Published by Disney-Hyperion 

Summary:  Set in prehistoric France, Kai’s story begins with the discovery of his clubfoot at birth.  His parents are told to abandon him to the wolves, but the wolves spare his life, and his mother rescues him.  He grows up in a loving home, but is not allowed to hunt or even touch the weapons the other boys use to learn how to become hunters.  Kai has always had a connection to the yellow wolves that live nearby, and when one of the females is killed, Kai decides to adopt one of her pups.  He raises her to be a pet, but some in his community feel threatened by the presence of both Kai and his wolf.  After a near-fatal showdown with some of the other boys, Kai decides he must strike out on his own, with only Uff, his wolf, for a companion.  The second half of the book tells the story of his survival, including a mysterious Ice Man who rescues Kai from an avalanche and nurses him back to health in a cave.  Near the end, Uff is mauled by a bear and nearly killed; that crisis helps Kai decide that it is time for him to return home.  240 pages; grades 3-7.

Pros:  People from a far-distant past come to life in the pages of this exciting historical fiction story.  Kids will connect with Kai’s experiences with his family, bullies, a girl he likes, and most of all, the dog he loves.

Cons:  Because the setting is so unfamiliar, kids may find some parts of the story confusing.

Published by Random House Books for Young Readers 

Summary:  Beans and his family are down on their luck.  It’s 1934, and Key West, Florida has been hit hard by the Great Depression.   Beans’ mother takes in laundry, while his father has left for New Jersey, hoping to find a factory job.  When local bootlegger Johnny Cakes offers Beans a job pulling fire alarms to distract the townspeople while Johnny smuggles out his whiskey, it’s hard to say no.  But when a real fire ravages his best friend’s house, the fire department thinks it’s another false alarm and doesn’t show up.  Tortured by guilt, Beans leaves behind his life of crime and starts focusing on some of the New Dealers who are trying to turn Key West into a tourist resort.  It seems like a crazy plan at first, but Beans and the rest of the Key West kids pitch in to clean up and fix up their town.  Before long, movie stars and other rich and famous types are flocking to Key West, and it looks like Beans’ luck may have turned around at last.  An author’s note tells more about Key West and President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal plans to transform it.  208 pages; grades 3-6.

Pros:  A sequel to Newbery honor book Turtle in Paradise, this story follows Turtle’s cousin Beans and his family and friends.  The pages are crowded with memorable characters, including cameos by Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway.  Beans provides a funny, tough-guy narration to the events of his town that will transport readers to a slice of life in the 1930’s.

Cons:  I haven’t read Turtle in Paradise, and am pretty sure I would have had a greater appreciation for some of the characters and incidents in this book if I had.

Published by HMH Books for Young Readers 

Summary:  When Tru and Nelle first meet, he thinks she is a boy and she thinks he is a girl.  After exchanging a few rounds of insults, the two become fast friends.  Both live in Monroeville, Alabama, a sleepy little town in the throes of the Great Depression, but their combined imaginations create a force to be reckoned with.  They love to read, and Sherlock Holmes becomes a favorite.  Before long, Tru is Sherlock and Nelle is Watson, and they’re on the prowl for a real mystery.  A break-in at the local drugstore provides one, but it ends in disaster, and the two decide it’s safer to write their stories than to act them out in real life.  Eventually, Tru’s socialite mother remarries and sends for him to join her in New York City, but first he throws a blow-out farewell party that results in a confrontation with the local Ku Klux Klan.  The writing, the friendship, the wild party…all foreshadow what would happen to these two children who grew up to become Truman Capote and (Nelle) Harper Lee. 336 pages; grades 3-5.

Pros:  Fans of To Kill a Mockingbird will enjoy learning more about the real-life Scout and Dill.  The writing beautifully captures the Depression-era South.  Modeled on Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the book ends with a few short stories which are flesh out the longer novel.

Cons:  Readers in the targeted age range aren’t likely to be familiar with Harper Lee or Truman Capote, making this a much less appealing choice for the younger crowd.

Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Summary:  Deja’s home is a single room that she shares with her parents and younger brother and sister in a Brooklyn homeless shelter.  Her father, for reasons that are unclear to Deja, is unable to hold a job; her mother’s salary as a waitress isn’t enough to cover basic living expenses for the family.  With the move to the shelter, Deja has to change schools.  She’s nervous at first, but quickly makes two friends, Ben and Sabeen, and discovers that she likes this school better than any other she’s attended.  There’s a new curriculum for the fifth graders this year, teaching them about 9/11 and their connection to that event.  At first, Deja’s mystified by this, as she’s never heard about the events of 9/11.  Gradually, she comes to understand not only the tragic day itself, but its impact on her friends—Ben, whose father served in the military in Iraq and Sabeen, whose Muslim family has had to deal with prejudice and discrimination—and her own family.  As Deja becomes more insistent, her father gradually tells her about what happened to him on that fateful day, and together, they begin to move toward healing and rebuilding their family.  240 pages; grades 4-6.

Pros:  A powerful story to commemorate the 15^th anniversary of 9/11.  Readers who weren’t alive in 2001 will learn along with Deja the events of that day and how it changed the people of the United States.

Cons:  It was difficult for me to believe that a fifth-grader who had spent all her life in New York City had never heard about the World Trade Center or 9/11.