Books for 3rd to 5th Grade

Becoming Naomi Leon
by Pam Munoz Ryan
$5.99
Naomi is biracial, Mexican and white, the only one in the family who looks like a person of color. Her mother left Naomi and her little brother with her grandmother when she was quite young. When Naomi's mother reappears after seven years, the family conflict that ensues pushes Naomi's grandmother to bring the kids to Oaxaca to search for Naomi's Mexican father. Naomi gets a chance to learn about and become a part of her Mexican extended family. While in Mexico, Naomi finds her cultural heritage and her own voice.

Pact says: This book explores many issues that are relevant to adopted children - particularly those adopted transracially. The book's themes of bridging several families, connecting different cultures, and forging a personal identity gives transracially adopted kids much to think about.
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Double Play at Shortstop
by Matt Christopher
$4.99
Danny Walker feels he is a shoo-in for the all-star team, until he meets Tammy Aiken, the shortstop for the opposition. They're both great players, but other similarities (both have red hair, a similar stance, etc.) make Danny uneasy. When he learns that both are adopted and share the same birthday, Danny becomes convinced they're twins, separated at birth.

Pact says: This unlikely plot give kids a chance to explore adoption fantasies and what ifs in the context of the sports team experience. The inclusion of many great girl players is a bonus.
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Hank Zipzer Collection
by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
$19.96
Includes 4 titles: Niagara Falls, or does It?; I Got A "D" in Salmi; Day of the Iguana; The Zippity Zinger. These are laugh outloud books, as Hank and his friends (who just happen to be Chinese and African American, from middle class professional families) romp together through various antics and funny situations mostly created by Hank's struggles in school. Hank has learning differences which are really coming to the fore now that he is in fourth grade. Any child facing these issues will feel better about themselves and their struggles because of Hank and his fantastic ideas and adventures.

Pact says: This is a great series and a wonderful read, especially for kids facing learning challenges.
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Kids Like Me In China
by Ying-Ying Fry
$18.00
"Hi! My name is Ying Ying," this book begins. "I am eight years old and I live in San Francisco. Like lots of kids in my city, I'm Chinese American. But I wasn't born that way. When I was really small, I was just Chinese. Then my American parents came and adopted me, and that's how I got the American part." Ying Ying was adopted from an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan province, when she was a tiny baby. She tells her story, not only about her adoption but also about her return trip to China and the orphanage where she was born.

Pact says: This books is very touching and inspirational for kids of older ages who can begin to imagine writing their own story... just like Ying-Ying. Every parent will learn from Ying-Ying how they can inspire their own children to tell their own stories.
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Liberation of Gabriel King, The
by K. L. Going
$6.99
Frita Wilson and Gabriel King, Frita also happens to be the only Black child in their 4th grade class and Gabriel happens to be afraid of almost everything that takes courage. In the summer between their 4th and 5th grade year, Frita and Gabriel embark on a plan to overcome their fears that turns out to include some powerful lessons about oppression and standing up to racism.

Pact says: Frita and her family are a wonderful model of a strong African American family, Gabriel and his family learn what it means to be white allies against racism in a backdrop of the 1976 South including members of the Ku Klux Klan. A great book to introduce the need to speak out and band together against racism.

Ocean Within, The
by V.M. Caldwell
$6.95
Elizabeth, 11, barely speaks and views her adoption by the Sheridans as just another temporary situation, to be endured without getting emotionally entangled. The Sheridans are a raucous and deeply affectionate family, and Elizabeth is overwhelmed by their noise and their joy. Elizabeth's passion is the ocean, which she has dreamed of seeing; too afraid to actually let the water touch her, she watches the ocean for hours while the others swim and play. It is four-year-old Petey who begins to reach Elizabeth; too young to be deceived, he recognizes both her loneliness and her fear.

Pact says: A beautifully written and engaging story about learning trust and becoming part of a family that has great appeal to adopted girls.
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One Crazy Summer
edited by Rita Garcia-Williams
$15.99
It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility.

Pact says: With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.

People Could Fly, The: American Black Folktales
by Virginia Hamilton
$13.00
Virginia Hamilton, Newbery Medal winner and recipient of the National Book Award and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, teams up with two-time Caldecott Medal winners, Leo and Diane Dillon, in this classic collection of American black folktales, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. By turns droll, grisly, and spine-tingling, the 24 stories celebrate the indomitable human spirit, surviving under the most crushing circumstances of slavery. Four groups of stories: Animal Tales; Tales of the Real, Extravagant and Fanciful; Tales of the Supernatural; and Slave Tales of Freedom.

Pact says: An excellent of stories rooted in the African American experience.
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Ruby Lu: Empress of Everything
by Lenore Look, Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf
$5.99
Sequel to Ruby Lu, Brave and True. When Flying Duck comes from China to live with her family, Ruby Lu's happy world is turned upside down as suddenly everyone is speaking in a foreign language at home, their evening dinners are greatly altered, and she is suddenly mandated by her family to become Flying Duck's guide at school. More adventures and realizations about what it means to immigrate and how to communicate ensue when you don't speak the same language ensue.

Pact says: Great books for American kids of Chinese descent, and for anyone else who wants to read about a little girl whose family has figured out how to live two heritages -- the one of their parents and grandparents, and the one here in the US.
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Sadako and the Thousand Cranes
by Elanor Coerr
$5.99
Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima. When she was twelve, she developed leukemia. Facing long days in bed, Sadako spent the time folding paper cranes, for the legend holds that if a sick person folds 1000 cranes, the gods will make her well again. She folded 644 cranes before she died. Children all over Japan helped collect money to build a monument to her.

Pact says: An inspiring story of one child's courage in the face of adversity and the tremendous outpouring of support she received from the people around her. A Pact bestseller.
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Sugar Plum Ballerinas: #1 Plum Fantastic
by Whoopi Goldberg, Deborah Underwood and Maryn Roos
$4.99
Moving is never easy, but for Alexandrea Petrakova Johnson, the move from a small southern town to Harlem is unbearable. Al's winning personality leads her to make a few friends, but just as things seem to be getting better she courts jealousy by being cast as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the annual performance of The Nutcracker. This first book in a series earnestly addresses the effects of moving, making friends, and settling into a new routine.

Pact says: Fast paced and entertaining, with unique, multicultural characters and positive messages about friendship, honesty, materialism, and forgiveness as well as the challenges of life for girls, these books are fun to read and give a positive message to girls of color in particular.
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Sugar Plum Ballerinas: #2 Toeshoe Trouble
by Whoopi Goldberg, Deborah Underwood and Maryn Roos
$4.99
Nine-year-old Brenda Black is a budding ballet dancer and wannabe doctor. Brenda and her friends hatch a plan to "borrow" their ballet teacher's prized ballet shoes, autographed by a famous prima ballerina. The plan goes awry when Tiffany's pooch chews them to shreds, and the Sugar Plum Sisters must fix the unfixable.

Sugar Plum Ballerinas: #3 Perfectly Prima
by Whoopi Goldberg, Deborah Underwood and Maryn Roos
$16.99
Perfectionistic Jerzey Mae desperately wants to be a ballet dancer. But she's frustrated by her own lack of talent--and by her friends' jokes about her terrible dancing. Things get even worse when her little brother Mason attends her ballet class, totally embarrassing Jerzey in front of her prima ballerina idol, Miss Camilla Freeman. (Hardcover)

Sugar Plum Ballerinas: #4 Terrible Terrel
by Whoopi Goldberg, Deborah Underwood and Maryn Roos
$4.99
Terrel is always in charge, whether she's making lists for grocery shopping (her favorite hobby, AFTER ballet), keeping her brothers in line, or organizing father-daughter time in with her dad. Lately, though, her dad's been acting a little strange--wearing new clothes and way too much aftershave. Things get even weirder when he surprises Terrel with his new girlfriend during a night out at the ballet - a night that was supposed to be father-daughter time.

Under Our Skin: Kids Talk About Race
By Barbara Birdsey, Photography by Robert Crum
$15.95
This book explores issues of race through the eyes and words of six teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds. Tad, Caucasian; Rosa, Latina (Hispanic); Akram, Arab; Jenny, Chinese; Jason, African American; and Janell, Native American, who candidly discuss how the traditions of their different cultural heritages affect their daily lives, their views on race, and their experiences with prejudice. These six young voices celebrate the best of our multicultural society and offer words of wisdom and hope for the future.

Pact Says: A great example of how to talk about race for younger children who will look up to these older children as mentors.
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W.I.S.E. UP Powerbook
by Marilyn Schoettle
$16.00
This child friendly book gives children easy to remember tools to cope with uncomfortable comments from others. They learn to think about their options, and make wise choices based on the word W-I-S-E:(W)alk away, say (I)t's private, (S)hare something, or (E)ducate.

Pact says: Friends, teachers, and strangers often ask children questions, both personal and general, about adoption. This book provides adopted children with options for how to manage those questions. A must-read for adopted kids, written in a kid friendly cartoon like style, filled with practical advice and the reassurance that all adopted kids has to field the same kinds of questions.
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Watsons Go To Birmingham - 1963, The
by Christopher Curtis
$6.50
10-year-old Kenny and his family, the "Weird Watsons", set out on a trip like no other. They're going to Birmingham, Alabama, during one of the darkest moments in America's civil rights history. In the midst of the warmth and hilarity of the family, they encounter unexpected violence and some painful racist history.

Pact says: Being familiar with "isms" is strengthening for all kids. This award winning account of racism in the south has plenty of spice and no sugarcoating. It grabs the reader and won't let go.
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Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs: #1 The Burried Bones Mystery
By Sharon M. Draper
$6.00
When Ziggy gets the word that the trip to Camp Caesar is on, he can't wait to tell his friends, the Black Dinosaurs. But the four pals couldn't know what excitement awaited them. In this third adventure, the boys learn a lot about American, Native American, and African-American history.

Pact says: Great books about a group of four boys who just happen to be African American, good friends and prone to adventures and mystery. Great reads that will especially inspire young boys. These books are fun but also teach history and pride rooted in the African American community.
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