This entire series is a wonderful way to learn history or teach it to adolescents. I find today's generations seem to recall more when they learn through other people (pop songs, celebrity gossip, etc.), so what better way to teach history than through someone else's perspective? Yes, "authentic" diaries would be "better", but would the language really hold the modern student's attention? Did the diary writer know what WOULD be important in the context of history? Probably not.

One of the “My Story” novels. Set in Greece & Melbourne in 1956. Sophia doesn’t want to leave her homeland, but conflicts have left her family with little food or money and no jobs, so she & her younger brother & mother travel by boat to meet her father in Melbourne. Here Sophia discovers both prejudice & kindness in a city gearing itself for the 1956 Olympics. Sophia’s running skills eventually help her to overcome her own fears and other’s discrimination. [I bawled when I read this book!!]
Passage : *Sophia’s first day in school ( )