Rosa by Nikki Giovanni

Author: Nikki Giovanni

Title: Rosa

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

Date: 2006

Reading Level: 4-7

Number of Pages: 40

Genre: Non- Fiction- History

Summary of plot: This book was the shorten down version of how she refused to give up her seat to a white person on the bus and how she was inspried by Dr. Martian Luther King Jr.

Readers Reaction: I went on a kick after reading the story of Ruby Bridges and I read books about amazing African American Heros. This book told the story of another amazing Hero.

Potential Problems: The Emmet Till lynching is mentioned.

Recommendation: Read around Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Of Thee I SIng by Barack Obama

Author: Barack Obama

Title: Of Thee I Sing

Publisher: Knopf

Date: 2010

Reading Level: 4-6

Number of Pages: 40

Genre: Non- Fiction - History

Summary of plot: the story is a letter to his daughters were he finds their winning attributes and then connects each attribute to an American Hero. For example, launches into a short bio about painter Georgia O'Keefe, who "helped us see big beauty in what is small: the hardness of stone and the softness of feather."

Readers Reaction: I'm not really a fan of President Obama but this story really mad me cry. It has a good back ground to it.

Potential Problems: No problems that I Could find

Recommendation: Read on Presidents day to your class or read to your children.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People To Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford

Author: Carole Boston Weatherford

Title: Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People To Freedom

Publisher: Jump at the Sun

Date: 2006

Reading Level: 5-7

Number of Pages: 41

Genre: Non- Fiction Biography

Summary of plot: The book is about how Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in the mid 19th centery and then returns to first get her family and then again returns to lead other slaves into freedom by using an underground rail road.

Readers Reaction: I thought it was a good book. I really like how they compared her to Moses that was a really cool comparison.

Potential Problems: Whippings and it is mentioned that she was hit in the head and almost died.

Recommendation: When study Martin Luther King and other great African Americans

Ramona the Pest- Beverly Cleary

Author: Beverly Cleary

Title: Ramona the Pest

Publisher: William Morrow

Reading Level: 4-6

Number of Pages: 192

Genre: Fiction

Summary of plot: This is about Ramona who has waited her whole life to go to kindergarten and when she finally makes it she has to deal with all of the hard things that come with it. Which involves kids calling names and pulling hair. Ramona also things very literally and so when her teacher tells her to sit down for the present she thought that she was really going to get a present.

Readers Reaction: Like all the other Ramona books I loved it.

Potential Problems: Name Calling and Hair Pulling

Recommendation: Girls in Elementry School

Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary

Author: Beverly Cleary

Title: Beezus and Ramona

Publisher: HarperCollins Chilren's Books. 

Date: 2006

Reading Level: 7+

Number of Pages: 176

Genre: Fiction

Summary of plot: This is a simple book about how Beezus has a hard time getting along with her mischievous 4 year old sister, Ramona. The book is similar to real life (the stuff that goes on). In the beginning Beezus doesn't like Ramona very much, but as you read on Beezus learns to get along with Ramona easier. In the end she still doesn't love her sister.

Readers Reaction: Oh the classic story of Ramona and Beezus. I love these books. they are all favorties and I wish that I owned them and could read them to my children

Potential Problems: Fighting between sisters.

Recommendation: any 3rd grader looking for a great book.

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

Author: Christopher Paul Curtis

Title: Bud, Not Buddy

Publisher: Random House

Date: 1999

Reading Level: 9+

Number of Pages: 243 

Genre: Fiction

Summary of plot: Bud has run away from his abusive foster family. He's sleeping outside and can't find enough to eat. There's nothing left to do but go find Herman E. Calloway, the man whose picture used to make Momma upset. That man has got to be Bud's father! Orphaned Bud, not Buddy, Caldwell carries a ratty suitcase full of all his possessions wherever he goes. There's the picture of his Momma as a little girl. There's Momma's old pouch, full of smooth rocks with strange coded messages written on them. But the most important thing is a flyer advertising "Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression."
Sure that this Herman E. Calloway is his father, Bud sets out to find him. But when Calloway turns out to be a grumpy old man, Miss Thomas, the Dusky Devastator's kind "vocal stylist," convinces him to give the ten-year-old a place to stay. Bud moves into the big house known as Grand Calloway Station and, with the help of Momma's rocks, soon discovers that Herman E. Calloway isn't his father at all--he's Bud's grandfather!

Readers Reaction: I loved the story of Bud and his adventures in trying to find his musican father. Really Great story.

Potential Problems: he tells a lot of lies, he get beat up by his foster brother and his foster parents lock him up in a shed, after he runs away he has to fend for himself.

Recommendation: People who love reading Historical Fiction

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder

Title: Little House in the Big Woods

Publisher:  HarperCollins Children's Book

Date: 2007

Reading Level: 9-12

Number of Pages: 256 

Genre: Non- Fiction Autobiography

Summary of plot: Laura Ingalls is a kid who loves to help her family, is afraid of wolves, and hates her "boring" brown hair. She lives in a little house in the big woods where she and her siblings work hard at their many chores like killing and preparing farm animals for the winter and dinner, mind their ma and pa which the book really emphasis as a really big deal, go to school where all of the children are  in one room, and have lots of frontier adventures with her sister and little brother. She loves her pa so much and wants him to be really happy.

Readers Reaction: This was the first chapter book I ever read all by myself when I was in the third grade so it has a lot of meaning to me. I love it so much. It was the book that helped me like reading.

Potential Problems: A gun is used, killing farm animals. everything is appropriated for the time.

Recommendation: Readers like me. Who didn't want to read.