Rich in the atmosphere of thirteenth-century Italy, The Road to Damietta offers through Ricca di Montanaro’s eyes a new perspective on the man who became the famous Saint Francis of Assisi, the guileless, joyous man who praised the oneness of nature and sought to bring the world into harmony. “Lo...
“Singing Down the Moon”tAccording to Scott O’Dell’s “Singing Down the Moon’, the Navaho Native Americans endured many long years of suffrage from the United States and the “Ute’s” Native Americans. The Navahos tried to protect themselves by creating treaties with the U.S, but they ran into troubl...
Sometimes to clear my head I go to the children's lit bookshelf in my daughter's bedroom (she is now in college), which was fully stocked long before she arrived because I've been collecting children's books for years, and I select a favorite to reread. Yesterday I selected and read this. It's th...
It is around the turn of the twentieth century, and sixteen-year-old Ramon Salazar lives in the town of La Paz on the Baja California coast of Mexico, with his father Blas, the owner of a lucrative pearl fishing business, mother, and two sisters. Blas Salazar had promised his son that when he tu...
"Zia" by Scott O'Dell is a fiction adventure story about the main character named Zia. The theme of the story is Zia's plan and her long rough voyage.At first sight, Zia is a teenage girl tried to find her last relative, besides her brother, Karana. The quest to find her aunt who had been living ...
Sarah Bishop is a young girl who has no interest in the coming American Revolutionary War. However, this is not how her father and her brother feel. Her father is a Loyalist, siding with the British, and her brother, is a Patriot. Her brother leaves the house, and soon, her father is tarred and f...
I had never heard of the St. John's slave revolt in 1733. The book tells the story of Raisha, the daughter of a lesser Barato chief, beginning in Africa. The first chapter tells of the events leading to their being sold into slavery, and pictures her life of freedom. The horrors of the voyage and...
THE TRUE LEGACY OF CHIEF JOSEPHFifteen-year-old Sound of Running Feet survives incredible hardship--including betrayal by both white men and other tribes in this fictionalized novella. Odell's detailed account of the brutal removal of the Nez Perce from Wallowa, Idaho to Oklahoma proves interesti...
Scott O'Dell's The King's Fifth (1966), a runner up for the Newbery Medal, is an absorbing, well-written, and vividly-imagined historical novel. At dusk in 1541 in a prison cell in Vera Cruz, New Spain, the young cartographer Esteban de Sandoval begins writing the account of his adventures seekin...
When young Nathan sails with his older brothers in search of a lost treasure ship, he is expected to do exactly as they tell him. But when one of his brothers mysteriously dies and the other declares he is Captain Ahab straight out of Moby Dick, Nathan worries about what orders he might have to c...
The plot is a bit jumpy, but the history and the descriptions of Bermuda and the New World, as well as the sea voyage are rich and alive. The characters and their hardships are believable, though Serena, much of the time, was merely an observer. I was mostly disappointed with the book's summary o...
Raised to take the place of her dead brother, Carlota de Zubaran can do anything that Carlos could have done. She races her stallion through the California lowlands, dives into shark-infested waters searching for gold, and fights in the battles that rage between the Mexicans and the American...
Blacksmith Grimes, who liked to display his strength, was alone at the pump. The rest of the crew sat around in the launches, with their eyes fixed upon the signal line. Captain Troll held it in his hand as if he were waiting for a fish to bite. He knew where we had been, but since he didn’t ask ...
Kukulcán was not born a god but became one because of his humble and compassionate life. For several centuries he ruled over the great nation of the Maya, then mysteriously disap peared, promising to return. In The Captive, the first book of this chronicle, Julián Escobar, a young Spanish seminar...