family struggle

Stay Where You Are and then Leave

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Copies: 7

As the First World War rages on, Alfie Summerfield has given up hope of seeing his father again. Though his mother maintains that father is away on a secret mission, Alfie knows he must be dead. But when Alfie learns by chance that his father is in a hospital close by—a hospital treating soldiers with shell shock, whatever that might be—he resolves to rescue his father from this strange unnerving place.

Author:

John Boyne

Lexile:

880L

The Boxcar Children

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Copies: 1

One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from.

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. Determined to make it on their own, they set out to find a safe place to live.

They discover an old, red boxcar that provides shelter from a storm. Against all odds, they make it into their home—and become The Boxcar Children!

Author:

Gertrude Chandler Warner

Lexile:

490L

Lyddie

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"The first step to freedom is schooling," a runaway slave tells Lyddie Worthen. It's the mid-1800s and the working conditions in the Storemont cotton factory are horrific. Lyddie is willing to endure those conditions to earn enough money to bring her family back together. When another worker, Diana teaches Lyddie to read, it opens up a new world of possibilities for her. After Diana dies of cotton lung, Lyddie must decide if she's willing to risk her job to fight for the rights of other workers or stay in the factory as a "wage slave." Based on the book by Katherine Paterson.

Director:

Stefan Scaini

Grade Level:

Elementary

Middle

Length:

01:30

The Watsons Go to Birmingham

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The Watsons are an African-American family that live in Flint, Michigan where they're raising three children in the 1960's. The oldest son, Byron, is hanging with the wrong crowd and his parents want to change his environment. The whole family piles into their old car for a trip to Birmingham, Alabama, where Byron's strict grandmother lives. While traveling in the South, they encounter overt racism and segregation, and a tragic event that will shake their world. They realize that the love of family gives them the strength to endure most anything.

Director:

Kenny Leon

Grade Level:

Middle

Length:

01:26

Lyddie

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When Lyddie and her younger brother are hired out as servants to help pay off their family farm's debts, Lyddie is determined to find a way to reunite her family once again. Hearing about all the money a girl can make working in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, she makes her way there, only to find that her dreams of returning home may never come true.

Author:

Katherine Paterson

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

860L

Length:

07:15

A Mother's Courage, Talking Back to Autism (2010)

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A Mother's Courage does not sugarcoat autism, or celebrate it, or cure it. The movie's strength lies in that it shows the heart-wrenching reality of what families have to go through to get assessments, diagnosis and advice; it shows the reality of the pain parents feel when their bubbly, verbal child regresses and becomes autistic.

Grade Level:

Professional

Length:

01:43

A Mother's Courage, Talking Back to Autism