When Señora Rosa and Señor Tomás find a stray cat sleeping on their stoop, they welcome him into their home. “Mi casa es su casa. My home is your home,” Señora Rosa tells the cat. He introduces himself as Flynn and wanders through their house while they prepare lunch, which has a delicious fishy smell. When lunch is served, Flynn hops up on the table. But before he can dig into the tuna tacos, his new friends point out a few house rules. “In my home, everyone dresses for meals,” says Señora Rosa. So Flynn borrows a doll’s tuxedo and puts it on. When Señor Tomás says, “In my home, people must sit in chairs,” Flynn brings a pillow from the sofa and puts it on the chair so he can reach his plate. Then, after a pleasant lunch, Señor Tomás and Señora Rosa discover that Flynn has some ideas of his own about how people and cats can live happilly together.
Fiction
Fiction genre
My Feet Are Laughing
Sadie, an imaginative young Dominican American, relates her experiences growing up in her grandmother’s brownstone house in Harlem.
Sip, Slurp, Soup, Soup – Caldo, Caldo, Caldo
A bilingual picture book offers up a celebration of a kitchen where mom has just pulled out the large stew pot to begin a fabulous vegetable soup and all the kids are invited to help.
Salsa
Rita, a young girl living in New York’s El Barrio, describes the Afro-Caribbean dance music, salsa, and imagines being a salsa director.
Real Time
Sixteen-year-old Tomas Wanninger persuades his mother to let him leave Germany to volunteer at a kibbutz in Israel, where he experiences a violent political attack and finds answers about his own past.
Millicent Min: Girl Genius
Millicent Min is having a bad summer. Her fellow high school students hate her for setting the curve. Her fellow 11-year-olds hate her for going to high school. And her mother has arranged for her to tutor Stanford Wong, the poster boy for Chinese geekdom. But then Millie meets Emily. Emily doesn’t know Millicent’s IQ score. She actually thinks Millie is cool. And if Millie can hide her awards, ignore her grandmother’s advice, swear her parents to silence, blackmail Stanford, and keep all her lies straight, she just might make her first friend.
The Year of the Dog
It’s the Chinese Year of the Dog, and as Pacy celebrates with her family, she finds out that this is the year she is supposed to “find herself.” Universal themes of friendship, family, and finding one’s passion in life make this novel appealing to readers of all backgrounds.
Singing for Mrs. Pettigrew: Stories and Essays from a Writing Life
Offers eleven short stories, accompanied by essays and commentaries that illuminate the craft of storytelling and the influences of people and places on the author’s works.
Bernal & Florinda: A Spanish Tale
A clever but poor cavalier wins the hand of his true love by outwitting her father, the wealthy mayor of Seville.
The Stone Dancers
Loving the tales of her ancestors, who built a castle in the remote French mountains, Anise listens while her grandfather describes how their relatives were mistaken for dancing stones when seen by distant herdsmen.