DEMOCRATS AND DICTATORSA booktalk by Wendie Gabay , Head Librarian

The Hunted. By Peter Carter

Carter does an outstanding job of recreating the ambience of WW II France, measuring the chill efficiency of the Gestapo and assessing the ruthless fervor of other accomplices to the Holocaust. When the Italian forces withdraw from France following Italy's surrender in 1943, Vito Salvani, an Italian corporal, gets trapped behind enemy lines--along with Judah, a Jewish child he has promised to take to the safety of Italy. A few innocent missteps and unlucky encounters bring Salvani and his charge to the attention of a particularly single-minded inspector from the Vichy secret police, and a harrowing pursuit begins. Those who help Salvani and Judah are severely punished; several scenes of a Gestapo interrogation suggest the brutality and inexorability of the government's treatment of Jews and other so-called enemies.

A Tale of Two Cities. By Charles Dickins.

Two men who look alike love Lucie Manette, and during the French Revolution one of them goes to the guillotine in place of the other for Lucie's happiness.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

By George Orwell

Ninteen Eighty-Four

Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.

Among the hidden. By Margaret Peterson Haddix

A government decree allows each family only two children. For Luke, a third child, this has meant a lifetime of hiding. But could a stray glimpse of a child hiding in the house across the way lead to freedom?.

Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress. By Dai Sijie

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature.

Beyond the burning time. By Kathryn Lasky

When, in the winter of 1691, accusations of witchcraft surface in her small New England village, twelve-year-old Mary Chase fights to save her mother from execution.

If not now, when? By Primo LeviFrom 1943 to 1945, a band of Jewish

partisans engages in guerilla warfare against the Germans in eastern Europe.

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive and to sabotage the efforts of the all-powerful German army. A compelling tale of action, resistance and epic adventure, it also reveals Levi's characteristic compassion and deep insight into the moral dilemmas of total war.

Incantation. By Alice Hoffman

During the Spanish Inquisition, sixteen-year-old Estrella, brought up a Catholic, discovers her family's true Jewish identity, and when their secret is betrayed by Estrella's best friend, the consequences are tragic.

Mila 18. By Leon Uris

From their command post at Mila 18, several Warsaw Jews fight off the Germans in the ghetto with homemade weapons. Uris has used all of his great gift of story telling to carry the great sweep from August-prior to German invasion of Poland- through the final escape of a mere handful of the freedom fighters from the holocaust that ended the month long defense of the Ghetto.

Nation. By Terry Pratchett

After a devastating tsunami destroys all that they have ever known, Mau, an island boy, and Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, together with a small band of refugees, set about rebuilding their community and all the things that are important in their lives.

.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature.

Out of many waters. By Jacqueline Greene

Kidnapped from their parents during the Portuguese Inquisition and sent to work as slaves at a monastery in Brazil, two Jewish sisters attempt to make their way back to Europe to find their parents, but instead one becomes part of a group founding the first Jewish settlement in the United States.

Shabanu, daughter of the wind. By Suzanne Fisher StaplesIn a year that brings a destructive

sandstorm, a feud with a rich landowner, and other disasters, Shabanu, the eleven-year-old daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, becomes a victim of her people's views of sex role and marriage. Includes glossary and map.

Taste of salt: a story of modern Haiti. By Frances Temple

In the hospital after being firebombed and beaten by the Tonton Macoutes, seventeen-year-old Djo tells the story of his impoverished life to a young woman who, like him, has been working with the social reformer Father Aristide to fight the repression in Haiti.

The beacon at Alexandria.By Gillian BradshawBetrothed in the fourth century to the Roman

governor she hates, Charis--who wants to be a doctor, a profession forbidden to women—rejects the vile Festinus and, with her brother Thorion's connivance, flees to Alexandria, center of the healing arts. There she becomes Chariton "the male," medical student and assistant to the skilled, humane, Jewish doctor Philon.

The boy who dared. By Susan Campbell Bartoletti

In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hubener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people. The reader will be enthralled by the story of one boy’s heroic resistance in the worst of times.

The Chocolate War: a novel By Robert Cormier

Jerry Renault is forced into a psychological showdown with Trinity School's gang leader, Archie Costello, for refusing to be bullied into selling chocolates for the annual fund raising.

The Virginia Exiles. By Elizabeth Gray Vining

This novel is a fictionalized version of an event which actually occurred in Philadelphia as the British army was about to seize the city in the fall of 1777. Approximately 20 prominent citizens (mostly Quakers) who, for religious reasons, refused to support either side, were arrested on the presumption that "if you're not for us, you're against us." After a month in which they were imprisoned at Philadelphia's Masonic Hall, they were exiled for five months to Winchester, VA

Brave new world. By Aldous Huxley

Contains the text of Huxley's prophetic work of 1931 and includes his discussion about social problems and the human condition since its publication.

Forgotten fire. By Adam Bagdasarian

A boy survives Turkey's campaign of genocide against Armenians.

Forbidden City: a novel. By William Bell

Thrilled when his cameraman father invites him along on an assignment in China, seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson does not suspect that they will become part of the great historical events sweeping China in the spring of 1989.

The crown of Dalemark. By Diana Wynne Jones

Continues the adventures of Mitt after his flight from Holand as a fugitive accused of attempted murder. Fifteen-year-old Mitt finds the North nearly as dangerous as the South, which he fled after being charged with murder. Now his benefactress wants him to assassinate Noreth, a young woman determined to claim the crown of Dalemark and reunite the country; but instead, Mitt befriends Noreth and joins her supporters. Noreth, however, is not who she seems; 13-year-old Maewen Singer has been transported from present-day Dalemark back 200 years and now, as Noreth, is being stalked by unknown assassins. Treachery, mystery, humor, and magic abound in this intriguing, well-crafted fantasy.

The Man From the Other Side. By Uri Orlev

Living on the outskirts of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, fourteen-year-old Marek and his grandparents shelter a Jewish man in the days before the Jewish uprising.

The slave: a novel. By Isaac Bashevis Singer

A Jewish slave living in seventeenth century Poland, wrestles with his conscience over his love for his barbarous master's daughter.

Uglies. By Scott Westerfeld

Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party,

Twisted. By Laurie Halse Anderson

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

Westmark. By Lloyd Alexander

A boy fleeing from criminal charges falls in with a charlatan, his dwarf attendant, and an urchin girl, travels with them about the kingdom of Westmark, and ultimately arrives at the palace where the king is grieving over the loss of his daughter.

The Examination. By Malcolm Bosse

Fifteen-year-old Hong and his older brother Chen face famine, flood, pirates, and jealous rivals on their journey through fifteenth century China as Chen pursues his calling as a scholar and Hong becomes involved with a secret society known as the White Lotus.