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What Hearts by Bruce Brooks (1993)
A collection of four short stories about Asa, each detailing a moment in his life between the end of first grade up through seventh grade, dealing with friendship, love, and complicated parents. This was one of my favorites from when I was in middle school, and it holds up even better than I had expected — it manages to be repeatedly heartbreaking without being saccharine or maudlin or cheap.
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The Great Wheel by Robert Lawson (1958)
Conn is a teenager living in Ireland in the late 19th century. When he was younger, his aunt read his fortune, telling him he’d head west and some day ride the greatest wheel in the world. Sure enough, he is asked by his uncle to come work in America, and on the trip, Conn meets a nice German girl named Trudy on her way to Wisconsin. Later, another uncle brings him farther west to Chicago to work with Gary Ferris on the first Ferris wheel, located at the 1893 World’s Fair, and many people doubt it can be done. This…
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The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall (1960)
Muggles is a Minnipin, a race of people who have lived a safe, sheltered life separated from the rest of the world for centuries, which has led most of them to become boring and conformist. Muggles wakes up one night to find the three town outcasts conferring, and more alarmingly, fires on top of the mountains that protect the Minnipin valley from outsiders. This kicks off a series of events that makes Muggles and her village as a whole reconsider who they are, where they came from, and who they want to be. A fun mix of fantasy, action, and…
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Upon the Head of the Goat by Aranka Siegal (1982)
A memoir of the author – as the character Piri – who was a Jewish girl living through World War II in Hungary with her family. It is an important story that (unsurprisingly) gets progressively bleaker throughout the novel, but it is also dry in its telling.
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The Perilous Road by William O. Steele (1959)
Chris is a fourteen-year old living in the hills of Tennessee during the Civil War. The Union Army has control of the area, and he hates them with a passion, especially after they take his family’s food and horse. He deals with a mix of people, some who support the Union cause, some who prefer the Confederacy like him, but others are against the war entirely. His views develop with his experiences. A relatively short book with a lot of regional and historical color and an in-your-face moral of an ending.
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Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (2011)
Manjiro is a 14-year-old living in 1840s Japan, which is diplomatically isolated from the rest of the world. He and four others are shipwrecked while out fishing, and spend time on an uninhabited island. They are rescued by an American whaling ship, which kickstarts a life for Manjiro living between the two worlds. Based on a true story, the historical settings and details are fun, but the stories and characters that tie them together are thin.