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Items18
1
A single shard (2001)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In a twelfth-century Korean pottery village, Tree-ear watches master potter Min at his wheel and learns how long the work takes between days when he shapes pots. His first tasks are the heavy ones, including cutting wood for the kiln. Pick it for a child who wants to know what goes into a finished piece of celadon.
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The Midwife's Apprentice (1995)
7.3/10on Open Library
Published
Alyce finds work with a midwife in a medieval English village. She has to learn an adult's work while finding food, shelter, and a place for herself. The apprentice's view gives a young reader a way into village life through the errands and practical decisions that fill a day.
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The birchbark house (1999)
7.2/10on Open Library
Published
Omakayas and her Ojibwe family live on an island in Lake Superior. Follow what they eat, the work they do, and where they live as the seasons change. Spending time with those routines first makes the outbreak of smallpox feel like an interruption of a family life the reader already knows.
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The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel (2015)
Published
Eel makes a living hunting for things he can sell in the mud along the Thames. When cholera spreads in 1854, he helps Dr. John Snow investigate the neighborhood's water supply. Start here to see how one boy's knowledge of local streets and households becomes useful to a doctor.
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The Door of No Return (2021)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
Kofi swims in the Offin River and plays oware with his grandfather in a fictional Asante village in 1860. At school, he has to speak English instead of Twi. Those early routines give the later story of enslavement a clear sense of whose home and childhood are being taken away.
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Our Australian Girl: Meet Poppy
Poppy lives at Bird Creek Mission near Echuca in 1864. When her older brother Gus leaves to look for gold, she has to decide whether to follow him into the bush. This short chapter book brings the gold rush into view through two children choosing where and how they might live.
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Prairie Lotus (2020)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In Dakota Territory in 1880, Hanna wants to go to school and use the sewing skills she learned from her mother to make dresses for her father's store. Orders and school days make it possible to see how she might build a life in town. They also show where anti-Asian prejudice limits the choices other children take for granted.
More about Prairie Lotus8
The evolution of Calpurnia Tate (2009)
8.4/10on Open Library
Published
During a hot Texas summer in 1899, Calpurnia wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her yard grow bigger than the green ones. She starts writing down what she sees, with help from her grandfather. Look for the places she finds time to investigate in a crowded house with six brothers.
More about The evolution of Calpurnia Tate9
Esperanza Rising (2000)
7.9/10on Open Library
Published
Esperanza leaves Mexico for a farm camp in Depression-era California, where she has to learn the chores other children already know. Chapters named for crops bring the fields into the story as the year goes on. The farming calendar makes it easier to follow how illness, pay, and a strike affect her family.
More about Esperanza Rising10
The war that Saved my Life (2015)
9.3/10on Open Library
Published
Ada and her brother leave London with other children evacuated at the start of World War II. In the countryside, Ada teaches herself to ride a pony and learns to read while the three people in her new household learn how to live together. Those everyday discoveries give the evacuation a child's scale.
More about The war that Saved my Life11
A Place to Belong (2019)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Hanako's family leaves the United States after their wartime incarceration and joins her grandparents on their tenant farm near Hiroshima. Food is scarce, and Hanako has to weigh helping children she meets against what her little brother needs. The novel follows the questions a family still has to answer after the war ends.
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The night diary (2018)
8.3/10on Open Library
Published
Nisha writes to her late mother as her family leaves the part of India that becomes Pakistan in 1947. The letters have room for who she is close to at home, including Kazi, the family cook. They let a young reader follow what changes for one household as a new border is drawn.
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My Brigadista Year (2017)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In 1961, thirteen-year-old Lora leaves Havana to teach reading and writing in the Cuban countryside. She helps with the household's daily work and has to fit lessons around the lives people already lead. Choose it for a story in which taking on the role of teacher means becoming a learner too.
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One crazy summer (2010)
7.9/10on Open Library
Published
Delphine and her sisters go to Oakland in 1968 to stay with a mother they barely know. The novel follows the sisters through a Black Panther summer program, where they get breakfast. Notice how much of the history comes through Delphine deciding what her younger sisters need and where they can get it.
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Revolution is not a dinner party (2007)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In Wuhan in 1972, Ling's father teaches her English while they listen to the radio in the evening. When a political officer moves into their apartment, even a familiar routine feels different. Read it to see how the Cultural Revolution changes what one child hears, says, and does at home and at school.
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Inside Out & Back Again (2011)
7.7/10on Open Library
Published
Hà leaves Saigon in 1975 and finds herself learning English in Alabama. The verse moves between classroom frustrations and the foods she misses, especially the papaya from the tree she grew at home. Its short scenes give readers a way to follow what it takes to get through an ordinary day in a new place.
More about Inside Out & Back Again17
The Breadwinner (2000)
8.7/10on Open Library
Published
Parvana's father earns money in Kabul by reading letters for people in the market. When he is arrested under Taliban rule, she disguises herself as a boy so she can go out and help support her family. The market scenes let readers see which jobs are open to her and why being able to read matters.
More about The Breadwinner18
The red pencil (2014)
Published
In a Sudanese village, Amira has new responsibilities at twelve and hopes she might go to school in Nyala. After an attack forces her family to flee, a red pencil gives her something to do with her hands and a way to tell her own story. The verse moves from the life she knew to the routines she has to learn in a refugee camp.
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