A surfing competition, some serious skateboarding and several puzzling mysteries are the ingredients for an awesome beach vacation. While Rhys is totally focused on winning the Junior Surf Championship, Toby just wants to win his dare with Rhys. But things have a habit of not working out as planned, and the boys learn that it doesn’t pay to assume anything, about anyone, ever!
Realistic Fiction
Realistic Fiction genre
Butterflies
Katherine is almost eighteen. Severely burned when she was three, she dreams that one day she will look like everyone else. Be like everyone else. Achieve her dreams. But Katherine won’t be seen as a victim. Her life is filled with fun and humor and friendship, as she faces her first “real” date, arguments with her mum, and decisions about her future.
An extraordinary story of a journey where pain and trauma become triumph and a passion for living, “Butterflies” is a coming-of-age story that celebrates the fighter in all of us.
Umbrella
Momo eagerly waits for a rainy day so she can use the red boots and umbrella she received on her third birthday.
Limpopo Lullaby
In 2000, as Mozambique was ravaged by floods, many people found that their only choice was to take shelter in trees. In one tiny village a woman, stuck with her family in a tree, was about to give birth. The remarkable story of this woman and her miraculous child is the inspiration for Limpopo Lullaby.Jane Jolly’s lyrical prose captures the rhythms of village life while Dee Huxley’s vibrant pastels portray nature in all her moods, ranging from brooding skies to swirling floodwaters to a glimpse of sun.
Under A Red Sky: Memoir Of A Childhood In Communist Romania
Eva Zimmermann is eight years old, and she has just discovered she is Jewish. Such is the life of an only child living in postwar Bucharest, a city that is changing in ever more frightening ways. Eva’s family, full of eccentric and opinionated adults, will do absolutely anything to keep her safe—even if it means hiding her identity from her. With razor-sharp depictions of her animated relatives, Haya Leah Molnar’s memoir of her childhood captures with touching precocity the very adult realities of living behind the iron curtain.
Cruisers
Zander and his friends, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi start their own newspaper, The Cruiser, as a means for speaking out, keeping the peace, and expressing what they believe. When the school launches a mock Civil War, Zander and his friends are forced to consider the true meaning of democracy and what it costs to stand up for a cause. The result is nothing they could have expected, and everything they could have hoped for. Zander Scott and his friends, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi are in trouble. Even though they’re students at DaVinci, one of the best Gifted and Talented schools in Harlem, their grades are slipping, and Mr. Culpepper, the Assistant Principal and Chief Executioner, is ready to be rid of them. When the school starts a unit on the Civil War, and kids split up into Union and Confederate sympathizers, Zander and his crew are given a charge to negotiate a peace between both sides before the war actually breaks out. That’s when Zander comes up with the idea to launch an alternative school newspaper called The Cruiser. What he and his friends learn is that their writing has power to keep the peace, but that words can be weapons, too. Soon everyone at DaVinci is forced to consider the true meaning of democracy and what it costs to stand up for a cause.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 4
Going Going
Florrie’s favorite coffee shop, with its open mike night, dreamy candles, and cute waiters … Going? The mysterious little hut selling fresh lemon ice on the west side of town … Going? The boutique featuring clothes you don’t find at the mall, allowing you to look like … an interesting person … Going? Individuality. Originality. Quality. Independence. Opportunity. Going, going, gone. What’s a girl to do?
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 4
Naty’s Parade
Naty is excited to be dancing in the fiesta parade, until she gets lost in the city streets and cannot find the parade again.
Snook Alone
Through the power of faith, a monk named Abba Jacob and his loyal rat terrier, Snook, are reunited after being separated by a ferocious storm.
The Importance of Wings
Although she longs to be an all-American girl, Roxanne, a timid, Israeli-born thirteen-year-old who idolizes Wonder Woman, begins to see things differently when the supremely confident Liat, also from Israel, moves into the “cursed house” next door and they become friends.