Moving from Berkeley, CA to Vermont is enough of a shock for anyone, but for Mimi and her mother, joining Mimi’s dad at his new college professor position, Mimi finds herself being the only student at school who isn’t white. Mimi is biracial – a mix of her Japanese mother and her black father, and to many, she is a mystery. The most common question she gets, “What are you?”
Mimi isn’t sure the cold weather of Vermont hasn’t hardened the hearts of everyone who lives there – because at school the teachers look at her strangely, the students look at her strangely and their neighbor acts like he can’t even see them. Mimi isn’t sure how long she wants to stay in Vermont.
But as the year goes on, she makes one friend, whose mother isn’t sure she wants her daughter hanging out with a black girl, and there is a boy who sometimes is next door with their surly neighbor who appears to want to be friends. What will it take for people to change their minds about Mimi and her family, and does she want to put in the effort if no one else will? Then there is the fact that Mimi wants to be an astronaut, like John Glen, who has just touched the moon. But how can she if girls are only allowed to take classes like home economics and learn how to cook and sew, but never how to build anything?
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton looks at a time in our country when we were going through growing pains, in painful ways. Women and minorities were reaching beyond the limits that had been put upon them, and began to, like Mimi, reach for the stars. This is a wonderful book.
Highly recommended for grades 6th and up.
Xing Xing is the unwanted daughter from her father’s first marriage. Her father’s second wife had a daughter named Wei Ping and when her father dies, Xing Xing becomes a servant to the second wife. When her father was alive, he shunned the idea of binding young girls feet, in the common tradition. He felt women should be able to walk and move about, but once he is dead, the second wife can only think of making a fine marriage for her daughter Wei Ping. So even though she is much older than normal to bind feet, the mother does it.
You Bring the Distance Near by Mitali Perkins looks at a family in transition from their initial roots in India to their final settling place of America and all the trauma and triumphs that go with it. How do you fit in, and still feel like yourself? Is it even possible? And not only are the girls having their own issues, but their mother must find her own way to be herself in all these new and strange countries. And when the girls grow up and have their own girls, what challenges do the children of immigrants face that are different from their own mothers?
best friends, with Nancy Clutter, a popular vivacious girl with an adorable boyfriend. But Nancy has made it pretty clear that Carly isn’t best friend material. Still, Carly holds out hope when Nancy asks her to secretly tutor her in Math. Carly keeps her fingers crossed that soon, Nancy will see her as a good friend.
Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes is a book about two boys on the opposite sides of WWII. Spence is an American boy that struggles with school. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, his brother went into the Navy and Spence wants to become a paratrooper. He did and he meets Ted in training camp. Ted was much like Spence and they were the same age. They went into Germany to fight the Germans after they both passed basic training. On the other side, Deiter is a german boy who is 15 and is a leader in the Hitler Youth. He catches other Hitler Youth messing around and decides to let them go free. Soon after one of the boys gets shot by a French spitfire and dies. Then Deiter goes and meets Hitler and wants to go fight on the front lines. When he gets sent, he is extremely excited and meets Schaefer who guides Deiter through the war. At the bottom of a hill, the Americans run down and most get killed. The next day the Germans run up the hill and most die from artillery or gun fire. In the mists of the chaos, Deiter gets hit. Later that night Spence puts his life on the line even when he had strict orders not to.
In the book 
Dog’s of War 
