My Books
The Winter War
Wendy Lamb/Random House
February 12, 2008
Ages: 9 and up, ISBN:
0-385-74652-0
When the Soviet Union invades its tiny neighbor Finland in November 1939, Marko volunteers to help the war effort. Even though his leg was weakened by polio, he can ski well, and he becomes a messenger on the front line, skiing in white camouflage through the forests at night. The dark forest is terrifying, and so are the odds against the Finns: the Russians have 4 times as many soldiers and 30 times as many planes. They have 3000 tanks, while the Finns have 30. But a tank is no help in the snowy forest–a boy on skis is. And the Russians don't know winter the way the Finns do, or what tough guerrilla warriors the Finns are. Marko teams up with another messenger, Karl. Gradually Marko learns that Karl's whole family was killed by the Russians. And Karl has a secret–he's really Kaari, a girl who joined up to get revenge for her family's deaths.
Best of the Year's Hardcover YA Fiction
KLIATT Editor's Choice List
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El Lector
Wendy Lamb/Random House
February 14, 2006
Ages: 9 and up, ISBN: 0-439-37307-7
Thirteen-year-old Bella wants to be a lector just like her grandfather. All day long he sits on a special platform in the cigar factory in Ybor City, Florida, reading books, newspapers, and current events to workers as they roll cigars. Lectors have always been highly respected, but when the factory workers clash with the owners, violence erupts, and the lectors start losing their jobs. And then there's the radio. What changes will this new device bring? It's up to Bella to determine her future and help her people preserve their history.
2007 Amelia Bloomer List
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The Darkest Evening
Orchard/Scholastic, November 2004
Ages: 9 and up, ISBN: 0-439-37307-7
Jake's life is turned upside down when his father gets caught up in the Socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota. His father decides to move their family to a new, Finnish state inside the Soviet Union, a change that fills Jake with dread. His father dreams of creating a worker's paradise, but Jake and his family find disappointment and hardship. The story culminates with a thrilling, mid-winter attempt to escape - on skis - from Russia to Finland.
Minnesota Book Award 2005; Junior Library Guild Selection; 2005 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age
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Blackwater Ben
Wendy Lamb/Random House, November 2003
Ages: 9 and up, ISBN: 0-385-72928-6
Thirteen-year-old Ben works at Blackwater Logging Camp as cook's helper to his Pa. Long days of flipping pancakes and peeling potatoes with his ornery Pa make Ben long to be out in the woods with the lumberjacks. Felling trees, sawing logs, driving a team through the snowy woods . . . that's what Ben wants to be doing.
But the long cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters teaches Ben a lot about himself. Especially when an orphan boy called Nevers arrives in camp. When Nevers signs on to work with Pa, Ben makes a friend and a rival, too.
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Song of Sampo Lake
Wendy Lamb Books / Random House
ISBN 0385327315, November 2002
Ages 9-12
For Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opportunity. When their beloved Uncle Wilho is killed in a tragic mining accident, the family decides they must realize their dream of owning a homestead in the wilderness. This means constant hard work and new challenges for the entire family. But it also means that Matti, the "in-between" child, has his chance to shine. Whether he's looking after his younger sisters, clerking in a general store, teaching English, or clearing the land with Father, Matti strives to prove himself to Father and escape his older brother's shadow.
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The Journal of C. J. Jackson, a Dust Bowl Migrant, Oklahoma to California, 1935
(My Name Is America series)
Scholastic, April 2002
Ages 9-12, ISBN 0439153069
C.J. Jackson is a young man living in the Oklahoma panhandle during the Dust Bowl, one of the most tragic times in American history. The entire country is fraught with political, economic, and environmental problems. Desperate to survive, C.J. and his family leave the panhandle and head West to California, where they hope to make a better life for themselves.
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The Journal of Otto Peltonen: A Finnish Immigrant
(My Name is America series)
Scholastic, September 2000
Ages 9-12, ISBN: 043909254X
Teenager Otto Peltonen uses his journal to describe life in a Minnesota mining town at the start of the last century. Accompanied by his mother and two sisters, Otto survives a horrendous journey across the Atlantic to join his father in America, where he anticipates idyllic opulence. Instead he is faced with life in a shantytown where the division by wealth looms ominously before him. As Otto changes from a dedicated student to a labor-worn miner, his parents go through their own fascinating battles.
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The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker
(My Name is America series)
Scholastic Trade, September 1999
Ages 9-12, ISBN: 0439049946
The author of the award winning The Broken Blade tells the story of a fifteen-year-old who travels to Nebraska to work on the Transcontinental Railroad with his father. After beginning as a water boy and a butcher's helper, Sean eventually joins the "iron men" who are laying the tracks across the plains and into the mountains. Sean witnesses the rough and rowdy towns that are springing up as the railroad pushes west, and he also sees bitter conflicts arise between the railroad, the Plains Indians, and the Irish and Chinese rail workers.
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Wintering
Delacorte Press, February 1999
Ages 9-12, ISBN: 0385325983
Pierre, the 14-year-old hero of The Broken Blade, becomes a hivernant as he spends a winter with the North West Company in the wilderness of French Canada. The canoe-men build a camp beside an Ojibwa village, and Pierre learns the deep-winter survival skills and secrets of the fur traders and trappers. Surviving in close quarters with the repulsive bowman Beloit is a challenge, but friendship with an Ojibwe brave, Red Loon, opens up a rich new world to Pierre.
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The Broken Blade
Delacorte Press, March 1997
Ages 9-12, ISBN: 0613074076
In 1800, 13-year-old Pierre La Page never imagined he'd be leaving Montreal to paddle 2,400 miles. It was something older men, like his father, did. But when Pierre's father has an accident, Pierre quits school to become a voyageur for the North West Company, so his family can survive the winter. It's hard for Pierre as the youngest in the brigade. From the treacherous waters and cruel teasing to his aching and bloodied hands, Pierre is miserable. Still he has no choice but to endure the trip to Grand Portage and back.
Minnesota Book Award 1998; Great Lakes Booksellers Association Award 1998; Bank Street College Children's Book of the Year
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Tiger Woods
Chelsea House, January 1998
Ages 9-12, ISBN: 0791046516
Examines the life and golf career of the young man who racked up numerous tournament victories and became celebrated in the media. Beginning with his unmatched junior golf record while growing up in California, this book follows Tiger through his three U.S. Amateur Championships and his first Masters victory.
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