Anne E. Schraff

I grew up like a neglected weed, ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Now I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. Harriet Tubman ran away from slavery in 1849, walking one hundred miles to freedom in the North. For the next sixteen years, Tubman risked her newfound freedom, and her life, to help about three hundred other slaves escape. Sorting myth from truth in this amazing tale of courage and heroism, Anne Schraff breathes new life into the story of the show more most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a nurse and a scout for the Union army, and in her later years, she joined the struggle for the education of her people and for women's rights. show less

A favorite series of my lower-level readers in middle school, this is the first time I'm touching Bluford. The amount of divergent, yet related, plots encompassed in such a short book was admirable. Given that the book is classed as hi-lo, the language was fairly standard with a good smattering of more complex sentence structures and a decent amount of higher level vocabulary. I can see why this is so popular. Darcy was a relatable character with exceptionally relatable issues. None of the show more solutions to her issues are spoon-fed to the audience fable or parable-style, instead allowing the reader to find their own solutions. The ending was ambiguous, but in such a way that it's actually kind of fulfilling. show less

In Lost and Found Darcy deals with problems that many teenagers face – friends, school, younger sisters, single working mom. But she also has the added burden of living with and caring for a grandmother she loves who is suffering from dementia. She must handle her anger and hurt regarding a father that left the family five years before. Then, there’s the stalker who shows up in unusual places. Is he the one who left the threatening note?

I jumped right into this story and worried about show more how Darcy would survive all of these problems. The obstacles were realistic, as were the solutions, which didn’t come quickly or easily.

I think this book is a wonderful read for its intended audience – teens who want a quick read that they can get lost in.

I received this book in a giveaway from the Goodread’s First Reads program.
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As if Darcy doesn’t have enough on her plate dealing with high school and an absent father, now she is being stalked by a stranger who may not be so strange after all. This book is fast-paced, focusing more on moving the story forward than on getting bogged down in details. The end winds up being so drastically different than what one would expect in the beginning, it almost feels like the reader has completed an entire series in just over a hundred pages. This format will appeal to show more some—fast-paced, teenagers dealing with the same issues they are, an end that magically works out for everyone. These readers will enjoy seeing their own lives in the pages, wondering how things will work out for the characters (and, perhaps, in their own lives), and thrilling when everything does. However, it will turn off others—lack of details, lives that are mundane when not contrived. The teens in the stories live ordinary lives until something so unusual happens—a stalker? The return of an absent but loving father? Does this really happen?—it stretches the imagination. show less