Great Reading: Bookmark It!

Volume 30, Number 5, June 2003

Weird Worlds
Grades 6-12

Rosemary Chance

Hush. Jacqueline Woodson.
Putnam’s, 2002. $15.99. 0-399-23114-5. African-American Evie Thomas, 13, forced into witness protection with her family because of her father’s testimony against two white policemen, is displaced and unhappy.

Pictures of Hollis Woods. Patricia Reilly Giff.
Wendy Lamb, 2002. $15.95. 0-385-32655-6. Hollis Woods, almost 13 and a natural artist, lives with a series of foster parents until she finds refuge with Josie, an elderly artist. Then, a path leads her back to the Regans who want her to stay with them. Newbery Honor Book, 2003.

Say yes. Audrey Couloumbis.
Putnam’s, 2002. $16.99. 0-399-23390-3. Casey, abandoned by her stepmother in New York City, tries to survive by herself with a little help from a teenage boy who lives with the building superintendent.

Surviving the Applewhites. Stephanie Tolan.
HarperCollins, 2003. $15.99. 0-06-623602-9. Jack Semple, a young teenage juvenile delinquent, gets his last chance to stay out of a detention facility. He joins the Applewhite family to be “homeschooled” and is drawn into the creativity and craziness of an artistic family. Newbery Honor Book, 2003.

---

Rosemary Chance is assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She can be reached at rchance@student.necc.cc.ms.us.