Quinn, M.E., Luke, and Cody are back to solve new mysteries The Mummy’s Curse, the fourth instalment of Penny Warner’s award winning series The Code Buster’s Club. This time the Code Buster’s Club dives into the cryptic world of Ancient Egypt. After learning about steganography, the study of concealed writing, the club members and using their new-found knowledge of hieroglyphics, the Code Buster’s Club sets out on a new adventure. This interactive novel by Penny Warner invites its young readers to join in the investigation and crack a variety of codes – in finger letters, hieroglyphics, Morse code, and more – which are strewn throughout this interactive tale. In addition, readers will find a list of  suggestions for using the text and series in the classroom.

In End of the Line, Sharon E. McKay gives us a true story of human kindness and courage in the face of unfathomable danger. Her novel brings to life the tale Beatrix, a five-year-old Jewish girl in 1942 Amsterdam who was saved from certain death by a ticket collector, Lars Gorter, and his bother Hans. Today, 70 years after the end of World War II, holocaust survivors who are able and willing to share there stories are becoming increasingly rare. It is through stories like this one that we can preserve the memory both of the atrocities and the heroism. McKay’s novel is a powerful addition to the collection of holocaust stories for children and young adults and helps ensure that the memory lives on in a new generations of readers. The End of the Line will leave young readers to ponder how the most dreadful conditions can lead ordinary citizens to perform the most heroic acts.

Chris Platt’s Wind Dancer tells the story of Ali McCormick, her brother Danny, and their trying journey toward healing. After a tragic accident in which she sustained a severe injury and lost her horse, Ali is reluctant to return to riding. Her brother, who had caused the accident had joined the military and is now back from Afghanistan with PTSD and a prosthetic leg. Nevertheless, both siblings must find the strength to rise above their injuries when they save a pair of malnourished horses. In his novel, Platt manages to discuss issues such as trauma, PTSD, and the painful loss of a friends in a delicate and respectful way which allows its young readers to relate and sympathise with the characters. Wind Dancer stands apart from other novels dealing with the relationship between horse and child. While still focusing on that special bond, it does so by looking at difficult situations that have become more prevalent in out society as a result of an ongoing war.

Running out of Night tells of an unlikely friendship between a young white girl and a runaway slave. This is the story of a nameless, motherless twelve-year-old Southern girl who is treated cruelly by her father and brothers and longs for freedom from her hardships. Her life changes, however, when a young slave girl, named Zenobia turns to her for help. Seeing in this chance encounter an opportunity for the freedom she so desperately desires, the little girl decides to run away with Zenobia. In Running out of Night, Sharon Lovejoy brings the best and worst of human nature to life. Told from the perspective of the little girl and in her voice, this novel introduces young readers to the darker side of American history while still strengthening their belief in the power and importance of friendship.

Schooling Jim Crow: the fight for Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School and the roots of Black protest politics by Jay Winston Driskell Jr. tells the remarkable, true story of the NCAA’s successful campaign to build schools for African-American students in the city of Atlanta. Less than three years after the Atlanta race riots in 1960 and only a few weeks before a wave of anti-black violence swept the nation, the NCAA managed to organized a voting bloc powerful enough to compel the city of Atlanta to budget $1.5 million for the construction of five elementary school as well as the Booker T. Washington high school for African-American students. While this would be an incredible accomplishment in any state during this era, it is especially revolutionary in the context of the Jim Crow South. In this extraordinary book, Driskell explores the shift in black political consciousness that made it possible for the NCAA to run it’s remarkable campaign, especially when taking into consideration the fact that, at the time, most African-American southerners could not vote, let alone demand schools.