I have been crossing off items on my to-do list recently and creating a book annotations section on this blog has been sorely overlooked.  I need a place to notate what titles I have read in order to provide book suggestions to my students.  I am going to include the Library of Congress’ Cataloging-in-Publication summaries.  So here goes!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope.

A Long Time Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.  This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped-up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. Children have become the soldiers of choice. In the more than fity violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmaeh Beah used to be one of them.

Sold by Patricia McCormick:  Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie: Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Copper Sun by Sharon Draper: Two fifteen-year-old girls–one a slave and the other an indentured servant–escape their Carolina plantation in the 1730’s to try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant’s son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan’s monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.  The great-granddaughter of Iran’s last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists describes growing up in Tehran in a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions between public and private life.

Maus by Art Spiegleman.  The author-illustrator traces his father’s imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp through a series of disarming and unusual cartoons arranged to tell the story as a novel

Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You by Hanna Jansen.  Jeanne and her family, who are Tutsis living in Rwanda during a time of civil war, flee their home in hopes of evading Hutu soldiers as political events threaten to overtake them; a chilling portrait of the Rwandan genocide from the inside.

Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples.  During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her huband’s return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan. When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India’s tradition or find the courage to oppose it.

Red Scarf Girl: a Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-Li Jiang.  Ji-li Jiang was twelve years old in 1966, the year that Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in China. An outstanding student and much-admired leader of her class, Ji-li seemed poised for a shining future. But all that changed with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, when intelligence became a crime and a wealthy family background invited persecution or worse.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. Traces how the author, having been rescued and resuscitated by Himalayan villagers after a failed attempt to climb K2, worked to build  schools that would benefit the young girls who were forbidden an education by Taliban restrictions.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins.  On a trip to visit her absentee father, honor student Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina — she’s fearless. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul — her life.