Author: Book Importer

Book Importer

Lety Out Loud

Lety Muñoz’s first language is Spanish, and she likes to take her time putting her words together. She loves volunteering at the Furry Friends Animal Shelter because the dogs and cats there don’t care if she can’t always find the right word. When the shelter needs a volunteer to write animal profiles, Lety jumps at the chance. But grumpy classmate Hunter also wants to write profiles — so now they have to work as a team. Hunter’s not much of a team player, though. He devises a secret competition to decide who will be the official shelter scribe. Whoever helps get their animals adopted the fastest wins. The loser scoops dog food. Lety reluctantly agrees, but she’s worried that if the shelter finds out about the contest, they’ll kick her out of the volunteer program. Then she’ll never be able to adopt Spike, her favorite dog at the shelter!

This book has been included in WOW’s Language and Learning: Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Booklist. For our current list, visit our Booklist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Festival Folk: An Atlas of Carnival Customs and Costumes

All around the world there are festivals that reach back through the sands of time to medieval carnival traditions, and beyond. The festivals in this book are often little known outside their locale and they are all characterised by spectacular costumes and compellingly bizarre rituals. The Jarramplas of Piornal, Spain is a spooky devil character dressed in rags, who is pelted by two tons of turnips every year. In Japan, the Kasedori wear a suit of straw and run barefoot through the snow as villagers douse them in freezing water to protect their houses from fire. The Courir de Mardi Gras is a lesser known cousin of the New Orleans carnival, in which members of rural Louisiana communities dress in Medieval French jester costumes and chase down chickens thrown from the roofs of local farmsteads.

Jazz Owls

In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day then jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot suit wearing younger brother, Ray, as escort until the night racial violence leads to murder. Includes historical note.

Hairs

A girl describes how each person in the family has hair that looks and acts different, Papa’s like a broom, Kiki’s like fur, and Mama’s with the sweet smell of bread before it’s baked.

Grandpa’s Soup

When Grandma dies, Grandpa is too sad to do anything. All day long, day after day, he sits by himself in his house. Then, one day, Grandpa wakes up and realizes he misses the soup his wife used to make for him. So he decides to try to make the soup himself. Though each batch he makes is bigger and better than the last, Granpda hardly gets a taste of it. Unexpected visitors, hungry for soup, keep arriving at his door. Soon, Grandpa discovers that sharing with his new friends is the best cure for his loneliness.

Game Of Stars

When the Demon Queen shows up in her bedroom, smelling of acid and surrounded by evil-looking bees, twelve-year-old Kiranmala is uninterested. After all, it’s been weeks since she last heard from her friends in the Kingdom Beyond, the alternate dimension where she was born as an Indian princess. But after a call to action over an interdimensional television station and a visit with some all-seeing birds, Kiran decides that she has to once again return to her homeland, where society is fraying, a terrible game show reigns supreme, and friends and foes alike are in danger. Everyone is running scared or imprisoned following the enactment of sudden and unfair rules of law. However, things are a lot less clear than the last time she was in the Kingdom Beyond. Kiran must once again solve riddles and battle her evil Serpent King father — all while figuring out who her true friends are, and what it really means to be a hero.