Emily is a Jewish girl from the suburbs of New York, end of story. Her mother has family in Puerto Rico, but Emily has never had any contact with them–not until she’s forced to go to the Caribbean for her grandmother’s funeral. Pampered Emily wants nothing to do with her Puerto Rican heritage– until a very special person shows her that that uncovering her roots is like discovering a secret part of her own heart.
Family life
Foxspell
Todd is living a very troubled life, which causes him to be involved with a gang and do poorly at school, but after he buries a dead fox, a fox-spirit offers him the chance to become a fox himself and Todd must decide what is the best thing for him to do in his situation.
Martha in the Middle
Martha is tired of being in the middle — until a frog points out its benefits — in a funny story sure to have middle siblings feeling on top of the world.Being in the middle is no fun for Martha. She gets squashed between her siblings when they argue. She never gets called “big and sensible” or “cutesy-wootsy.” Sometimes she even feels invisible. One day she gets so fed up, she decides to run away. Luckily, Martha meets a wise frog who points out that the middle is the best bit — the tasty seeds in the sunflower, the sweet peas in the pod, the juiciest part of a watermelon. With beguiling warmth and humor, Jan Fearnley reassures children that being in the middle of things is a choice spot after all.
The Traitors’ Gate
When his father is arrested as a debtor in 1849 London, fourteen-year-old John Huffman must take on unexpected responsibilities, from asking a distant relative for help to determining why people are spying on him and his family.
Blue like Friday
NOT EVERYONE SEES THE WORLD THROUGH THE SAME LENS. From the author of Something Invisible comes this funny and poignant novel about the hues of friendship.Spunky Olivia and eccentric Hal are an unlikely pair. While Hal suffers from a neurological condition called synesthesia that causes him to associate things with colors, Olivia tends to see the world in black and white. Still, these two are friends through thick and thin, through rose-colored days and blue days, even when Hal’s plan to get rid of his mother’s boyfriend backfires by driving his mother away. Olivia’s honest, funny and always-opinionated voice tells this story with colorful perception.
Rex Zero, King of Nothing
In 1962 Ottawa, 11-year-old Rex Norton-Norton faces several confusing mysteries, including his father’s troubling secrets from World War II, the problems of a beautiful but unhappy woman named Natasha, what to do about his mean and vindictive teacher, and whether or not he should even be concerned about these things.
You & You & You
Anon is a twelve-year-old loner. Zarah is a beautiful seventeen-year-old caught up in a sexual relationship. Nils is a twenty-year-old college student searching for the meaning of life and death. Each character’s obsessive fantasy overwhelms their everyday lives.These three are catalysts in each others’ lives and when they finally meet, each begins to draw the others into the real world, but things are still left uncertain at the end of the novel.
The Trip Back Home
These are the gifts brought across the ocean to Korea: Leather gloves. An apron with pockets like flowers. A book with pictures and simple words. What is given in return? Simple gifts like these–and so much more.
Rex Zero and the End of the World
Why does everyone seem so scared? That’s what the new boy in town, Rex Norton-Norton, aka Rex Zero, wonders as he rides his bike through Ottawa’s streets. Is it spies? Kidnappers? Or is it because of the shadowy creature some say is stalking Adams Park? One thing is certain in this summer of 1962 as the Cold War heats up: nothing is quite what it seems. What’s a boy to do? If his name is Rex Zero and he has a bike he calls “Diablo,” five wild and funny siblings, an alpha dog named Kincho, a basement bomb shelter built of old Punch magazines, and a mind that turns everything inside out, he’s bound to come up with an amazing idea.
Dreamquake
The dreamhunting began as a beautiful thing, when Tziga Hame discovered that he could enter the Place and share the dreams he found there with other people. But Tziga Hame has disappeared and Laura, his daughter, knows that the art of projecting dreams has turned sour.
On St. Lazarus’s Eve, when elite citizens gather at the Rainbow Opera to experience the sweet dream of Homecoming, Laura, determined to show them the truth, plunges them into the nightmare used to control the convict workers. The event marks the first blow in the battle for control of the Place, the source of dreams. Then, when Laura’s cousin, Rose, uncovers evidence that the government has been building a secret rail line deep into the Place, Laura follows it to find out what lies at its end. As she struggles to counter the government’s sinister plans, a deeper mystery surfaces, a puzzle only Laura can unravel, a puzzle having to do with the very nature of the Place.