It's the 1950's in the American South. Tricia Ann is on top of the world. Her Grandmother is finally ready to allow her to go Someplace Special all by herself, even though it means taking a bus and walking quite a bit further after that. Nashville is segregated, and under Jim Crow laws, Tricia Ann isn't allowed to go everywhere white people can. She can only sit at the back of the bus. She can't sit on just any park bench when she's tired, nor can she drink from any water fountain when she's thirsty. When an enthusiastic crowd mistakenly sweeps her inside an elegant hotel lobby, she is rudely told she isn't welcome there. As she passes a movie theater, she realizes that if she did want to go in, she'd have to enter through the back door and sit in the 'buzzard's roost.' Patricia Ann now realizes how hard it is to go Someplace Special by herself, she just doesn't know if she can make it alone. Then she hears her Grandmother's voice telling her 'Getting Someplace Special is not an easy route. But don't study on quittin', just keep walking straight ahead ' and you'll make it'. Yes, she does get to Someplace Special - where all are welcome. Where is Someplace Special? You'll have to read 'Goin' Someplace Special' to find out. This story is based on true events from Patricia McKissacks' childhood.

Reviewed by: sc

Date read: 7/6/2009

ISBN-10: 0689818858

ISBN-13: 9780689818851

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After ten-year-old Hattie, and her twelve-year-old brother, Pheme's mother dies, they are sent to live with their cold-hearted Cousin Tirzah, while their father hunts gold in the mountains of Colorado in 1882. While waiting for their father to return, the two befriend a nearby woodsman, who gives them a sense of family that they desperately need.

Reviewed by: sc

Date read: 4/13/2009

ISBN-10: 0802783716

ISBN-13: 9780802783714

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When Beryl Markham was a small girl, she and her father settled in East Africa. This was the land of rolling savannahs, sparkling oases, majestic animals, and where a little girl was eaten by a lion. In this story 'The Good Lion,' we learn how Beryl's father wisely instructs her on the dangers of Africa. He tells her that this even includes, Paddy, Elkington's TAME lion. He cautions her by telling her that, 'a tame lion is an unnatural lion and whatever is unnatural is untrustworthy'. In this story, we are asked to ponder the question, should a lion be punished for acting like a lion?

Similar books: We're Going on a Lion Hunt by David Axtell; The Time of the Lion by Caroline Pitcher; Lion on the Run by Marian Rumsey; Women of the Wind: Early Women Aviators by Wanda Langley; Wings and Rockets: The Story of Women in Air and Space by Jeannine Atkins

Reviewed by: mb

Date read: 8/2/2010

ISBN-10: 0618563067

ISBN-13: 9780618563067

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P.T. Barnum lived a fascinating life, and this biography does an excellent job of showing the many sides of this uniquely American character. From an early age, Barnum realized that he wanted to be a showman and worked his way up from displaying various oddities to filling a museum with strange and interesting things. In his 60's, he began a traveling circus that eventually turned into the three-ring Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth. When he died in 1891, his obituary said, '...he furnished delights to millions, and added to the sum of childhood's and of human joy.'

Reviewed by: msp

Date read: 2/17/2011

ISBN-10: 0375945970

ISBN-13: 9780375945977

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It's 1943 and the scientists of the United States are desperately trying to come up with a 'gadget' that will help defeat its enemies and end World War II. Eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is the daughter of one of these scientists who are sequestered in a place no one has even heard of ' Los Alamos, New Mexico. Motherless Dewey does not fit in with the other children there, not only because of a crippled foot, but also because she loves to invent things. When her father is called to Washington, she is offered a temporary home with one of his co-workers. This family has a daughter in Dewey's class who hates the idea of sharing her room and her family with such a freak. This is a story of friendship, love, and loss set upon the dramatic background of a world about to be changed.

Reviewed by: sc

Date read: 4/28/2009

ISBN-10: 0142411493

ISBN-13: 9780142411490

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