Wanted: One amazing forever home for one amazing sixth grader.”My name is Gaby, and I’m looking for a home where I can invite my best friend over and have a warm breakfast a couple of times a week. Having the newest cell phone or fancy clothes isn’t important, but I’d like to have a cat that I can talk to when I’m home alone.” Gaby Ramirez Howard loves volunteering at the local animal shelter. She plays with the kittens, helps to obedience train the dogs, and writes adoption advertisements so that the strays who live there can find their forever homes: places where they’ll be loved and cared for, no matter what. Gaby has been feeling like a bit of a stray herself, lately. Her mother has recently been deported to Honduras and Gaby is stuck living with her inattentive dad. She’s confident that her mom will come home soon so that they can adopt Gaby’s favorite shelter cat together. When the cat’s original owners turn up at the shelter, however, Gaby worries that her plans for the perfect family are about to fall apart.
United States
Materials from United States of America
Kid Cyclone Fights The Devil And Other Stories / Kid Ciclon Se Enfrenta A El Diablo Y Otras Historias
Cousins Maya and Vincent are thrilled to be ring side at a lucha libre match. Kid Cyclone, the wrestling world’s favorite hero who also happens to be the kids’s beloved uncle, is facing off against a devil-masked opponent, El Diablo. No masked devil can beat my uncle. Not even the real devil himself, declares Maya. But the real devil doesn¿t take kindly to such disrespect, and soon Kid Cyclone finds himself fighting the most hellish challenger of all! Popular kids¿ book author Xavier Garza returns with another collection of stories featuring spooky characters from Mexican-American folklore. There¿s a witch that takes the shape of a snake in order to poison and punish those who disregard her warnings; green-skinned, red-eyed creatures called chupacabras that suck the blood from wild pigs, but would just as soon suck the blood from a human who has lost his way in the night; a young girl disfigured in a fire set by a scorned lover who gets her revenge as the Donkey Lady; and the Elmendorf Beast, said to have the head of a wolf with skin so thick it’s impervious to shotgun blasts.
House Held Up by Trees
When the house was new, not a single tree remained on its perfect lawn to give shade from the sun. The children in the house trailed the scent of wild trees to neighboring lots, where thick bushes offered up secret places to play. When the children grew up and moved away, their father, alone in the house, continued his battle against blowing seeds, plucking out sprouting trees. Until one day the father, too, moved away, and as the empty house began its decline, the trees began their approach. At once wistful and exhilarating, this lovely, lyrical story evokes the inexorable passage of time — and the awe-inspiring power of nature to lift us up
Extra Yarn
With a supply of yarn that never runs out, Annabelle knits for everyone and everything in town until an evil archduke decides he wants the yarn for himself.
Carlos And The Squash Plant / Carlos Y La Planta De Calabaza
Having ignored his mother’s warnings about what will happen if he doesn’t bathe after working on his family’s New Mexican farm, Carlos awakens one morning to find a squash growing out of his ear.
Small Hands, Big Hands: Seven Profiles of Chicano Migrant Workers and Their Families
Seven migrant workers, ranging in age from eleven to sixty-seven, tell what it is like to live in agricultural labor camps.
Alicia’s Fruity Drinks; Las aguas frescas de Alicia
After enjoying a blended fruit drink called aguas frescas during a festival celebrating Mexico’s independence, seven-year-old Alicia and her mother make their own at home, then invite Alicia’s soccer team over to try them.
Alicia’s Fruity Drinks/Las aguas frescas de Alicia has been discussed in My Take/Your Take for September 2020.
The Living
After an earthquake destroys California and a tsunami wrecks the luxury cruise ship where he is a summer employee, high schooler Shy confronts another deadly surprise.
Maximilian & the Bingo Rematch
Everybody is fighting in sixth-grader Maximilian’s world as his elderly aunts battle for the Queen Bingo trophy, his masked uncles wrestle for the tag-team title of the world, and his sweetheart and the “new girl” battle for Max’s heart.
Maximilian & the Bingo Rematch is the sequel to Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel.
Fire! ¡fuego! Brave Bomberos
A brave group of firefighters set off to battle a blaze at a townhouse. Spanish words interspersed in the rhyming text are defined in a glossary.