Ages 9-12: Summer 2018
* Summer Reading 2018
Climate Change, Sustainability, and Kindness
“In Nature Nothing Exists Alone”
- Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
Reading List: Ages 9-12 years
All selections and annotations by WPL Librarian Anna L. Nielsen
Click on a book cover to reserve the book in CLAMS or
click here for a printable list
Fiction
Adams, Richard. Watership Down. NY: Macmillan, 1972. 1972 winner of the Carnegie Award and the Guardian Prize. A small group of rabbits must leave their home when their environment is destroyed by humans. The rabbits journey through the hillside facing greed, aggression, and false comforts until they find, finally, a new and natural home for their warren. An anthropomorphized tale that gives human folly and wisdom to animals as they reconstruct their society after disaster. Ages: 9+.
Applegate, Katherine. Endling: The Last. NY: HarperCollins, 2018. Byx is the last of her kind, the last dairn alive, the endling. Near extinct, her family was surviving, quietly, until the Murdano came, the human bent on killing. And he killed. Her family, her clan, her species. We none of us can survive alone, so Byx sets out on a quest to find more of her kind. She meets a wobbyk, a girl, a thief, and a ferivet. And learns that the dairn isn’t the only group the Murdano is intent on destroying. Byx’s quest gets a whole lot bigger. First in a projected fantasy trilogy, this is Applegate at her best. Ages: 9+.
Erskine, Kathryn. The Incredible Magic of Being. NY: Scholastic, 2017. Julian is a super smart kid with a sister who just became a teenager. Yikes. He loves her anyway. And his moms, astronomy, and his miserable neighbor, the elderly and really quite cranky Mr. X. He also likes to write down Facts and Random Thoughts, aka “FARTS” – he likes to learn and the acronym is fun to say, so really, it’s a win-win. He’s a kind kid, and what he wants more than anything is for everyone to be okay enough to feel the incredible magic of being in the world. And to say the word, “fart.” It all works out in the end. Ages: 9+.
French, S. Terrell. Operation Redwood. NY: Amulet Books, Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 2009. The summer, for twelve-year-old Julian Carter-Li, started out normally enough – being handed off to his uncle, deciding how to spend his day. What wasn’t normal was that soon he had broken into his uncle’s things, run away, met a girl and helped her, learned about “pabulum” and fought against it, learned to like a cousin he’d never liked before, and found a grandmother he never knew he had who turned out to be pretty amazing. And all for the redwood trees. Ages: 9+.
Grahame, Kenneth; illus. Ernest Shephard. The Wind in the Willows. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908. Mole and Ratty and Mr. Badger and the irresponsible, irrepressible Mr. Toad. A classic of the Arcadian tradition when nature and community were all and the trappings and greed of machines and industrialization were to be dissuaded. Boating and picnicking is truly the best way to go, especially while on holiday, with friends. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to pick up a title, any title, by Cape Cod conservationist and writer Thornton Burgess. Born in Sandwich in 1874, he wrote over fifty books based on his observations and love of the natural world. Start with Old Mother West Wind (1910). Ages: 9+.
Hiassen, Carl. Hoot (2002) and Flush (2005) NY: Alfred P. Knopf. Can’t talk about children’s eco-fiction without a Hiassen title or two. In Hoot, two boys save a colony of burrowing owls from being killed under the rubble of a proposed construction site. In Flush, Noah and his sister Abbey do everything they can to prove what they know, that the casino boat owner is emptying his bilge tanks into protected waters. Hiassen writes adventurous tales with extravagant characters and messy endings. Everything doesn’t always work out perfectly, but with real sustained effort, a network of caring community members, a commitment to justice, and hefty doses of humor, things do have a way working out. Ages: 9+.
Jacobs, Jaco; illus. Jum Tierney; trans. Afrikaans Kobus Geldenhuys. A Good Day for Climbing Trees. London: One World Publications, 2018. Marnus is the brother in the middle, stuck between Donavan the gorgeous and Adrian, the nine-year-old financial genius. The summer is not going well. And then he meets a girl named Leila and he ends up following her up a tree with his dishcloth on his shoulder. A tree the municipality wants to cut down to build a pipeline. Mrs. Merriman joins in with her poodles and brings sandwiches, and the caretaker down the road visits with coffee and lets the kids take turns using the loo. Soon Leila’s mum brings a blanket and spends the night watching over them. And then the next night, too. And then the students come, and the news, and the people in the neighborhood. Because a tree should be forever, even when everything changes. Ages: 9+.
Kaaberbol, Lena. Wildwitch series. Wildfire, Oblivion (2016), Life Stealer and Bloodling (2017). London: Pushkin Children’s Books, Press, 2016. Clara is an ordinary girl, a quiet girl her mum calls Little Mouse, until the day the giant cat comes and scratches and claws her in what feels like an attack. Turns out little Clara is a wildwitch, a gifted one who can talk to animals and walk the magic and wild animal ways of distance and time. And luckily for them both, the giant cat turns out to be a very good companion and friend. Delightful Danish import series of good and the natural world prevailing. We could all use a little Clara in our lives. Ages: 9+.
Kadohata, Cynthia. Checked. NY: A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book, Atheneum, 2018. There’s one thing Conor figures out for sure – he’s “gotta grow up and have a good life.” If he’s happy, everyone around him will be happy. He’s just got to work hard, grow up, be a good person, and everyone will be happy, including him. He loves his dog Sinbad and his Dad and hockey – the order of importance might fluctuate, but not really – and he loves his Mom (or imagines he must have), his grandparents (he thinks he will once he gets to know them, at least), and his coach and teammates and friends and Aunt Mo (he knows he does), and his neighbors, too. He’s a good kid, Conor, and he knows life can be hard but that’s no reason not to keep going. Highly recommended; Newbery Award winner Kadohata has done it again. Ages: 10+
King, Amy Sarig. Me and Marvin Gardens. NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Inc., 2017. Obe lives on an old farm of three acres that used to be a lot bigger but his great-grandfather drank it all away. So that’s great. Interspersed across the story are snippets on green pages of “One Hundred Years Ago,” explaining what the country was like, what people were like, and what farming and chemical interference were like – showing that maybe more contributed to the family loss than his great-grandfather’s affinity for drink. But still – loss is loss. So all the family has left is a little house on three acres and a creek surrounded by subdivision horror. Obe escapes to what little land is left, especially the creek, to clear up all the plastic trash and save at least a little bit of nature. He finds an animal, a something. So he names it Marvin Gardens (from the game Monopoly his father makes him play; Obe always buys land and won’t develop it). And Marvin eats plastic. And Marvin’s poop disintegrates plastic. And Marvin has a family. Obe’s old friend Tommy who left him for the cool kids finds out, and so does new girl Annie. Annie’s okay (super okay, actually), Tommy not so much. Obe asks his nice sister Bernadette for help but Tommy’s mean sister threatens them, so Obe asks his science teacher for help, and she helps. Marvin and his family will make it, and so will Obe, and even Tommy. Growing up is hard. Saving the environment is hard. It’s all worth it. Ages: 9+.
Macaulay, David. Baaa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985. F. A parable of consumption, the environment, and class politics, told via sheep (because there are no more people – there is no record of when the last person disappeared). The sheep begin by taking food home from the supermarket (rather than graze in place), and then wearing clothes (so that’s where wool went), and then “careers were pursued… bank accounts were opened… and leaders arose from the sheep population. Some had charisma, others connections… One evening, between commercials, a news sheep announced that things were being used up too fast. But nobody paid much attention.” Men are like sheep and sheep are like men. Disaster. Ages: 7+.
Napoli, Donna Jo. Hunger. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018. Famines can be caused by ecological accidents and by political greed and willful ignorance – put together, the land falters and disaster is created. Dirt goes barren and people starve. In this historical novel, two girls navigate staying alive through the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. One is rich and one is poor, one is oblivious and one is hungry. Twelve-year-old Lorraine will be okay, but not nearly the way she ever imagined. A great lesson in history with poignant, persevering personalities. Ages: 10+.
Salkey, Andrew. Drought. Leeds, England: Peepal Tree Press Ltd., 2011. Part of the Caribbean Modern Classics series and third in Salkey’s quartet for children about country life in Jamaica, Drought tells the story of kids trying to save their village from dry season, getting the whole community involved, whether the community wants it or not. Seth, Man Boy, Benjie, Double Ugly, and Mango Head get everybody and everything involved, from roosters to teachers to grandparents to candles – their village is going to get some water. Complete the quartet with Riot, Earthquake, and Hurricane. Ages: 10+
Nonfiction
Carson, Rachel; illus. Lois and Louis Darling. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. The classic. Carson tracked the damage pesticides have on the environment and the connectedness of air to soil to animal to water, etc. Often credited as the impetus for the creation of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in 1970. Every young environmentalist should start here. Absolutely recommended. Ages: 12+.
Castaldo, Nancy F. Back from the Brink: Saving Animals from Extinction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. Castaldo tells the stories of the work of bringing seven endangered species back to healthy population numbers. She starts with a little history, explaining the when and the how of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and takes readers through the real work scientists and conservationists do to save the animals and the environment of which they are a part. Bibliography, resources for action and more information, and glossary included. Ages: 9+.
Peabody, Erin. A Weird and Wild Beauty: The Story of Yellowstone, The World’s First National Park. NY: Sky Pony Press, 2016. On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Park Bill into Law, setting aside more than two million acres for wilderness. Things are changing. Read this for the story of how the good part began. Ages: 12+.
