Title |
Author |
Subject |
Brief Description |
"In Response to Executive Order 9066" in Celebrate
America in Poetry and Art** |
Dwight Okita |
Japanese internment during WWII |
A moving poem that tells about a Japanese-American's
loss of her best friend because of the relocation order. The child
hopes her friend will miss her and not forget her when she is
gone. |
A Fence Away from Freedom: Japanese Americans and
World War II |
Ellen Levine |
Japanese internment during WWII |
Collection of oral histories from Japanese Americans
who were children or young adults at the time of WWII. Histories
cover life before the war, the immediate effects of Pearl Harbor,
and life in the camps. |
Big Annie of Calumet: A True Story of the Industrial
Revolution* |
Jerry Stanley |
Worker's rights and human rights |
True story of the role women played in the Copper
Country mining area. Women saw the inherent dangers in mining
and led the effort to get U.S. workers legal rights to organize
for safe working conditions and higher working wages. |
Dancing to America |
Ann Morris |
Immigration and rights |
Tells the story of a young boy whose family emigrates
from the Soviet Union to America in order to gain both religious
freedom and freedom of expression. |
Fighting for Honor* |
Michael Cooper |
Japanese internment and the 442nd Regimental Combat
Team |
An easy to understand, captive history of the long-standing
prewar prejudice against the Japanese Americans, the Japanese
internment during World War II, and the experiences of the Japanese
American infantry battalion, the most highly decorated unit in
U.S. Military history. Also explores the problems the Japanese
Americans faced after the war. Excellent photographs. |
Grandpa's Mountain |
Carolyn Reeder |
Taking property away from people to make the Shenandoah
National Park. The Great Depression |
Carrie spends her summers with her grandparents in
the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This particular summer they
must all grapple with the decision of the government to clear
all homesteads out of the area that is designated to become the
Shenandoah National Park. Grandpa uses every legal means to try
to stop the movement. Others are happy with the offer of a home
and land near schools and hospitals to replace their poorer accommodations
in the mountains. Economic themes as well. |
Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against
Child Labor* |
Russell Freedman |
Child Labor |
This book contains amazing photographs, taken by
Lewis Hine, of child labor in the United States before World War
I. During this time, Hine was working as an investigative photographer
for the National Child Labor Committee. |
Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters* |
Andrea Davis Pinkney |
Black Freedom fighters and civil rights. |
This book is a compilation of short biographies about
black women who fought for their rights and the rights of other
people. The women covered in this book are; Sojourner Truth, Biddy
Mason, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune,
Ella Josephine Baker, Dorothy Irene Heights, Rosa Parks, Fannie
Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm. Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn.
|
Letters from Rifka** |
Karen Hesse |
Immigration and freedoms |
Story of immigration to gain religious and other
freedoms |
Radical Red |
James Duffy |
Women's suffrage movement |
Story of a young girl and her mother who become involved
in the suffrage movement despite opposition from their father/husband. |
The Amistad Slave Revolt and American Abolition |
Karen Zeinert |
Rights of slaves |
Account of the historic slave revolt on the ship
La Amistad which was bringing slaves to America from Sierra Leone.
Gives the intricacies of court cases, summary of individuals on
the slave ship, and maps. |
The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American
Interment Camp, Based on a Classroom Diary* |
Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat |
Japanese internment during WWII |
Actual journal entries kept by a third grade class
in 1943 which provide a daily account of life in the internment
camp through the eyes and voices of children. |
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Cold War Ends* |
Nigel Kelly |
Freedom of speech |
This books explains how the Cold War began, persisted,
and ended in a way that elementary students can understand. |
The Invisible Thread |
Yoshiko Uchida |
Japanese internment during WWII |
Author recounts her childhood in California , her
father's imprisonment after Pearl Harbor and the family's internment
at a camp in Utah. |
The Last Safe Place on Earth |
Richard Peck |
Right to free expression conflicts with other rights |
Various vignettes of what happens when rights conflict
with others' values and rights. |
The Printer's Apprentice |
Stephen Krensky |
Bill of Rights
|
This story presents the trial of John Peter Zenger,
a 1700s New York newspaper publisher, whose landmark case significantly
affected American journalism. |
The Rifle |
Gary Paulsen |
Highlights conflict between right to bear arms and
right to life |
Details story of a young boy who is accidentally
killed when a fireplace spark ignites the powder in a Revolutionary
War era rifle that is on display in a home. |
Tinker v. Des Moines: Student Rights on Trial |
Doreen Rappaport |
Nonfiction account of conflicts among rights |
Includes narrative text about the famous free speech
case as well as newspaper clippings, excerpts from the trail and
judge's decision and interviews with the major players in the
case 27 years later. Can use to structure a mock trial activity. |
When Justice Failed: The Fred Korematsu Story* |
Steven A. Chin |
Japanese Internment during WWII; the Supreme Court
trial of Fred Korematsu who challenged the internment as a violation
of Constitutional rights. |
Fred Korematsu, a law-abiding American citizen, challenges
the internment of himself and other Japanese Americans.
His case is heard at the US. Supreme Court, and he loses the case.
In 1983, evidence that has been suppressed by the government lawyers,
was presented in San Francisco Federal Court, and the government
had to admit its error in the Supreme Court case. Ultimately,
the government apologized and made reparations to all of those
internees still alive. |
You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?** |
Jean Fritz |
Women's suffrage
movement |
Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton |