CC recommends: Children’s literature

Trapped, by Michael Northrop. At first, the snow comes in "small flakes, like grains of sugar." By fourth period every student but Scott Weems is clamoring for a snow day. A sophomore on the Tattawa High varsity basketball team, Weems doesn't want his game debut canceled. But by dinner time, he and his friends are trapped in their school, facing a fierce nor'easter, and scavenging for food and warmth.

Vietnam: I Pledge Allegiance (Book One), by Chris Lynch. Four friends have pledged to do everything together, whether it is waiting to see a movie until Ivan is ungrounded or skipping the Babe Ruth League after Rudi isn't picked. When Rudi is drafted into the Vietnam War, Beck, Ivan, and Morris enlist in separate branches of the military. Through Morris's narration, readers get a vivid, expansive view of the war.

Kick, by Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman. Celebrated author My­ers teams with a 16-year-old writer to tell, through alternating voices, the story of Kevin, a young soccer player charged with kidnapping and grand larceny. Myers creates a likable Sergeant Brown, Kevin's case officer. Workman's youthfulness is evident in the figure of Kevin, who feigns toughness. Filled with brisk dialogue and intermittent soccer scenes, the novel presents a boy who will sacrifice his personal image to guard a promise.

Okay for Now, by Gary D. Schmidt. In 1968, Doug Swieteck (a character introduced in Schmidt's Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars) is forced to move with his troubled family to upstate New York. There, Doug lives in a world marked by Apollo spaceflights, the Vietnam War and the New York Yankees. In a quest that begins at the local library, Doug discovers Audu­bon treasures and a host of charming friends.

Revolver, by Marcus Sedgwick. Set in the Arctic Circle in 1899 and 1910, this mystery pits young Sig against a sinister stranger. The hulking man arrives at the family cabin where Sig's father is lying on the table, having died after falling through the ice. A Colt revolver is buried in a nearby storeroom, but Sig is troubled about using it. And the stranger has come seeking not only vengeance but hidden treasure.