Berthoud Community Library District

14-year-old Dae has been taught that North Korea is the best place in the world. Yet the painfully skinny boy can't help wondering why all his family has to eat is watery porridge made from grass. At school, Dae and his friends bow before the giant portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, their clothes flapping around their bony limbs. Dae begins to question why the Great Leaders look so well fed. When Dae's beloved father is hauled away to a hard-labor...

It's 1852, and California's Gold Rush is in full swing. Tempers are flaring along the mighty Klamath River, where men are wild with gold-rush fever. 14-year-old Hudson treads carefully amongst them, desperate to find her long-lost father. She can only pray that he'll take her in. A battle erupts between miners and local tribespeople, trapping Hudson in the crossfire. She is no fighter; she's just a runaway kid from San Francisco in need of a family....