Hodge-Podge Books

A delightful picture book inspired by Queen Rania’s childhood. Lily and Salma are childhood friends who do everything together. All school activities are shared and enjoyed every day. They always eat lunch together. However, they each different lunches. Lily always favored a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Salma enjoyed a hummus and pita sandwich. Each of the girls thought the other’s sandwich looked rather yucky. For the first time the girls did not eat lunch together. The next day insults flew around the lunchroom. Soon the insults had nothing to do with the food but became something “not so nice to say to the other.” The end result was a food fight.

This is an absorbing story following three teens from Alain Locke Middle School. The story opens at dismissal as 6th grader Robeson starts the dreaded stroll “down the Bermuda Hallway. On the ground floor right next to the boy’ locker room is a set of stairs that are so deep, so narrow, so musty and hot. There have been kids who have gone down but never came back up.” Robeson is on his way to PSS (Post School Suspension).

Probably the best known author for young readers, particularly males, has to be GARY PAULSEN. His outdoor adventure stories have been responsible for turning more young males on to reading than perhaps any other contemporary author. This story centers on 13 year old Samuel and takes place in the British Colony of Pennsylvania. Samuel and his parents live on the frontier. They are probably “well educated” by frontier standards meaning they can read and write. Samuel is off hunting bear when he notices smoke coming for the general area of where his family and other settlers live. By the time he races home, he finds most of the cabins burned and many of the inhabitants slaughtered. His family was not among the corpses. He buries the dead and then determined to rescue his parents, he begins tracking the survivors.

This is a delightful family story set in the possible future. Dewey Mariss is in the middle of a crunch. Dewey along with his sister, immediately younger brother and pre-school twins have been left at home while his parents are stuck with an empty gas tank up north. The country is experiencing its first gas shortage and the future is looking rather grim.