Salt to the Sea

 

Ruta Sepetys, 2016

The lives of four teenage refugees, all from different European homelands,  are explored during the winter of 1945 when all are running from the Soviet advance and trying to board the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German ship which promises to bring them to safety.  As time passes, their lives become intertwined.  This novel was inspired by one of the greatest, yet little known tragedies, in maritime history.  It is appropriate for young adult as well as adult readers.

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MC

All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook

Leslie Connor, 2016

This story, along with the titular protagonist's life, begins inside the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility in Surprise, Nebraska. Perry Cook's mother, Jessica, is twelve years into a fifteen-year sentence for an undisclosed, nonviolent crime. Perry goes to a regular public school, but is able to live in the facility because of a kind warden, who decided to foster him so he would not be separated from his mother. However, when the district attorney learns of Perry's unusual situation, he is yanked from the only home he has ever known and placed with a foster family. This leads Perry on a quest to discover the true nature of his mother's crime as he attempts to be reunited with the people he considers family.

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KB

The War that Saved My Life

Brubaker Bradley. Kimberly, 2015

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him  So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

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JR