Barbara Schultz

age 11+ Inspiring wartime journal reveals teen's inner life. Parents need to know that Anne Frank's diary is a singular, moving look at World War II from a young girl's perspective. The Franks, along with another family, the Van Daans, hide in order to avoid capture during the German occupation of Holland. Aided by friends on the outside, Anne and the others spend two years in the "secret annex": several rooms enclosed in the warehouse of Anne's father's business.

age 14+ Masterful murder mystery takes dark view of justice. Parents need to know that in prolific British mystery novelist Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None , 10 guests visit Soldier Island and a murderer uses a nursery rhyme as a framework to plan and execute the visitors' deaths, one by one, in various ways, including by shooting, drowning, bludgeoning, poisoning, and hanging. The text contains derogatory references to African "natives" and a couple of anti-Semitic remarks.

age 10+ Family faces everyday and traumatic events in touching tale. Parents need to know that Christopher Paul Curtis' The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 is a striking work of fiction, set during the U.S. civil rights movement. The novel is narrated by 10-year-old Kenny Watson, the middle child in a Black family that relocated from Birmingham, Alabama, to Flint, Michigan. The parents sometimes discuss the differences between life in the South and in the North.