Sandy Dunham

If you're looking for a short, but very high-quality piece of literature to read, you could do a lot worse than picking up one of these young-adult books that won Newbery Medals.

These five well-written books explore autism - from the point of view of people are who are themselves autistic, from parents' perspectives, and from a scientific standpoint.

"Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!" by Laura Amy Schlitz, won the prestigious Newbery Award for Children's Literature in 2008. Here's my quick review.

"The Slave Dancer' is an important but sometimes disturbing children's book about slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

When you pick a book that's been made into a movie for your book club, it gives you a whole new facet of the story to discuss. It's also fun to see movies together, and brings new interest to your meetings.

Check out these fantastic book series for grade school aged kids, guaranteed to interest most reluctant readers.

The Newbery winners are great books, but they're not always something you want to read to your younger kids (or direct them to in order to read them themselves), since many handle rather adult themes. I'll tell you some of the best ones for younger readers here.