From: Nancy Silverrod <nsilverrod>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:03:03 -0800

Of recent books, I really liked Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom by Tim Tingle. This picture book reveals how a young Choctaw girl befriends a slave boy on a nearby plantation, and how she leads his family to freedom. I'm looking forward to reading Always an Olivia by Carolivia Herron, the family story of Sephardic Jews who fled Spain during the inquisition, the marriage of kidnapped Sarah to her rescuer, James, and the family's ultimate relocation to the West Georgia islands where they find home, community and family among the free blacks living there. Another book on my to-read list is Janusz Korczak's Children by Gloria Spielman. Korczak created a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, and when the Nazi's came to deport the children, he went with them, sacrificing his life to provide as much comfort to the children as he could. A book for older readers is Ellen Wittlinger's Parrotfish about a young female to male transsexual teen who fights for acceptance at home and at school.

 

The book that really opened my eyes politically as a child was The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill documenting the conflict between the pushcart peddlers and the truck drivers of New York City. It's still in print, and still a good book, with parallels to today's business world
(chain vs indie bookstores; Walmart vs local stores, etc.)


 


Nancy Silverrod, Librarian

San Francisco Public Library

100 Larkin St.

San Francisco, CA 94102-4733

415-557-4417

nsilverrod at sfpl.org

 

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood. -Chinese Proverb

 
Received on Tue 27 Nov 2007 05:03:03 PM CST