MELINDY'S MEDAL

(This really straddles two groups -- it is too old for the 6-9's, too young for 9-12's, so that perhaps a 7-10 listing would place it.) Eight year old Melindy Miller is a Negro girl, who lives in a Federal Housing Project in Boston, with her grandmother, who cooks like a dre, and her father, who plays the saxophone, in The Black Diamond Troupe in a nightclub. Most of the time Melindy is happy, loving her bright, new home and her red plane, but she is sometimes made unhappy because she knows her grandmother doesn't think such of girls, since they can't win medals. Interspersed with Melindy's story, her school, her piano lessons, and her family (which includes General Shaw, the canary), are her grandmother's stories of how her great-grandfather, Mo, won a medal in the Civil War, her grandfather, William, won a medal in the Spanish-American War, and her father won a medal in World War I. How Hlinday saves her school from burning down and wins her medal, along with her grandmother's praise, is told in an engaging, tender manner which makes you love the whole family.