In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents’ divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world.
bullying
Just One Flick of a Finger
A young boy takes a gun to school to scare off the bully who has been tormenting him, and the gun is accidentally fired during a scuffle.
A Crazy Mixed-Up Spanglish Day
Part of the Get Ready for Gabi Series. In Northern California, Maritza Gabriela Morales Mercado struggles to deal with the third grade.
Felita
A vivid portrayal of a close-knit Hispanic community Felita’s parents promise she will love their new neighborhood. Only Abuelita, her grandmother, understands how much Felita will miss her old block, and her best friend Gigi. But her new neighbors taunt and tease Felita and her family because they are from Puerto Rico. First published twenty years ago, Felita’s compelling story has resonance for kids today.”An honest, realistic view of an important aspect of contemporary American life.” –The Horn Book* An NCSS-CBC Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies* A Child Study Children’s Book Committee Children’s Book of the Year* A Puffin Novel * 112 pages * Ages 8-12
The Savage
Mysterious and utterly mesmerizing, this graphic-novel-within-a-novel pairs the extraordinary prose of David Almond with the visual genius of Dave McKean. Blue Baker is writing a story — not all that stuff about wizards and fairies and happily ever after — a real story, about blood and guts and adventures, because that’s what life’s really like. At least it is for Blue, since his dad died and Hopper, the town bully, started knocking him and the other kids around. But Blue’s story has a life of its own — weird and wild and magic and dark — and when the savage pays a nighttime visit to Hopper, Blue starts to wonder where he ends and his creation begins.
Name Me Nobody
Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.
Lady Daisy
Ned’s disappointment turns into shock when the doll his grandmother has given him speaks to him, and together the two of them share stories of their very different worlds.
Fiendish Deeds (Joy Of Spooking)
Do you dare set foot in Spooking?
It’s the terrible town on the hideous hill — and Joy Wells is a proud resident. A fan of classic horror stories, Joy is convinced that famous author E. A. Peugeot based his spine-tingling tales on Spooking. Take the eerie similarities between the nearby swamp and the setting of his masterpiece, “The Bawl of the Bog Fiend.” Could the story be true? Could the bog fiend be on the loose?
Things become truly horrifying when Joy learns that Darlington, the despicable suburban city where she is forced to go to school, is planning to build a water park over her beloved bog. It is up to her to safeguard the endangered area and its secrets. Little does she know that there is someone determined to destroy not only the bog but the town of Spooking itself — and anyone who dares stand in his way.
P. J. Bracegirdle spins a yarn of delicious devilry and macabre mayhem in the very first book of The Joy of Spooking trilogy.
Milagros: Girl from Away
Twelve-year-old Milagros barely survives an invasion of her tiny, Caribbean island home, escapes with the help of mysterious sea creatures, reunites briefly with her pirate-father, and learns about a mother’s love when cast ashore on another island.
Word Nerd
Twelve-year-old Ambrose is a glass-half-full kind of guy. A self-described “friendless nerd,” he moves from place to place every couple of years with his overprotective mother, Irene. When some bullies at his new school almost kill him by slipping a peanut into his sandwich — even though they know he has a deathly allergy — Ambrose is philosophical. Irene, however, is not and decides that Ambrose will be home-schooled.Alone in the evenings when Irene goes to work, Ambrose pesters Cosmo, the twenty-five-year-old son of the Greek landlords who live upstairs. Cosmo has just been released from jail for breaking and entering to support a drug habit. Quite by accident, Ambrose discovers that they share a love of Scrabble and coerces Cosmo into taking him to the West Side Scrabble Club, where Cosmo falls for Amanda, the club director. Posing as Ambrose’s Big Brother to impress her, Cosmo is motivated to take Ambrose to the weekly meetings and to give him lessons in self-defense. Cosmo, Amanda, and Ambrose soon form an unlikely alliance and, for the first time in his life, Ambrose blossoms. The characters at the Scrabble Club come to embrace Ambrose for who he is and for their shared love of words. There’s only one problem: Irene has no idea what Ambrose is up to.In this brilliantly observed novel, author Susin Nielsen transports the reader to the world of competitive Scrabble as seen from the honest yet funny viewpoint of a boy who’s searching for acceptance and for a place to call home.