Gift For Abuelita / Un Regalo Para Abuelita: Celebrating The Day Of The Dead/En Celebracion Del Dia De Los Muertos

After her beloved grandmother dies, Rosita hopes to be reunited with Abuelita as she prepares a gift to give her when her family celebrates the Day of the Dead.

The Lost Crown

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia–like the fingers on a hand, Tatiana the tallest, Anastasia the smallest, Maria the one most desperate for a ring. These are the daughters of the Tsar, the daughters of the last royal Russian family. The book tracks this loving cluster of sisters from the decks of their yacht to the prison walls of their final home. What do abdication and revolution mean to these young women? Told through each of their voices in alternating chapters, we see their day-to-day lives, in many ways, remain the same; they dote on their dogs, flirt with the soldiers, and are followed constantly by guards. But their desires for the future have all but disappeared. As conditions worsen and the provisional government loses power to the Bolsheviks, the girls huddle together to make sense of what is happening. At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naÏve and wise, their voices become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia.

Reaching

This soon-to-be-classic picture book centers on a large, adoring family with a new baby to love. Rhyming couplets describe different scenes, each built around the simple human gesture of “reaching.” A new mother reaches up to hold her laughing baby aloft. Dad reaches over to tickle Baby’s toes as the family lounges on a picnic quilt. Grandparents, cousins and other family members reach out to play and cuddle with the growing child. The little one also gets to “reach,” using his arms and hands to explore the wonderful world around him as he grows from a baby into a curious toddler. It’s only a matter of time (Mom realizes wistfully) before he’s “reaching” for the stars.

Nini

Long before Nini was born, she was in a safe place where a familiar voice promised her a loving home. But once she was born, that soft voice was replaced by the words of care givers in an orphanage. Though they were kind, Nini missed the soft voice and the promises it made. Then, one day, a man and a woman on the other side of the world learned that their dreams were about to come true. They would finally have a baby to love. When they all met, Nini once again heard a soft voice, as reassuring and as loving as the first, and trusted that the promises had come true. But her first memory was never lost – it remained an echo for her to share with her parents in her new home.

The Lunatic’s Curse

The town of Oppum Oppidulum is home to the freezing Lake Beluarum and its rumored monster. On an island at the center of the lake is an asylum; no one has ever escaped it. So how will Rex, whose father, Ambrose Grammaticus, has been imprisoned there under false pretenses, prove that Ambrose is not insane? And if Rex can free his father, will his evil stepmother drive them both to madness?

 

Dogtag Summer

Twelve-year-old Tracy–or Tuyet–has always felt different. The villagers in Vietnam called her con-lai, or “half-breed,” because her father was an American GI. And she doesn’t fit in with her adoptive family in California, either. But when Tracy and a friend discover a soldier’s dogtag hidden among her father’s things, it sets her past and her present on a collision course. Where should her broken heart come to rest? In a time and place she remembers only in her dreams? Or among the people she now calls family?

Cattle Kids: A Year On The Western Range

Presents a photo essay about boys and girls who live and work on their families’ cattle ranches, taking part in many activities including calving, branding, and rounding up the herd.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 1

Buffalo Dreams

Having traveled with her family to see a newly born white buffalo and give her gifts, Sarah Bearpaw experiences a magic moment with the special calf. Includes a legend of the white buffalo and instructions for making a dreamcatcher.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 1

Between Shades of Gray

In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia. Her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family in a labor camp.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 2

Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy

Sixteen-year-old Carlos Duarte is on the verge of realizing his dream of becoming a famous make-up artist, but first he must face his jealous boss at a Macy’s cosmetics counter, his sister’s abusive boyfriend and his crush on a punk-rocker classmate.