Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu

The books include images, descriptions, and links. The top 19 books, all appearing on 3 or more, “Best 7th Grade” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear.

I remember pouring over the Weekly Reader fliers when I was in grade school in the 1960s.“What are the best books to read in 7th?” We looked at 528 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

I am honored that Somewhere Among was chosen for the Scholastic Reading Club. Simon & Schuster has added a reading group guide by Gregory Lum, library director at Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon, and an adjunct instructor for Portland State University. Check out this (evolving) page on this website for some links to Somewhere Among related HTJ posts. There, they (and you) will find more about our life in Japan. Here and There Japan, my photoblog, was started in 2006 and is written for children. The posts on this site are for reference of the 2001 events and for resources for aspects of the story. If you have questions or need something, contact me through my Facebook page, Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu where I will post current information and photos about things related to the story and our lives in Japan. A lot of research went into Somewhere Among so I am sharing it with you. Like teachers do, as a teacher, I researched material from newspapers, documentaries, magazines, life experience and music to create units of study. As a teacher, I emphasized the skill of finding contextual clues for the meanings of unknown words and, as a writer, it was my preferred choice in dealing with Japanese words in the story. Some were defined immediately following a comma. I used Japanese onomatopoeia for effect (who wouldn’t?) but in other instances I only used Japanese words if there wasn’t a clear equivalent in English.

When writing Somewhere Among, I purposely kept Japanese words to a minimum. For ten years, I taught reading and study skills to international students who were preparing to enter university studies in the United States. I was an English major as an undergraduate and an Applied Linguistics major as a graduate student. I was a teacher before settling in Japan.

Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu