Northeast Library System Book Club Kits

 

To borrow the following titles please contact:

 

Northeast Library System Office

Toll-free: 800-578-1014

Local: 402-564-1586

 

Youth Titles are in blue and Adult Titles are in black.

 

Anna's Blizzard by Allison Hart - 20 copies

Having never excelled at schoolwork, twelve-year-old Anna discovers that she may know a few things about survival when the 1888 Children's Blizzard traps her and her classmates in their Nebraska schoolhouse.

A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence - 22 copies

Eight interconnected stories reveal the world of Vanessa MacLeod and her growing awareness of, and passage into, womanhood.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya - 12 copies  

Chronicles the story of an alienated New Mexico boy who seeks an answer to his questions about life in his relationship with Ultima, a magical healer.  The winner of numerous book awards, this is considered a classic of Chicano literature.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak - 10 copies, 1 CD

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz - 30 copies

Crazy Horse, the legendary military leader of the Oglala Sioux whose personal power and social nonconformity contributed to his reputation as being “strange,” fought in many famous battles, including the Little Bighorn, and held out tirelessly against the U.S. government’s efforts to confine the Lakotas to reservations. Finally, in the spring of 1877 he surrendered, only to meet a violent death. More than a century later Crazy Horse continues to hold a special place in the hearts and minds of his people. Mari Sandoz offers a powerful evocation of the long-ago world and enduring spirit of Crazy Horse. Chosen as a 2007 One Book, One Nebraska selection, this edition of Crazy Horse includes discussion questions and a comprehensive glossary to enhance the reader's experience with this classic Sandoz text.

Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs - 20 copies

Fifteen-year-old Victor Flores journeys north in a desperate attempt to cross the Arizona border and find work in the United States to support his family in central Mexico.

Dakota: a spiritual geography by Kathleen Norris - 5 copies

The author transports readers to the heart of the Great Plains, examining her heritage, religion, language, and the land itself, revealing the contradictions of small-town life on the Great Plains.

Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney - 15 copies

In this powerful novel, Jared Finch makes a shocking discovery about the family of refugees from Africa, sponsored by his church, which forces him to make a decision that changes the lives of everyone around him.

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis - 20 copies

In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American South, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.

The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman - 20 copies

Silvano and Chiara, teenagers who live in Renaissance Italy, dream of a future together, but when murders are committed in the friary where Silvano lives, they must discover who is behind the crimes before they can realize their love.

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson - 20 copies

When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - 12 copies 

This classic novel chronicles the Joad family's journey from Oklahoma to California during the great Dust Bowl and Depression of the 1930's.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - 8 copies

A young man newly rich tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married.

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages - 15 copies

In 1943, eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan lives with her scientist father in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as he works on a top secret government program, and befriends an aspiring artist who is a misfit just like her.

The Home Place by Wright Morris - 12 copies

This account in first-person narrative and photographs of the one-day visit of Clyde Muncy to "the home place" at Lone Tree, Nebraska, has been called "as near to a new fiction form as you could get." Both prose and pictures are homely: worn linoleum, an old man's shoes, well-used kitchen utensils, and weathered siding. Muncy's journey of discovery takes the measure of the man he has become and of what he has left behind.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - 12 Copies  

In the best-selling first volume of the trilogy set in the cruel world of Panem, the annual Hunger Games pit young children against one another in a battle to the death on national television, so when Katniss is ordered to represent her district, she knows an important decision between survival and the love of another will have to be made when she is called to enter the ring.

Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez - 16 copies

This is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - 7 copies

In the first volume of an extraordinary autobiographical series, one of the most inspiring authors of our time recalls--with candor, humor, poignancy and grace--how her journey began.

A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich - 10 copies

After marrying Will Deal and moving to Nebraska, Abbie endures the difficulties of frontier life and raises her children to pursue the ambitions that were once her own.

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen - 20 copies

Things get out of hand for a twelve-year-old boy when a neighbor convinces him to expand his summer lawn mowing business.

Local Wonders by Ted Kooser - 10 copies

     The 2011 One Book One Nebraska, this work explores the beauty of life in the "Bohemian Alps" of Southeast Nebraska. 

Lost in Translation: a life in a new language by Eva Hoffman - 12 copies

The author describes her efforts to adjust to a new culture after her parents, Holocaust survivors from Poland, moved the family from war-ravaged Cracow to North America when she was thirteen years old.

Luck by Jean Craighead George - 20 copies

A young sandhill crane, Luck, finds his place in the ancient crane migration from northern Canada to the Platte River. (Picture Book)

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf by Jennifer L. Holm - 20 copies

Ginny starts out with ten items on her to-do list for seventh grade, but notes, cartoons, and other "stuff" reveal what seems like a thousand things that go wrong between September and June, both at school and at home.

My Antonia by Willa Cather - 12 copies 

First published 1918, this novel is considered one of the greatest by Nebraska writer Willa Cather. It tells the stories of several immigrant families who moved out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family.  The book set includes a VHS copy of the 1994 movie adaptation of this book.

The Names by N. Scott Momaday - 16 copies

A memoir of his boyhood in Oklahoma and the Southwest, it is also described by Momaday as "an act of the imagination. When I turn my mind to my early life, it is the imaginative part of it that comes first and irresistibly into reach, and of that part I take hold."  Complete with family photos, The Names is a book that will captivate readers who wish to experience the Native American way of life.

Old Jules by Mari Sandoz - 14 copies

This portrait of her pioneer father grew out of “the silent hours of listening behind the stove or the wood box, when it was assumed, of course, that I was asleep in bed. So it was that I heard the accounts of the hunts,” Sandoz recalls. "Of the fights with the cattlemen and the sheepmen, of the tragic scarcity of women, when a man had to ‘marry anything that got off the train,’ of the droughts, the storms, the wind and isolation. But the most impressive stories were those told me by Old Jules himself.”

Once Upon a Town by Bob Greene - 15 copies

A portrait of the North Platte Canteen in Nebraska describes how its citizens transformed the train depot into a haven of companionship, home-cooked food, and music for passing World War II servicemen.

One False Move by Alex Kava - 10 copies

When a bank robbery goes horribly wrong, leaving six people dead, con artist Melanie Starks, her seventeen-year-old son Charlie, and a paroled prisoner take an innocent author hostage and hide out in his secluded cabin in Platte River State Park.

Petey by Ben Mikaelsen - 20 copies

In 1922 Petey, who has cerebral palsy, is misdiagnosed as an idiot and institutionalized; sixty years later, still in the institution, he befriends a boy and shares with him the joy of life.

Red Glass by Laura Resau - 15 copies

Sixteen-year-old Sophie, frail and delicate since her premature birth, discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

Rescue Josh McGuire by Ben Mikaelsen - 14 copies

When thirteen-year-old Josh runs away to the mountains of Montana with an orphaned bear cub destined for laboratory testing, they both must fight for their lives in a sudden snowstorm.

Restoring the Burnt Child, a Primer by William Kloefkorn - 10 copies

Restoring the Burnt Child is the second volume in William Kloefkorn’s four-part memoir. Negotiating the no man’s land between ages nine and thirteen, this memoir of a small-town boy’s life in 1940s Kansas continues the story Kloefkorn began in his much-loved volume This Death by Drowning. With characteristic humor and in prose as lyrical as his poetry, he describes the unsentimental education he received at the hands of the denizens of Urie’s Barber Shop and the Rexall Drugstore and at the knees of the true characters who made up his family.

Riding Freedom by Pam Munoz Ryan - 20 copies

Provides the real-life tale of twelve-year-old Charlotte Parkhurst who decided to change her identity in order to live life as a boy so that she could experience the many freedoms and liberties denied to her as a girl in the late 1860s.

Room One by Andrew Clements - 21 copies

In his very small town of Hamilton, Nebraska, fifth-grader Ted Hammond looks for a connection between the dying town's dwindling school numbers and the face in the window of the empty Anderson house.

Savvy by Ingrid Law - 12 copies  

Mibs Beaumont simply cannot wait for her 13th birthday.  In her family, 13 is when family members get their "savvy," or unworldly power. For Mibs's older brother Fish, it's control over the elements, and for her mother it's the ability to do everything perfectly. Unfortunately, Mibs's excitement is cut short when her father is injured in a car accident. Convinced that her new powers will be able to save her Poppa, she and some new friends climb aboard a bus toting pink bibles on her birthday, in the hopes of getting to the hospital. Instead they find themselves headed in the wrong direction with the cops looking for them, Mibs's powerful brother seriously angry, and a boy she has a crush on coming dangerously close to figuring out the Beaumonts' secret. Mibs's real savvy isn't what she expected, and neither are her traveling companions.

Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #2) - 20 copies, 1 CD

When Camp Half-Blood, the only safe haven for demigods, comes close to being overrun by mythological monsters, Percy must find his best friend Grover, who is prisoner on an island in the Bermuda Triangle, and then set out to save the Camp.  Book 2 of the popular Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  (Meridian and Eastern Library Systems have book 1 - The Lightning Thief - available for loan.)

Sojourner Truth by Nell Irvin Painter - 10 copies

Offers a portrait of Sojourner Truth, who was born into slavery, transformed herself into a pentecostal preacher, and spoke out against slavery and in support of oppressed people.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - 12 copies

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - 12 copies

This clever story works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder.  At random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some interesting paradoxes and an exciting story.

Tornado! by Betsy Byars - 20 copies

As they wait out a tornado in their storm cellar, a family listens to their farmhand tell stories about the dog that was blown into his life by another tornado when he was a boy.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman - 12 copies

In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to survive until they turn eighteen.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt - 20 copies

During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

The White Darkness by Geraldine Mccaughrean - 12 copies 

Fourteen-year-old Symone's only friend is an imaginary incarnation of Captain Laurence "Titus" Oates, an explorer who accompanied Robert Scott on his failed expedition to the South Pole. Sym is passionate about the Antarctic and her infatuation is fed by Uncle Victor, an eccentric family friend who has cared for Sym and her mother since Sym's father's death. When Victor surprises Sym with a trip to "the Ice," she has some doubts, especially when she discovers that her mother can't come. But her excitement overshadows her initial misgivings--until realizes that Uncle Victor has an obsession of his own that runs deeper than the glaciers and threatens her life. It's not always clear whether Titus' voice is imagined or if it's meant to be shy, bookish Sym's only link to the outside world, but McCaughrean's lyrical language actively engages the senses, plunging readers into a captivating landscape that challenges the boundaries of reality. Best suited to older, better readers despite the age of the protagonist, this imaginative, intellectually demanding novel offers plenty of action.

Yellow Flag by Robert Lipsyte - 20 copies

Born into a family of NASCAR champions, Kyle Hildebrand is content standing on the sidelines and cheering for his brother, but when the heir-to-be gets injured and they turn to Kyle to take his place, the teen is suddenly forced to make important decisions about his life and his place in the family's dynasty of racing.