The King of Mulberry Street–by Donna Jo Napoli

Napoli, Donna Jo.  The King of Mulberry Street.  New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2005.

Beniamino’s family in Napoli, Italy, is very poor, but pretty happy.  They have each other, they have enough food to get by, and most importantly they have their Jewish faith.  When his mother wakes him up very early one morning and asks him to be very quiet while they sneak out of the house, Beniamino is excited at the surprise trip and enjoys spending time with his mom.  But then she gives him some rather mysterious instructions:

“‘First of all, simply survive…Watch, like you always do, watch and learn and do whatever you have to do to fit in.  Talk as little as possible–just watch and use your head…Nothing can stop you, tesoro mio.  Remember, you’re special, a gift from the Most Powerful One.  As soon as you can, get an education.  Be your own boss…Don’t undress with anyone around.  Ever.  Swear to me.”  (p. 23-24)

Just like that, he finds himself stowed away on a cargo ship, on his way to America.  Alone.  He vows to fight his way back to his mother in Napoli, and he does fight fiercely…but how much fight can you put up with no home, no family, no knowledge of English, no money, and no place to turn for help?

“Nothing was going right…I went back to the alley with the dead dog.  I threw pieces of a crushed wooden box into a half-empty barrell to make a clean layer on top of whatever was inside.  Then I climbed in…I recited every one of Nonna’s charms I could remember–charms to keep evil at bay.  That was where I spent my first night in America…” (p. 84)

The Wednesday Wars–by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  The Wednesday Wars.  New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

When Holling Hoodhood starts seventh grade, he quickly finds that a bizarre coincidence is going to leave him alone with his homeroom teacher every Wednesday afternoon, and his teacher is not happy about it.  So Holling looks for help.  But help’s not coming from anyone–least of all from his father, whose chief concern about what happens to his kids seems to be whether it will affect a business deal of his…

“‘Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts.’

“‘What did you do?’

“‘I didn’t do anything.  She just hates my guts.’

“‘People don’t just hate your guts unless you do something to them.  So what did you do?’

“‘Nothing.’

“‘This is Betty Baker, right?’

“‘I guess.’

“‘The Betty Baker who belongs to the Baker family.’

“…’I guess she belongs to the Baker family,’ I said.

“‘The Baker family that owns the Baker Sporting Emporium.’

“‘Dad, she hates my guts.’

“The Baker Sporting Emporium, which is about to choose an architect for its new building and which is considering Hoodhood and Associates among its top three choices.’

“‘Dad…’

“So, Holling, what did you do that might make Mrs. Baker hate your guts, which will make other Baker family members hate the name of Hoodhood, which will lead the Baker Sporting Emporium to choose another architect, which will kill the deal for Hoodhood and Associates, which will drive us into bankruptcy, which will encourage several lending institutions around the state to send representatives to our front stoop holding papers that have lots of legal words on them–none of them good–and which will mean that there will be no Hoodhood and Associates for you to take over when I’m ready to retire?’

“…’I guess things aren’t so bad,’ I said.

“‘Keep them that way,’ he said.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for in an ally.” (p. 7-8 )

Mister Pip–by Lloyd Jones

Jones, Lloyd.  Mister Pip.  New York: The Dial Press, 2007.

“Everyone called him Pop Eye.  Even in those days, when I was a skinny thirteen-year-old, I thought he probably knew about his nickname but didn’t care.  His eyes were too interested in what lay up ahead to notice us barefoot kids.  He looked like someone who had seen or known great suffering and hadn’t been able to forget it.  His large eyes in his large head stuck out further than anyone else’s–like they wanted to leave the surface of his face.  They made you think of someone who can’t get out of the house quickly enough.  Pop Eye wore the same white linen suit every day.  His trousers snagged on his bony knees in the sloppy heat.  Some days he wore a clown’s nose.  His nose was already big.  He didn’t need that red lightbulb.  But for reasons we couldn’t think of he wore the red nose on certain days–which may have meant something to him.  We never saw him smile.  And on those days he wore the clown’s nose you found yourself looking away because you never saw such sadness.” (p. 1)

When the village freak–the only white man left on the island–becomes the kids’ teacher, life turns upside down.  And when war and rebellion hit the island, it all goes downhill from there.  Who do you trust?

Princess Academy–by Shannon Hale

Hale, Shannon.  Princess Academy.  New York: Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2005.

Up on Mt. Eskel, the villagers don’t get out much.  The only way to make a living up there is to work in the linder quarry, chipping out blocks of the marble-like stone and selling it to the lowland traders who come up the mountain every so often, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for countless generations.  Work in the quarry, barter with the traders, work, barter, and so on.  Everyone follows this tradition without fail—everyone, that is, except fourteen-year-old Miri, who’s been barred from the quarry by her father and left to feel completely useless to the mountainside village.

The village’s hundreds of years of routine are suddenly broken up, however, when the chief delegate from the kingdom down below the mountain arrives with an unbelievable announcement: the King’s chief priests have convened, and they’ve determined that the Prince will choose his bride from among the girls of Mt. Eskel.  To prepare the girls for this honor, they’re all going to be herded into a Princess Academy for a year, where they will learn to act like polished princesses instead of rough mountain quarry workers.  Miri is pretty torn about this; she doesn’t want to leave her Pa and her hometown (not to mention Peder, the guy she’s got a huge crush on), but on the other hand it would mean a chance to see the world, never being cold and hungry again, and best of all she wouldn’t have to feel so darn useless anymore.  She decides to go for it, but before she’s been at the academy for long, she discovers that not all that glitters is gold…

“Miri awoke to a tug and a horrible feeling…She felt it again, a tugging on her scalp.  Something was caught in her braid.  She wanted to scream, but terror clamped down on her breath.  Every spot of her skin ached with the dread of what might be touching her.  It felt strong, too big to be a mouse.  The tip of a tail licked her cheek.  A rat.  Miri sobbed breathlessly, remembering the rat bite that had killed a village baby some years before.  She did not dare to call out for fear of spooking the beast…She could not move, she could not speak.  How long would she have to lie there until someone came for her?” (p. 72-73)

A Wreath for Emmett Till–by Marilyn Nelson

Nelson, Marilyn.  A Wreath for Emmett Till. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

Emmett Till was only fourteen in 1955, a friendly kid from Chicago on a trip down south to meet his relatives.  He was probably like you in many ways.  You may even have committed his crime yourself: whistling at a pretty girl.  But where you might have gotten a cross look or a joking slap for your trouble, Emmett became the victim of one of the most notorious lynchings in American history.

“Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter.  Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps.  One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till’s name still catches in the throat.”

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy–by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  New York: Clarion Books, 2004.

“Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for fifteen minutes shy of six hours.  He had dipped his hand in its waves and licked the salt from his fingers.  He had smelled the sharp resin of the pines.  He had heard the low rhythm of the bells on the buoys that balanced on the ridges of the sea.  He had seen the fine clapboard parsonage beside the church where he was to live, and the small house set a ways beyond it that puzzled him some.  Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for almost six whole hours.  He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it.” (p. 1)

In some places, being the son of a minister is no big deal.  Phippsburg, Maine, is not one of them.  Everybody is constantly scrutinizing Turner to see if he is upright enough, moral enough, brave enough, polite enough, and even whether his shirt is starched-white enough.  So far, he is a miserable failure.

And things only get worse after those first six hours.  Within two days of his arrival in Phippsburg, he has become the laughingstock of the whole town for his failure at playing baseball, been teased mercilessly as a coward for not jumping off a huge cliff into the ocean, and gotten caught skipping rocks across water that just happened to bump into somebody’s old fence.  Before he can blink, he is sentenced to spend his summer reading and playing organ for a repulsive old woman who yells at him, helps spread the rumors about him, looks and smells funny, and is absolutely obsessed with her own death and making sure her last words will be written down.  He’d just as soon die.

But then he meets Lizzie, an island girl who can row a boat, play baseball like nothing else, dig clams, and speak to whales.  And that changes everything forever.

The Higher Power of Lucky–by Susan Patron

Patron, Susan.  The Higher Power of Lucky.  New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.

Lucky is a regular kid: she has one awesome friend who’s going to be president one day, one annoying little kid friend who survives entirely on cookies, a paying job cleaning up litter after the 12-step meetings, and an impressive collection of bug specimens for future scientific exhibits.  Her mom died when she was eight, but she’s got a pretty good life with her Guardian, Brigitte.  One day, though, Lucky finds something that changes everything…

“Heading into the wind turned out to be way, way harder, even without her backpack and supply sack.  Lucky had to scuttle along doubled over, like an old woman, keeping her squinted eyes on the road.  Without the mask or the dishcloth her face was completely exposed.  She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead.  She almost tripped over HMS Beagle, who trotted up to her with her head low to the ground, he ears whipping forward.  She touched Lucky with her nose and then abruptly turned and bounded back toward the town.  Maybe HMS Beagle was right and they should go home.  Lucky stopped.  “Hey, Beag!” she yelled.  Then, faintly, she heard a cat or some other animal crying, and saw that HMS Beagle was nudging that pile of rags.  Very carefully Lucky approached the thing, which was huddled in a tight ball.  It looked like the thing was rolled up in an old tablecloth or sheet.  Sticking out of the roll was a small sneaker with a toe poking through a hole in the side…”  (p. 111)

Elijah of Buxton–by Christopher Paul Curtis

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  Elijah of Buxton.  New York: Scholastic Press, 2007.

Life’s hard, right?  You have to go school, do what crazy grown-ups tell you even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense, and put up with being called “fra-gile” all the time even when you are clearly NOT being fragile.  Elijah gets this all the time, even from his parents!  He’s pretty sure the WORST thing on earth has happened to him after his mom decides to play a trick on him:

“…I moved my hand ‘round in the bottom of the jar, I felt one n’em rope cookies…and Mrs. Brown must’ve just brought these cookies over, ‘cause the last one left was still warm!  I pulled the cookie outta the jar.

“My heart quit beating, my blood ran cold, and time stood still!  My fingers were wrapped ‘round the neck of the worst-looking snake in Canada West!  I screamed, ‘Snake!’ and afore I knowed it, I was tearing off ‘cross the road into the woods.  By the time I worned myself out I must’ve run two miles.  I stopped and leaned ‘gainst a tree, waiting for my breathing to catch up to me.  Something made me look down in my hand.

“I screamed, ‘Snake!’ for the second time.  But this time I remembered to turn the snake’s neck a-loose and throwed it down.  I wouldn’t’ve thought I had enough strength left in me to run, but being afeared and being tired look like two things you caint feel at the same time.” (p. 19)

TOTALLY unfair, right?  Never mind that this was payback for putting the biggest toady-frog in Canada West in his ma’s sewing basket!  And Elijah gets it worse than anyone because he, the first child born free from slavery in the Buxton settlement in Canada, had a terrible accident as a baby…which unfortunately involved vomit and a visit from Frederick Douglass…but never mind that, just wait till Elijah gets growned, then he’s gonna show everybody!

But when there comes an opportunity to buy a neighbor’s family out of slavery, it looks like he’s gonna have to show how grown up he is sooner than anybody thinks…

Sold–by Patricia McCormick

McCormick, Patricia.  Sold.  New York: Hyperion, 2006.

You probably know that in many parts of the world, kids your age do not have the same kinds of freedoms and privileges you have.  Extreme poverty means a lot more than not getting to watch tv or join the soccer team; for 13-year-old Lakshmi in Nepal, poverty means surrendering everything to help her family survive.  When her step-father announces that she must leave their village to find work as a maid in the city, Lakshmi is unhappy but willing.  As she leaves the village with the woman who appears to have hired her, though, things start looking fishy, and they don’t get any better as she reaches the big city.

“Mumtaz studies me.  ‘Are you ready to go to work?’ she says in my language.  I nod and say yes, then nod again, although I do not understand how these city people do their chores in such fine clothes and uncomfortable shoes.  I follow Mumtaz down a hallway lined with tiny rooms.  We pass by girls sitting cross-legged on the floor.  Girls drawing on tiger eyes.  Girls spraying themselves with flower water.  Some of them stare at me.  Some take no notice.

“We go up some stairs, down another hallway, then into a room where an old man is lying on a bed.  His skin is yellow and he has tufts of hair poking out from his ears.  Mumtaz speaks kindly to him and I wonder if he is sick.  Across the hall, in another room, where a red cloth is hung across the doorway, I hear the sound of grunting.  It is a strange, animal sound that makes me shudder.  Mumtaz points to me and says something to the old man.  He licks his palm and smoothes down his hair.  They do not seem to notice the grunting.  Then it stops.  The red cloth is pulled back.  And a man stands in the hallway zipping his pants.  I look down at my red-painted nails and my new shoes.  Something is not right here.  I don’t know what is going on, but it is not right, not right at all.”  (p. 102-103)

And it’s not right.  Lakshmi has been sold into the illegal sex trade in India, and her only way out…well, it isn’t a way out at all…

The Wall–by Peter Sis

Sis, Peter.  The Wall.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Peter is a regular guy.  He’s into rock music, forms a band with his friends, and gets a job as a DJ on a radio show.

(excerpts from Peter’s journal)

February 1967: I form a rock group with my friends, but we have no instrument and we haven’t settled on a name yet.  My father makes me get a haircut.  I paint people with long hair.
May 1967: We start making instruments.  It’s hard to make an electric guitar.  You plug it into the radio and it blows a fuse.
August 1967: Hop-picking time again—a good way to meet girls.  After working all day, we get together and sing Beatles songs.

Everything’s great, except for the wrench in the works: he lives in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.

(more excerpts)

January-February 1969: Jan Palach and Jan Zajic, students, set themselves on fire to “wake up the nation from lethargy.”
1970: Vetvicka, a fun guy and bass player, died of head injuries after the police beat him in the melee following the Beach Boys concert.
1976: The Plastic People of the Universe rock band are in prison.  I used to argue with them, and do not care for their music—but prison?

Peter is a regular guy, but he lives in a world full of lies and brutality.  For his story of resistance, you’ll need to read on…