By Olivia A. Cole For fans of I’m Not Dying with You Tonight, this gripping YA novel digs into the historical and present-day effects of white supremacy and the depths of privilege. Shania never thinks much about being white. But after her beloved grandmother passes, she moves to the gentrifying town of Blue Rock and is…
Written by Olivia A. Cole Illustrated by Jessica Gibson This powerful picture book shows the importance of raising your own strong voice to defend what you love. Sasha the bear loves the meadow in her forest more than anything. But when great yellow beasts threaten to cut and burn the forest, Sasha and the other…
Written by Derrick Barnes In this much anticipated middle grade novel by author Derrick Barnes (Ruby & the Booker Boys), two thirteen-year-old African-American boys become friends during a three-day stint in after school suspension. They were both involved in two unrelated incidents with the same person, the resident menace at Alain Locke Middle, Tariq Molten. Robeson…
Written by Derrick Barnes Illustrated by Barbara Jean Phillips-Duke Rhyming words help a grade-schooler deal with his angry feelings in a more constructive way.
By Ann Gonzalez Running for My Life is the powerful story of Andrea McKane, a fourteen-year-old who struggles to cope with her mother’s schizophrenia. She must face the heartbreaking fact that her mother, with whom she once laughed and played, has vanished into her disease, possibly forever. The book accurately portrays the difficulties a teen…
By John Weber Homer abruptly finds out at age 13 that he’s adopted when his gruff father, an Iowa farmer, announces it after dinner one night. Homer is crushed and decides he must find his real family who he learns were in New York City. On his way, he stops to tell his best friend,…
By Lynda Durrant Jennie Hodgers dressed as a boy for the first time in order to help support her impoverished Irish family with a shepherd’s wages. Then her arrival in America confirmed her belief that the world offers better opportunities to young men than to young women. So Jennie maintained her outward identity as Albert…
By Lynda Durrant Rosemary Elizabeth likes Pleasant Hill. Unlike her former home, the Kentucky Shaker community is serene and full of beautiful things. The food is plentiful and delicious, and she dresses in spotless white garments. Above all, she and her younger siblings are safe there—from their drunken, often violent, father, and from the war…
By Alicia Gaspar de Alba Mexico, 1683. When Concepción Benavidez flees her indenture from the convent of San Jerónimo in Mexico City and sets out to join a band of refugee slaves along with her friend Aléndula, the two are captured by buccaneers in Vera Cruz led by the famed Laurens-Cornille de Graaf, who is…
By Elizabeth Harper If you could make one wish and you knew it would be granted, what would you wish for? Think about it. Visualize it. In Wishing, author Elizabeth Harper provides the tools and wisdom necessary to manifest each and every wish made. Using the basic concepts of the law of attraction, a step-by-step wish…
