The Wednesday Wars

By Gary D. Schmidt

LOVED this book.  The main character is 13 year old Holling.  I'm linking to a review HERE.

One of the problems that I often have with literature geared towards middle- and high-schoolers is  the amount of inappropriate content.  Not EVERY middle-schooler is obsessed with sex and using bad language.

The Wednesday Wars does not have any of that!  Go Mr. Schmidt!

Donbas: A True Story of an Escape Across Russia

This book was recommended to me by a friend.  I knocked it out in about 5 hours of reading.  I couldn't put it down.  It is an autobiographical story of a young man who was forced into a Russian slave labor shortly after the end of WWII.  He was 17 when he was picked up off the street on his way to school.  In an odd twist of fate, his father saw him locked in his train car.  Their eyes met for just a moment before the train pulled away.  Although he later was able to communicate with his parents after his escape, he never saw his father again.  After 2 1/2 years in a mining slave labor camp he makes a miraculous escape to freedom.  It is an incredible story and would be worthwhile for teenagers to read just to come to understand the great blessings of freedom that we enjoy and that those things are worth fighting for to maintain.