The Real Boy by Anne Ursu

The Real Boy
by Anne Ursu
Walden Pond Press, 2013
ISBN: 9780062015075
Curriculum: Genre Study, fantasy, adventure

On an island lies the city of Asteri, where a young magician's shop boy, Oscar, must solve the mystery of why the magic is failing and Asteri's children have fallen ill.  Can Oscar save the city?

One Crazy Summer

In the summer of 1968, Delphine and her sisters, Vonetta and Fern, travel from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA to meet and stay the entire summer with the mother that abandoned them.  The girls get more than they bargained for when their mother introduces them to Black Panthers and the Civil Rights Movement.  Author: Rita Willaims-Garcia

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

The Sugar Man Swamp is in serious trouble.  Sonny Boy Beaucoup, who's ownership of the swamp dates back generations, and Jaegar Stitch, the best alligator wrestler in North America, want to tear down the swamp, pave it, and turn it into an Alligator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park.  If that wasn't bad enough, wild hogs are headed straight for the swamp to eat all the delicious sugarcane.

It's up to two raccoon brothers, Bingo and J'miah, Official Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, and twelve-year old Chap Brayburn to find and wake up the wise, old Sugar Man, defender of the swamp, to save Sugar Man Swamp.  Can they do it?  Find out by reading The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Newbery Honoree and National Book Award Finalist Kathi Appelt (author of The Underneath)