20th Century Book List for Young Teens 20th Century: World wars. A Great Depression. First flight. Space flight. Voting Rights. Civil Rights. Communism. Terrorism. Jazz. Nuclear weapons. Computers.   The 20th Century included huge, sweeping changes, inventions, and events which, more than any century previous, connected our globe. A reader could read for years and not cover all the books on WWII alone; clearly, this list below is not exhaustive. Rather, it’s a collection of some of the works we think are great starting points.   Our 20th Century Book List for Young Teens includes political history, science history, social history, and Christian history in a mix of formats. Some…

Every now and then we read a book that seems to warrant more than a standard review—even a starred one. That was Janie and Betsy’s experience recently when they both read Ordinary Hazards, Nikki Grimes’ verse memoir, at about the same time. Emails flew back and forth: “We should have a Newbery-buzz style discussion about this!” Nikki Grimes is one of our favorite authors, and with Ordinary Hazards she lets the reader into personal depths hitherto unknown. She defines “Memoir” as “a work of imperfect memory in which you meticulously capture all that you can recall, and use informed imagination to fill in what remains.” There are reasons why she…

The mentally-challenged adults of Sunnyside Plaza step out of their comfort zone to solve a mystery. Sunnyside Plaza by Scott Simon. Little, Brown, 2020, 192 pages Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 8-10 Recommended for: ages 10-15 Sally Miyake is 8 times 2 plus 3 years old and can’t read, but still knows a lot of things. She lives in a cozy house in Chicago, with Ms. Byrne and Conrad the cook and seven others who are “different,” like her. One morning, housemate Laurence doesn’t wake up, and two detectives come calling. This is Standard Operating Procedure when someone dies alone—nothing out of the ordinary, until Julius passes away too.  He…

Shannon Hale continues her middle-grade memoir with Best Friends; Cynthia Copeland tells how she became a writer in Cub. Cub by Cynthia Copeland. Algonquin, 2020, 222 pages. Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12 Recommended for: ages 12-15 1972 was not a great year for America, but it was a pretty good time to be a kid in Litchfield, Connecticut. At least, once you learn how to survive among the social predators of 7th grade. Cindy is not one of the cool kids, with her granny dresses and long hair her mom insists on putting in rag curlers every night. Straight hair and flared jeans are in! But she has one…