MEMOIRS & TRUE NARRATIVES
After my reading of Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper last weekend, I have begun updating the True Narratives booklist on the Teen Reading webpage -- and I am finding so many great titles! Check out the description of Left for Dead ([NEW] Y940.545 Nelson):
'Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The ship sank in fourteen minutes. More than a thousand men were thrown into shark-infested waters. Those who survived the fiery sinking -- some injured, many without life jackets -- struggled to stay afloat as they waited for rescue. But the United States Navy did not even know they were missing.
'The navy needed a scapegoat for this disaster. So it court-martialed the captain for "hazarding" his ship. The survivors of the Indianapolis knew that their captain was not to blame. For fifty years they worked to clear his name, even after his untimely death. But the navy would not budge -- until an eleven-year-old boy named Hunter Scott entered the picture. His history fair project on the Indianapolis soon became a crusade to restore the captain's good name and the honor of the men who served under him.'

And how about the Cruise of the Blue Dolphin ([NEW] Y910.4 Murray):
'It's 1933, during the grimmest days of the Great Depression, and the Chandler family is at a turning point. As Nina Chandler Murray tells us: "They were having troubles. But then all America was having troubles." Her father has been fired, her mother is convinced he's having an affair, and the eldest of her four siblings will soon be leaving home for boarding school. But rather than watch the family shatter, Nina's father dreams of taking them all (and his mother-in-law, too) on a sailing voyage. And an idea that starts off as a rainy-day diversion on the island of Nantucket turns rapidly into a practicable plan. Convinced he can school his children as well as any elementary education system could, Ralf Chandler takes this opportunity to prove that his family can thrive and prosper on their own terms. And that's exactly what they do. Along the way, they face a hurricane, a few storms, a shark or two, and some not-always-friendly ports of call as they sail down the east coast of the U.S., around the islands of the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific, down to the Galapagos, and back home again. Thirteen-year-old Nina is a narrator of wit and vivacity....'

These sound like some absolutely fabulous nonfiction reads! And there are more. Check the True Narratives booklist for an updated list in the next couple of weeks.
Happy weekend!


~emily - 4:37 PM~

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