Oldies but goodies

Someplace To Call Home

Sandra Dallas
(Sleeping Bear Press 2019)

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl hit the Turner family hard. Daddy left to find work and never came back. Then Mommy died. Now, it’s up to Hallie and Tom to make ends meet and take care of their little brother, Benny, who has special needs. The three travel from town to town, ­living out of their car and looking for work, but it’s hard to come by. Seems like friends are hard to come by, too. People call the Turner kids “squatters” and treat them with suspicion, though they’re just trying to make it like everyone else. Even so, there’s plenty of love, joy, and gratitude among the sibling set, and a near-tragedy ends up bringing more their way. Ages 8-11

The Great Trouble

Deborah Hopkinson
(Knopf Books for Young Readers 2013)

It’s 1854 and Dr. John Snow, an epidemiologist, suspects contaminated water is to blame for the deadly cholera outbreak sweeping the streets of Victorian London. Not many people believe him, though. He, however, believes in a young, orphaned mudlark named Eel, and together the unlikely duo works to gather the evidence they need to prove Snow’s theory and save the lives of Eel’s friends and neighbors (or what’s left of them). But just as they start to make headway, a dark character in Eel’s past catches up with him and threatens everything. Hopkinson’s seamless mixing of real-life facts and figures with fictional characters and storylines makes this fast-paced novel filling fare. Ages 10-12

A Long Way From Chicago

Richard Peck
(Puffin Books 2000)

Grandma Dowdel was a bit rough around the edges with her gun toting and beer brewing—and boy, could that woman tell some whoppers! But the larger-than-life lady had a heart to help others, and that’s one thing she wasn’t loud about. At least that’s how her now-elderly grandson remembers her from his childhood visits back in the 1930s. Each ­chapter is a hilarious recounting of something Grandma had up her sleeve for Chicago city-slicker Joey and his younger sister, Mary Alice, during a small-town Illinois summer. From a (jumpy) dead guy in Grandma’s front parlor to an illegal catfishing adventure, each word of this Newbery Honor winner, first published in 1998, is a tickling treat. Ages 9 & up

Outside Nowhere

Adam Borba
(Little, Brown and Co. for young readers 2022)

Pulling weeds at a radish farm in the middle of nowhere is not at all how too-cool-for-the-city-pool Parker Kelbrook wanted to spend his summer—but perhaps this place is an apt punishment for his crime of dumping 57 gallons of powdered fruit punch into the chlorinated water. He thinks he’ll smooth-talk his way out of it like he always does, but Parker’s charm and fancy duds don’t impress the mysterious farmer in the least, and the other boys on the farm shun him, too. Around this strange place, Parker finds hard work is the only way to win people over, so he rolls up his sleeves, and when he does, he finds something bigger than himself. Ages 8-12