March/April 2000
— After surviving a plane crash, a boy struggles with trauma while his friend's family hobby store faces closure, both learning to face uncertain futures.
— A wild African horse is captured, shipped to America, and passed between owners until she escapes during a film shoot and returns to freedom on the African plains.
— When the Soldiers Were Gone by Vera W. Propp; G. P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1999; $14.99 When I first saw the book When the Soldiers Were Gone by Vera...
— A puzzle-loving girl falls asleep on an unfinished jigsaw and wakes up inside it as a colonial farm girl, discovering she must complete the puzzle from within to escape.
— A tall, insecure fifteen-year-old faces pressure to cheat on a state test from a classmate, but finds courage through her childhood teddy bear to do the right thing.
— A 10-year-old recounts Hannibal's ambush of Roman forces at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, detailing military preparations, strategy, and the devastating Carthaginian victory.
— A nervous girl drives to her school play audition, battles stage fright, performs her monologue, and finds relief in having tried her best.
— Unbroken by Jessie Haas; Greenwillow Books: New York, 1999; $15 In Unbroken, Harriet Gibson becomes an orphan in 1910 when her mother dies in a horse-and-buggy accident. Now thirteen-year-old Harriet...
— A six-year-old girl hatches a duckling from an abandoned egg, raises it as her best friend, then learns to let it return to its wild family at the pond.
— A twelve-year-old enslaved girl learns to read in secret, escapes to Massachusetts via the Underground Railroad, and becomes a teacher, reuniting with her childhood friend years later.