After continually getting into trouble at school for bullying, and being suspended for violence, Caz and her friend Amanda must deal with the suicide of a girl they had picked on. Many issues come into play in this novel - peer...

Bull's Eye by Sarah N. Harvey is about a girl's discovery that her aunt was really her birth mother. She runs away to learn the truth about her family history and has many experiences, both good and bad. In the end, she and the aunt who...

Thirteen-year old Lakshmi thinks she is leaving her poor rural family to go to the city to become a maid. Little does she know her family has sold her into prostitution, and the price for her freedom may be too high. This National Book...

Hero, a story written by Martha Attema, is a historical fiction novel set in Holland during World War II. It centers on a young boy's love for a horse that sustains him after he is separated from his family. The horse is later taken away...

Eighteen-year-old Elli has a number tattooed onto her arm. It is an indelible remnant of a terrifying past a life lived, for many years, in the death camp of Auschwitz. When Elli arrives in New York City, she can not speak English, and...

This site features family reading activities that will guide parents with their children's reading development.

In "Responsible" by Darlene Ryan, Kevin falls in with the wrong crowd, as he usually does whenever his family moves. But this time, the leader, Nick, is into intimidation of a girl called Erin. When Kevin realizes that Erin is to be...

In "Kicked Out" by Beth Goobie, Dime is unhappy at home and moves in with her quadriplegic brother who helps her learn to love herself. This teacher's guide includes a book summary, discussion topics and teaching ideas.

Bloomability, by Newbery medalist Sharon Creech, tells the coming-of-age tale of Dinnie, a thirteen-year-old girl uprooted from her parents' nomadic lifestyle to spend a year in Switzerland. Dinnie is used to change, since her whole life...

Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have an unusual houseguest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now, in 1815,...

Everybody has a talent. Miles Halter's is knowing the last words of a lot of different people - people like the author Rabelais, whose enigmatic last words "I go to seek a Great Perhaps" inspire the sixteen-year-old to leave his family...

In the year 1692, life changes forever for ten-year-old Abigail Faulkner and her family. In Salem, Massachusetts, witches have been found, and widespread fear and panic reign mere miles from Abigail's home of Andover. When two girls are...

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age 11. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and Ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit...

In A.D. 793, eleven-year-old Jack leaves his family farm to become an apprentice to the Bard, a druid from Ireland, who is assigned to his Saxon village. At first, he is unsure of his duties, and is puzzled when the Bard experiences a...

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class....

Coraline's parents are too busy to play with her. She's on her own, and when she goes exploring in her new apartment she unlocks a door that leads to a different world. At first it looks familiar, even intriguing, but Coraline quickly...

Young Twig is different. Raised by a woodtroll family since infancy, he's never fit in at home, in his village, or at school. As he approaches his 14th birthday, he learns the circumstances of his beginnings: how he was abandoned by his...

Corby Flood and her family are about to set sail on a rather ramshackle cruise ship, the S.S. Euphonia. Onboard, among the odd passengers and eccentric crew, there is a strange group of men in bowler hats who call themselves the...

High on the side of rocky Mount Eskel, far from the valleys where gardens are green and lush, where lowlanders make laws, Miri's family has lived forever, pounding a living from the stone of the mountain itself. For as long as she can...

"The Hungry Year", an historical novel by Connie Brummel Crook, begins in 1787 and is set in what is now Ontario. It follows the life of a Loyalist pioneer family that has fled into Canada. This teacher's guide has a book summary,...

Newbery Award Winner, "Sounder", by William H. Armstrong, is about a sharecropping family and their hunting dog, Sounder. Overarching themes of this novel are courage, family, racial injustice, the importance of education, and hope. Make...

"Holes" by Louis Sachar, is a Newbery winner. Trouble seems to follow Stanley Yelnats and his family. Can Stanley "fulfill" the void/hole that exist? Make the smart choice by enjoying the novel with a BookFiles reading guide. The file...

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", by Mildred D. Taylor is a riveting, Newbery Award winning novel, about a family living in the 1930s Jim Crow South. Make a smart choice by reading your favorite novel with a BookFiles reading guide. The...

A pre-reading activity and some thematic connections for class discussion are at the heart of this teacher's guide for Eleven by Patricia Giff.