The Unfortunate Son

Luc, a youth born with one ear and raised by a drunken father in fifteenth-century France, finds a better home with fisherman Pons, his sister Mattie, and their ward Beatrice, the daughter of a disgraced knight, and even after being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Africa, he remains remarkably fortunate.

Baby’s in Black

Baby’s In Black is based on a true story. Meet the Beatles… during their stint in Hamburg right at the beginning of the band’s career. This gorgeous, accessible book is an intimate peek into the early years of the world’s greatest rock band. The story follows a small group of German artists, led by photographer Astrid Kirchherr, who fall in love with the Beatles’ music and soon become good friends with the original five band members. The heart of Baby’s In Black is a love story. The “fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, fell in love with the beautiful Astrid Kirchherr when she recruited the Beatles for a sensational (and famous) photography session. When the band returned to the UK, Sutcliffe quit, became engaged to Kirchherr, and stayed in Hamburg to study painting at a prestigious art school. His meteoric career as a modern artist was cut short when he died unexpectedly a year later. The book ends as it begins, with Astrid, alone and adrift; but with a note of hope: her life is incomparably richer and more directed thanks to her friendship with the Beatles and her love affair with Sutcliffe.

Night Letter

Anahita, a nomadic weaver living in early twentieth-century Iran, is kidnapped on the eve of her wedding and thrown into a world of slavery and the mystical Sufi faith in this fairytale-tinged story of a damsel in distress determined to save herself.

My Own Revolution

Fourteen-year-old Patrik rebels against the communist regime in small ways whenever he gets the chance: spray-painting slogans, listening to contraband Beatles records, even urinating on a statue of Lenin under cover of night. But anti-Party sentiment is risky, and when party interference cuts a little too close to home, Patrik and his family find themselves faced with a decision — and a grave secret — that will change everything. As the moments tick toward too late, Patrik takes his family’s fate in hand, risking everything for a chance at freedom. Examining the psychological toll of living under an authoritarian regime, Carolyn Marsden allows readers to experience both Patrik’s persistent worry and his hope for better things.

These Hands

Joseph’s grandpa could do almost anything with his hands. He could play the piano, throw a curveball, and tie a triple bowline knot in three seconds flat. But in the 1950s and 60s, he could not bake bread at the Wonder Bread factory. Factory bosses said white people would not want to eat bread touched by the hands of the African Americans who worked there. In this powerful intergenerational story, Joseph learns that people joined their hands together to fight discrimination so that one day, their hands Joseph’s hands could do anything at all in this whole wide world.