If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

This novel gives students a chance to read a modern novel that deals with interracial relationships. Everyone wants to believe that the world is racism free and tolerant of interracial couples. This book shows that isn't the case. The author herself calls this novel a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. I think it would be a good book to pair with Shakespeare's classic. It could be offered as a supplementary read to help make the story of Romeo and Juliet more current and comprehensible to students.

Edited summary from http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/ya.shtml

If You Come Softly is about Jeremiah who is fifteen and black and Ellie who is fifteen and white. They meet at a private school and fall in love and then have to deal with how society treats them because they’re an interracial couple. It was inspired by a poem by Audre Lorde that begins:

If you come softly
as the wind within the trees
you may hear what I hear
see what sorrow sees.

This story is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. The enemies to Jeremiah and Ellie’s love are racism, police brutality and people’s general stupidity.

Woodson, Jacqueline. (1998). If You Come Softly. New York: Putnam’s. 192 pp. ISBN: 0-69-811862-6.

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

This is a wonderful book to have middle school students read when studying the Holocaust. I had the chance to watch the movie in eighth grade when my class studied the Holocaust. I also learned that a teacher at Oakland shows the movie following the class reading of Maus: A Survivor's Tale. The book provides a more in-depth look at Jewish customs, religious practices, and the Yiddish language than the movie. This story also integrates modern with the past by having the main character from the 20th century experience the horrors of the Holocaust in the 1940s. Essentially as teachers, we want the students to have that similar type of experience so they can understand the Holocaust and I feel that this text is able to provide that.

Summary Courtesy of http://www.shvoong.com/books/259906-devil-arithmetic/

The Devil's Arithmetic is a heartbreaking story about the Holocaust that really helps you relate to the horror that the Jewish people and many others went through at that awful time. It is about a Jewish girl named Hannah that cannot appreciate her religion and the life she has. She finds herself back in the 1940's after she opens a door to the past, her and her relatives enduring the torture of the Nazis. Aristotle once said, "Evil draws men together." In the Holocaust, as the Nazi's cruelty pulled the Germans and Jews apart, it drew the Jewish people together. The Devil's Arithmetic is factual and emotionally wrenching as it shows you how things worked in death camps. Hannah, the main character, is in denial in the beginning, but starts to get lost in her new self and lose her old memory as well. She is wise beyond her years, an old wisewoman trapped in a young girl's body. Hannah becomes selfless, and then makes the largest sacrifice possible for a young girl she hardly knows.

Yolen, Jane. (1990). Devil’s Arithmetic. New York: Puffin Books. 176 pp. ISBN: 0-14-034535-3.

Daniel's Story by Carol Matas

This novel offers students a fictional, first-person account of the Holocaust. It spans the Jewish journey from ghettos to concentration camps to extermination camps. Its historical accuracy compounded with the main character Daniel’s personal experiences and growth makes for an informative and interesting read. Some of Daniel’s changes, emotions, and relationships are ones that middle school students can relate to. It is important for students to learn the history of the Holocaust but this book allows for them to relate to it on a personal level.

Summary Courtesy of http://www.enotes.com/daniels-story-qn

Daniel's Story is the tale of the horrific odyssey of a Jewish family, an odyssey which begins in Frankfurt, Germany in 1933 and concludes in Lodz, Poland in 1945. The narrator, Daniel, both a German and a Jew, is but six years of age when his family's story begins, and he is a very weary eighteen when it concludes. Through Daniel's eyes, readers experience the rising anti-semitism in Germany, a growing hatred which culminates in the Nazis' establishment and gruesome use of the death camps.

Matas, Carol. (1993). Daniel’s Story. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks. 144 pp. ISBN: 0-59-0465885.