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Kashmira Sheth, Boys Without Names (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010). Age Level: 8 and up Publisher Description: For eleven-year-old Gopal and his family, life in their rural Indian village is over: We stay, we starve, his baba has warned. They flee to the big city of Mumbai in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. Gopal is eager to help support his struggling family, so when a stranger approaches him with the promise of a factory job, he jumps at the offer. But there is no factory, just a stuffy sweatshop where he and five other boys are forced to work for no money and little food. The boys are forbidden to talk or even to call one another by their real names. Locked away in a rundown building, Gopal despairs of ever seeing his family again. But late one night, when Gopal decides to share kahanis, or stories, he realizes that storytelling might be the boys' key to survival. If he can make them feel more like brothers than enemies, their lives will be more bearable in the shop and they might even find a way to escape.

Jane Kurtz, Bicycle Madness (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003). Age Level: 7 and up Publisher Description: Lillie is having a difficult year. She's still struggling with her mother's recent death, and now her father has moved the family to the other side of town. But when Frances Willard-Lillie's new neighbor-decides to learn how to ride a bicycle, Lillie finds promising change all around her. Even though her father disapproves of their progressive neighbor, Lillie and Miss Frances soon become friends. Miss Frances is involved in more than taming a wild bike, however; she is part of Susan B. Anthony's circle, fighting for the right for women to vote, as well as child-labor laws and better conditions for workers. Together, Lillie and Miss Frances take on their beasts-a bike and a daunting spelling bee-and find the will to dust themselves off, get back up, and ride for all they're worth. Set in the late 1800s, this engaging novel skillfully blends fine storytelling with women's history.

Photojournalist and educator Joan Sara Klatchko uses her photography to tell powerful stories of children: the cultures that define them, the global issues that affect them, the universal themes that connect them.