Two years after his father’s mysterious disappearance, Jim Hawkins is coping — barely. Underneath, he’s frozen in uncertainty and grief. What did happen to his father? Is he dead or just gone? Then Jim meets Ruth Rose. Moody, provocative, she’s the bad-girl stepdaughter of Father Fisher, Jim’s father’s childhood friend and the town pastor, and she shocks Jim out of his stupor when she tells him her stepfather is a murderer. “Don’t you want to know who he murdered?” she asks. Jim doesn’t. Ruth Rose is clearly crazy — a sixteen-year-old misfit. Yet something about her fierce conviction pierces Jim’s shell. He begins to burn with a desire for the truth, until it becomes clear that it may be more unsettling than he can bear. What is the real meaning of the strange prayers Father Fisher intones behind the door of his private sanctuary? Why does Ruth Rose suddenly disappear? And what really happened thirty years ago when a boy died in a burning house?
Americas
Materials from the Americas
Dangerous Wishes
Dom, a fourteen-year-old computer enthusiast, travels to Bangkok in order to find a necklace that his sister had lost three years earlier and to lift the curse that has plagued his family since that time.
The Lime Green Secret
Not every flower girl enjoys “her” wedding day quite the way Gloria does!Nothing has made Gloria happier than being chosen as flower girl for sister Fran’s wedding. Thrilled with her beautiful satin gown, long white gloves, shiny white shoes, lace socks, and sparkling tiara, Gloria dreams of donning her wedding finery and transforming herself. Hanging on a hook on her bedroom door, the dress glows “like a radiant angel.” When Gloria gives in to temptation and puts on the entire wedding outfit to entertain the dog, it leads to unpredictable and comical results. In this hilarious romp through the days leading up to the wedding, Gloria’s unstoppable desire to dress up in her flower-girl attire will appeal to any little girl whose fantasies pester her until she comes up with a creative way to fulfill them. Georgia Graham’s playful chalk pastel illustrations bring the antics in The Lime Green Secret magically to life.
Under the Ramadan Moon
Ramadan is one of the most special months of the Islamic year, when Muslims pray, fast, and help those in need. This story serves as an introduction to Ramadan.
Red Midnight
When guerrilla soldiers strike Santiago’s village, they shoot at everyone in their path. Dos Vías is on fire, and the night glows red. “Take the cayuco and sail to the United States of America. Now go!” Santiago’s uncle Ramos tells him, and Santiago, twelve, and his four-year-old sister, Angelina, flee.
With a map, a machete, and very little food, Santiago and Angelina set sail in their uncle Ramos’s sea kayak, built for just such an escape, but not for a sailor who is only a boy. Santiago heads for the United States on a voyage that will take them through narrow channels guarded by soldiers, shark, infested waters, and days of painful heat and raging storms. Santiago knows that he and Angelina probably will die trying to make the voyage, but they certainly will die at the hands of rebels or government soldiers if they do not try.
Would You
WOULD YOU RATHER know what’s going to happen or not know? A summer night. A Saturday. For Natalie’s amazing older sister, Claire, this summer is fantastic, because she’s zooming off to college in the fall. For Natalie, it’s a fun summer with her friends; nothing special. When Claire is hit by a car, the world changes in a heartbeat. Over the next four days, moment by moment, Natalie, her parents, and their friends wait to learn if Claire will ever recover.
Traveling On Into The Light
A collection of short stories which focus on the difficult journeys teens take on their way to adulthood.
Wildflower Girl
Thirteen-year-old Peggy O’Driscoll, left orphaned and homeless by the Great Famine of the 1840s, leaves Ireland to seek her fortune in America.
The Fold
Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met JFK—John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. And it doesn’t help that she’s constantly being compared to her beautiful older sister, Helen. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to “fix” a part of herself she’d never realized needed fixing—her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery—a common procedure meant to make Asian women’s eyes seem “prettier” and more “American”—but she’s not sure she wants to go through with it. Her friend Gina can’t believe she isn’t thrilled. After all, the plastic surgeon has shown Joyce that her new eyes will make her look just like Helen—but is that necessarily a good thing? Printz Award–winning author An Na has created a surprisingly funny and thought-provoking look at notions of beauty, who sets the standards and how they affect us all. Joyce’s decision is sure to spark heated discussions about the beauty myths readers confront in their own lives.
Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.
Wait For Me
Mina is the perfect daughter. Bound for Harvard, president of the honor society, straight A student, all while she works at her family’s dry cleaners and helps care for her hearing-impaired little sister. On the outside, Mina does everything right. On the inside, Mina knows the truth. Her life is a lie. At the height of a heat wave, the summer before her senior year, Mina meets the one person to whom she cannot lie. Ysrael, a young migrant worker who dreams of becoming a musician, comes to work at the dry cleaners and asks Mina the one question that scares her the most. What does she want? Mina finds herself torn between living her mother’s dreams, caring for her younger sister, grasping the love that Ysrael offers, and the most difficult of all, living a life that is true. With sensitivity and grace, An Na weaves an intriguing story of a young woman caught in the threads of secrets and lies, struggling for love and finding a voice of her own.