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1941

Editor's Note: Many of the books are out of print. The header information will be as complete as I can make it.

Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry (Simon & Schuster, $12.80, fourth-grade level). ISBN: 0027860302.	The Medalist A young Polynesian boy, traumatized by a bad experience at sea as a child, has a series of adventures when he ventures out into the world to prove himself. Pre-white man Polynesia. Good adventure story, easy to read, high interest. Would work well with Hale Mano and other boy against nature stories, maybe even Hatchet.
Blue Willow by Doris Gates (Peter Smith Publishing, $19.25, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 084671436.	Honor Book A girl and her itinerant farming family finally find a home in the San Joaquin valley near Sacramento. Well-told tale with a Horatio Alger mood to it. Contains a fair amount of information about the trials of the Dust Bowl families and their experiences in the central valley. Would work extremely well with Esperanza Rising, a novel by Pam Munoz Ryan, which details the experiences of Mexican immigrants in California work camps during this same period.
Young Mac of Fort Vancouver by Mary Jane Carr (Crowell Publishing, fifth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book The coming-of-age story of a boy, half Indian, half Scot, is played out in the 1830s in the wild frontier surrounding the Columbia River. Readers who want to learn more about the development of the Pacific Northwest will find much of interest (historically accurate, too) in these pages. They will also find a sympathetic if clear-eyed view of the Native American cultures from that region, too. Political correctness, thankfully, hadn't been invented yet.
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (HarperCollins, $13.56, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 0060264608.	Honor Book The author picks up where she left off in Book Three, with the Ingalls family trying to eke out a living during their first year on the homestead. A fierce winter that lasts nearly seven months forces them to return to town and spend the long, dark months huddled, nearly starving, in the store that Pa Ingalls built. I've become a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Very few writers could make a seven-month stint cooped up in a two-room store seem interesting, but she does so with ease. She paces her narrative perfectly. In true pioneer spirit, she never overstates her case. Neither do her characters, who do what they must with imminent practicality. I don't think I've ever read lines from an author who so clearly limned the pioneer spirit that still hovers in the soul of every American. Ma Ingalls tells young Laura two things: 1) Don't depend on anybody else; and 2) Never complain of what you have. In these days of whine and posers, this philosophy is a breath of fresh air. These books should be required reading of anyone who wants or needs to understand the American character. That would be all students in our schools. The other books in the series: These Happy Golden Years, Little Town on the Prairie, By the Shores of the Silver Lake, On the Banks of Plum Creek.
Nansen by Anna Gertrude Hall/illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff (Viking, seventh-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book The author expends more than half of her effort in this slim biography detailing the Norwegian's exploits as an explorer, but it is his efforts as a humanitarian on a global scale that dominate the latter third of the book. I was dimly aware of Nansen's efforts as an Artic explorer before reading this book. I was totally unaware of his efforts to stem hunger and dislocation after World War I. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest humanitarians of the last century. Hall paints a portrait of a remarkable man who could write poetic, scientifically detailed works on oceanography, pinch pennies with the best of the skinflints, and still organize antagonistic governments into cooperative efforts. Young readers will be totally unmoved. I am in awe of the man.

Copyright David Ross 2003-2004