestoned market to get to work telling stories to the crowds. ------------------------------------------------------- Subira, Subira After her mother dies and Tatu can not get her little brother, Maulidi, to obey her, she seeks out a spirit woman who instructs her to pluck three whiskers from a lion. ------------------------------------------------------- Sukey and the Mermaid A hardworking young girl is befriended and helped by a mermaid in this African-American folktale. The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote Trapped by a farmer's beeswax doll, Rabbit thinks fast and talks Coyote into taking his place, then convinces him to hold back a rock to keep it from crushing the world, and ends up safe on the moon. ------------------------------------------------------- Tea with Milk In another elegant biographical picture book about the author's family, American-born May can't get used to life in Japan, and chafes at learning to be a proper Japanese lady. ------------------------------------------------------- The Turkey Girl: A Zuni Cinderella Story Wanting to attend the Dance of the Sacred Bird, the poor Turkey Girl is granted her wish by the turkeys she attends so faithfully, but when she returns home too late, they have deserted her for breaking her trust with them. ------------------------------------------------------- This Is My House Children from 20 countries describe their houses, including a yurt in Mongolia, a cave in Turkey,and a houseboat in Thailand. ------------------------------------------------------- Through My Eyes In 1960, when Ruby Bridges was a first grader, she became one of the first African-American children to integrate the New Orleans public schools, passing a mob of demonstrating segregationists every day on her way to class. ------------------------------------------------------- To Everything There Is a Season The well-known verses from Ecclesiastes are illustrated with breathtaking paintings from a variety of cultures and art styles around the world. ------------------------------------------------------- Tomás and the Library Lady Inspired by the childhood of Tomás Rivera, a college chancellor in California, this heartwarming story reveals how an empathetic librarian helped a migrant worker's son nurture his love for books and knowledge at the library. ------------------------------------------------------- Too Many Tamales Helping to knead the masa for Christmas tamales, Maria tries on her mother's diamond ring and doesn't remember what she did with it until later when, in a moment of sheer panic, she enlists her cousins to eat all the tamales to find it. ------------------------------------------------------- Trouble In a charming Eritrean folktale from the east coast of Africa, young Tekleh has a hard time keeping clear of trouble as he takes his gabeta game board and heads to the hills to graze his goats. ------------------------------------------------------- Virgie Goes to School with Us Boys For two years, five brothers have walked seven miles to attend a school run by Quakers for former slaves, and now their little sister is determined to join them so she can learn to read, too. ------------------------------------------------------- The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 After Kenny's big brother, Byron, gets in trouble one time too many, his parents drive the whole family from Michigan to Alabama to stay with their strict, no-nonsense grandmother who plans to straighten Byron out ------------------------------------------------------- A Weave of Words: An Armenian Tale The lovely weaver Anait won't marry Prince Vachagan until he learns how to read and write and earn a living by his own hands, all of which help to save his life, as this instructive Armenian folktale dramatically shows. ------------------------------------------------------- Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman Born in 1940 in Tennessee, youngest of 20 children, Wilma overcame polio contracted at age 5and went on to win three Olympic gold medals in 1960. ------------------------------------------------------- The World Turns Round and Round For a "Where do our families come from" lesson at school, children bring in clothing their relatives have sent them from all over the globe. ------------------------------------------------------- Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear Nine-year-old Yingtao wants to play baseball, but his musician father expects him to play the violin instead. ------------------------------------------------------- The Year of Miss Agnes In 1948, after yet another teacher has quit the one-room schoolhouse of their remote Alaskan village, 10-year-old Fred and the other dozen schoolchildren are transformed by their new teacher, the remarkable and innovative Miss Agnes Sutterfield. ------------------------------------------------------- Yo! Yes? Two boys, one shy and friendless, and one gregarious and outgoing, become pals. ------------------------------------------------------- Yoko Yoko's animal classmates make fun of her sushi lunch. ------------------------------------------------------- You're Not My Best Friend Anymore Best friends Molly and Ben have a serious falling out when they can't agree on what kind of tent they should buy with their saved allowances.
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