(3) YA Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn. This welcome anthology contains twenty-five emblematic poems by well-known women writers, from the canonized (i.e., Emily Dickinson, Phillis Wheatley) through the modern masters (i.e., Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich). The poems are paired with handsome paintings of women often transcending their material worlds. As Clinton puts it, the biographies at book's end "comprise a particularly intriguing story of America."

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) 4-6 After losing her father to violence, Malaak, an eleven-year-old Palestinian, desperately wants to protect her older brother and keep him from joining the Islamic jihad. Set in Gaza City during the late 1980s, the novel provides no easy answers but effectively captures the challenges of daily life in the war-ravaged region and the immense loss shared by Malaak's entire community.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl