Showing titles in Difficult Discussions

Gabriel King is afraid of everything: spiders, the rope swing over the lake, and most of all, going to fifth grade. Frita Wilson, his best friend, decides Gabriel needs some liberating from his fears, so they make a list and plan to tackle each one. But one of the reasons Frita is so determined to help Gabe is that she needs his help too. Hollowell, Georgia, in 1976 isn't exactly the most integrated place, and Frita's the only Black student in school in a town with an active Ku Klux Klan.

In this inventive, fast-paced novel, New York Times bestselling and Printz Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi takes on hard-hitting themes - from food safety to racism and immigration - and creates a zany, grand-slam adventure that will get kids thinking about where their food comes from. The zombie apocalypse begins on the day Rabi, Miguel, and Joe are practicing baseball near their town's local meatpacking plant and nearly get knocked out by a really big stink.

When Lily's blind dog, Lucky, slips his collar and runs away across the wide-open blueberry barrens of Eastern Maine, it's Salma Santiago who manages to catch him. Salma, the daughter of migrant workers, is in the small town with her family for the blueberry-picking season.

She watches; she dreams. She sees more than they realize. She has worries and fears, hopes and desires. She is troubled; she is angry. Above all, she is lonely. She may be someone you know. She may be you. In So Much to Tell You she tells her story. With humor and insight, with sensitivity and strength, with painful honesty. You will never forget her.

It's 1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing's that easy in Penny's family. For starters, she can't go swimming because her mother's afraid she'll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father's name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren?t speaking to each other!

Laura has just three weeks to go before her Jewish "coming of age" ceremony, called a Bat Mitzvah, when she is assigned a special project. She is to read the diary of Sara Gittler, a young girl her own age who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Sara never had the chance to celebrate her coming of age, so Laura is to learn about Sara's life and then share her Bat Mitzvah with her "twin" by speaking of her at the ceremony.

Few winter stories are more affecting than Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Written in 1848, and strictly speaking a New Year's Eve story, it showed so clearly then, as it does now, that the Christmas holidays do not represent fireside, food, and presents for all. This story never fails to move, yet it somehow avoids serious sentimentality.

Cammie O'Reilly lives at the Hancock County Prison - not as a prisoner, she's the warden's daughter. She spends the mornings hanging out with shoplifters and reformed arsonists in the women's excercise yard, which gives Cammie a certain cache with her school friends. But even though Cammie's free to leave the prison, she's still stuck. And sad, and really mad. Her mother died saving her from harm when she was just a baby. You wouldn't think you could miss something you never had, but on the eve of her 13th birthday, the thing Cammie most wants is a mom.

What does it mean when the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is your father and also your slave master? Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston are Thomas Jefferson’s children, but their mother is a slave, so they must keep their father’s identity secret. They get special treatment - better work, better shoes, even violin lessons - but they are still slaves. Their father has promised to set them all free when each turns 21. Some of them are light-skinned enough that they will be able to enter white society - and thereby turn their backs on home forever.

In Flyaway, Christopher crafts a touching novel about hope, friendship, and family. When her father collapses from heart problems and is taken to the hospital, 13-year-old Isla is racked with guilt and fear. She was the one who insisted her father take her out that morning to look at the wild swans, and now she could lose him forever. But then she meets Harry, a boy with leukemia, who seems to understand her like no one else. Together, Isla and Harry embark on a quest to save a swan that cannot fly - and discover that perhaps miracles really can happen.

For Sugar, life is anything but sweet.

Ten-year-old Sugar lives on River Road Plantation along the banks of the Mississippi River. Slavery is over, but working in the sugarcane fields all day doesn’t make her feel very free. Thankfully, Sugar knows how to make her own fun, telling stories, climbing trees, and playing with forbidden friend Billy, the plantation owner’s son. Then a group of Chinese workers arrives to help harvest the cane. Sugar wants to know everything about them - she loves the way they dress, their unfamiliar language, and, best of all, the stories they tell of dragons and emperors.

Though he thinks of himself as a cowboy, Tommy is really a bully. He's always playing cruel jokes on classmates or stealing from the store. But Tommy has a reason: life at home is tough. His abusive mother isn't well; in fact, she may be mentally ill, and his sister, Mary Lou, is in the hospital badly burned from doing a chore it was really Tommy's turn to do. To make amends, Tommy takes over Mary Lou's paper route.

Award-winning picture book star Oliver Jeffers explores themes of love and loss in this life-affirming, uplifting tale, due to be featured in a major motion picture.Once there was a girl who was full of wonderment at how the world worked. She shared all her dreams and excitement with her father, who always had the answer to every question. That is until one day when his chair was empty, not to be filled again - how would the girl ever find meaning from her life again?

Amelia Peabody lives in a small town where nothing changes. And that's just fine by her. After losing her big sister, Clara, a few years ago, Amelia can't handle any more change. But when she starts eighth grade, she accidentally receives a letter that Clara had written to herself. In it, there's a list of things she'd wanted to do before the end of middle school and never finished, like get on the softball team and throw an awesome birthday party on the lake.

For years before they both achieved acclaim in their respective professions, good friends Taye Diggs and Shane W. Evans wanted to collaborate on Chocolate Me!, a story based on experiences of feeling different and trying to fit in as kids. Now, both men are fathers and see more than ever the need for an audiobook that encourages all people, especially kids, to love themselves.

Bex and Davey's summer in the saltmarsh is different this year, thanks to the record-breaking drought. Even the fish seem listless - and each day the water level lowers farther. When they discover a mysterious underwater statue, they're thrilled at the chance to solve the puzzle of its origin. This is the summer adventure they've been waiting for. When they learn of a development plan that will destroy their special spot, they'll need to act quickly. Unfortunately, sometimes progress happens whether you're ready or not.

Presidential inaugural poet and #1 New York Times bestselling author Amanda Gorman has created a timeless message of hope. Sometimes the world feels broken. And problems seem too big to fix. But somehow, we all have the power to make a difference. With a little faith, and maybe the help of a friend, together we can find beauty and create change.

In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined—to be used as a biological match for the president's son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue—the color of sadness. She lives in a small-small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often—he’s pacing and imagining he’s free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too—she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small-small room.

Kit Kittredge has a nose for news—but she never dreamed that the news stories about the hard times of the Depression would become her own story. First Mother’s bothersome friends move in with the Kittredges. Then Dad loses his business, and Kit’s family could lose their house! Things look hopeless, but a clever idea might let her family keep their home. Can Kit help pull it off?

Much to their surprise, the Peaches had a great summer running their food truck business selling their pies across the Mid-West, but they're happy to be back home in Duluth, Minnesota, where they can settle back into a routine just in time for the new school year. That is until Great Aunt Lucinda wants to gift them her historic mansion. But there are conditions: they're to turn it into a cozy bed-and-breakfast, something the Peach kids' mom always dreamed of before she passed away. And they only have until Thanksgiving to do the renovations and prove they can make the business work.