100 Books Like Lily's Crossing

This is the middle-grade novel that I so wish I had written. Kate DiCamillo is the best kids’ author writing today, and I devour everything she writes. She really gets kids, and Winn Dixie is my favorite dog in books.

The story of ten-year-old Opal and her found dog, Winn Dixie, makes me laugh, want to snuggle my dog, cry and reach out to hug motherless Opal every time I read it (usually once a year). I love the remarkably imperfect people Opal and her dog befriend, and the language is rich and authentic to the story. This is an unforgettable story about making a home for yourself against the odds.

In this heartwarming novel, we meet William, Edmund, and Anna; three orphaned siblings who are among the children evacuated from London to the safety of the countryside in 1940. I was drawn to the three from the very beginning. They love and care for one another, and are determined to stay together. Despite the cruelty and neglect they face, they can still find humor in the most unlikely situations. But will they find a family that will keep them forever? If I were a character in the story, I would adopt them in a heartbeat.

When you open a door, you might find something unexpected on the other side. And that’s what happens to Hannah Stern when she opens the door to welcome Elijah the prophet to her family’s Passover seder, and finds herself back in time to Nazi-occupied Poland. Hannah has heard the stories of her relatives’ lives during the Holocaust, so now, as she and the other Jews of the town are being rounded up and sent away, she knows where they’re going and what awaits them.

In the camp, Hannah experiences the horrors her relatives lived through. And the next door that opens to her brings her back to the present time, with a greater appreciation and understanding of her Jewish heritage, her family, and the importance of remembering.

Bud is one of my absolute favorite middle grade protagonists. Equally heartbreaking and hilarious, Bud is determined to find his father, who he believes is a jazz musician. He embarks on a journey from Michigan out west, which vividly depicts life during the Great Depression. Bud’s honest account of the evils he encounters – racism, violence, and poverty – illuminates the tragedy and absurdity of racist ideologies and the suffering of so many.

Throughout the novel, Bud’s humor provides a beautifully child-like perspective that will delight readers. The novel also does a wonderful job of celebrating jazz and highlighting the ways that adversity can create strong bonds.

I remember reading this book as a ten year old and loving Bud’s determination to succeed despite the obstacles placed in his way.  It’s historical fiction at its best. It will open readers’ eyes to historic wrongs captured through Bud’s preteen lens, while… show more.

This fairytale fantasy for young readers is one of the most poignant books I have ever read, in any genre. My best friend, Emma, and I were both fans of Levine growing up. A few months ago, we realized we could both recite the epic poem that concludes this book word for word. Step follows step, hope follows courage. It’s a beautiful story of familial love, growing up and finding yourself, and grappling with the inevitability of illness and loss, all set in a delightfully adventurous fantasy world. The tone is playful and bright throughout, the message ultimately hopeful, but there’s no denying the heartbreak along the way.

My favorite image from my research on New York’s SoHo neighborhood is a photograph of a girl riding her bicycle through her parents’ loft apartment—a former factory transformed into an airy, art-filled home that was spacious enough to serve as an indoor playground.

This book captures what it was like to grow up in one of New York’s most famous artist communities. While few (if any) SoHo children helped to break up an international art forgery ring (like the one depicted in this YA novel), it evocatively captures the sense of adventure that children might have felt living in an industrial area during a time of neighborhood transition.

Even though I lived across the country from San Diego where this story takes place, and even though I was several years younger than Millie McGonigle, the picture of home front USA during WW2 is familiar in many ways. Soldiers and sailors filled the streets of Chicago, and kids scanned the sky for “enemy planes.” There was the fear of polio, the struggles with rationing, and the shortage of bubble gum. 

This story is filled with humor and memorable characters. But most memorable of all is Millie, who tries to deal with the death of a grandmother and her worries about the war getting closer to home. And even though she’s obsessed with drawing in her Book of Dead Things, she comes to understand what her grandmother had told her when she said, “Whatever is lost stays alive if you remember it.”

It would be hard to find a better, more beautiful picture book to introduce young children to the Holocaust. The lyrical prose and haunting illustrations tell the story of a young Jewish girl and her older sister who have escaped the ghetto and live as non-Jewish Poles. Now they’re part of the resistance and devise ways to smuggle food into the ghetto. The latest plan involves a train carrying resistance members with suitcases filled with food to be smuggled in. But word comes that the Gestapo has learned of the plan and is waiting at the station with their dogs. The girl and her sister, along with their friends, quickly gather up the many cats in Krasinski Square and let them loose just as the passengers pour out of the train. Chaos erupts. Dogs chase the cats, the soldiers chase the dogs, and the smuggled food reaches the ghetto walls.… show more.

During WW2 members of the Resistance guided Allied service personnel -- and others, including compromised agents, resisters, and Jews -- escaping from occupied France along what were known as escape or evasion lines, the majority leading over the Pyrenees to safety. In this book, BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton walks one of those ‘cruel crossings’, the Chemin de la Liberté, while at the same time telling the stories of those escaping and the courageous men and women who helped them, drawing on interviews with some of the last remaining survivors. It makes for compelling reading.

I was immediately drawn to this book. I knew this story. A childhood friend’s family had fled the Russian army when they invaded Estonia during World War II. So it is easy for me to believe, counter-intuitive as it may seem, that an unlikely group of Eastern European refugees would flee the advancing Russian army, hoping for safety in Germany.

I loved their “found family.” How many of us, far from where we grew up, turn to friends for support? But Sepetys’ group boards the ill-fated Wilhelm Gustloff, a German ship carrying 10,000 refugees. Based on the true story of a maritime disaster, the novel highlights how war creates victims on all sides but also how people rise to help each other face unimaginable challenges.