Published by Simon and Schuster

Summary:  When the potato crop fails for a second time in the fall of 1846, 12-year-old Lorraine and her family face a potentially deadly winter.  By November, they’re subsisting on cabbage and kale, and fever has hit their neighbors.  A chance meeting with the landlord’s daughter Susanna results in a sort of friendship between the two girls.  Susanna has been raised to believe that the Irish are lazy and complaining; Lorraine tries to convince her that their suffering is real.  Eventually Susanna comes up with a plan that provides Lorraine’s family and neighbors with some much-needed food.  It’s enough to get at least some of them through the winter, but before spring comes, tragedy has hit Lorraine’s family and many others.  Some families decide to take their chances on starting new lives in Scotland or North America, but in the end, Lorraine and her parents choose to stay in the country that they love.  Includes a glossary of Irish words, bibliography, and an extensive timeline of the history of Ireland.  259 pages; grades 5-8.

Pros:  Readers will gain a clearer understanding of the history of Ireland and how prejudice played a large role in the tragedies that unfolded there in the mid nineteenth century.  Lorraine is a plucky narrator whose strength and love for Ireland shines through her difficult story.

Cons:  Much of the story is unrelentingly grim, unavoidable when writing about a period of famine and disease.  It’s hard to determine a recommended age group; a 12-year-old narrator suggests elementary, but the nature of the story may make it more appropriate for middle school and up.

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Published by Scholastic Press

Summary:  “Little” Charlie Bobo (at age 12, he’s over six feet tall) believes the Bobo family has terrible luck.  After his sharecropper father dies in a freak accident, Charlie and his mother are at the mercy of Cap’n Buck, the terrifying overseer from the nearby Tanner plantation. When the captain tells Charlie and his mother that they owe him fifty dollars, Charlie has no choice but to join him on a journey to repay their debt.  He tells Charlie he’s in search of thieves who stole thousands of dollars nearly a decade ago; the “thieves” turn out to be fugitive slaves who escaped to Michigan.  When Charlie and the captain reach Detroit, they track down the couple who escaped, but their son, also 12 years old, is at boarding school in Canada.  Leaving the parents in jail, Charlie and Buck travel north, only to find that the attitude toward slave catchers is a bit different in Canada than in the U.S.  Charlie returns to Detroit alone, and discovers that he can’t bring himself to carry out his original mission.  He learns he has a kindness and courage that he’s never recognized before as he helps the family reunite in Buxton, Canada.  256 pages; grades 5-8.

Pros:  Yet another masterpiece of historical fiction from Christopher Paul Curtis.  Charlie is an uneducated narrator who doesn’t always trust his interpretation of events, but has enough heart to begin to question the adults around him and to do the right thing in the end.

Cons:  Kids may need some guidance with the dialect and overt racism of Charlie’s world.

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