Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 20 of 99 items
By Eleanor Agnew. 1999
The authors share their personal accounts along with the memories and experiences of hundreds of women who are the daughters…
of alcoholic mothers. Co-author is Sharon Robideaux, foreword by Dr. Robert J. Ackerman. 1999By Kirby Larson. 2016
New Orleans, 1940s. Polio-survivor Fish Elliot and his neighbor Olympia team up in order to save a starving stray dog…
they call Liberty, and they find other unlikely allies willing to help. For grades 3-6. 2016By Kirby Larson. 2014
When her family is forced into a Japanese internment camp, Mitsi Kashino is separated from her home, her classmates, and…
her beloved dog, Dash. Heartbroken, Mitsi clings to her one connection to Dash: the letters from the kindly neighbor who is caring for him. For grades 3-6. 2014By Dan Greenburg. 1996
Ten-year-old Zack goes to the animal shelter to find a pet. He returns with a scruffy tomcat, who not only…
talks but claims to be the reincarnation of Zack's great-grandpa Julius. For grades 2-4. 1996By Anna Pasternak. 2007
Daisy Dooley, a thirty-nine-year-old divorced Londoner living with her dachshund-breeder mum, rejoins the dating world. For support, Daisy relies on…
her friends--bachelorette Jess, seemingly happily married Lucy, and commitment-phobic Miles--as she navigates the singles scene searching for true love. Strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2007By Gloria Whelan. 2006
Michigan, 1942. With their parents working for the war effort, Mirabelle and her siblings travel to live with their grandparents…
on Turtle Island. Fourteen-year-old Belle is resentful when her more sophisticated fifteen-year-old cousin Caroline joins them, but during the summer they become real family. For grades 6-9. 2006By Gary D. Schmidt. 2007
Long Island, 1967. Seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood knows that Mrs. Baker "hates his guts" because she would have Wednesday afternoons free…
if he went to catechism or Hebrew school like his classmates. Mrs. Baker worries about her husband in Vietnam and introduces a reluctant Holling to Shakespeare. For grades 5-8. Newbery Honor. 2007By Erik P. Kraft. 2002
Twin brothers Lenny and Mel celebrate holidays in some unusual ways. After eating Thanksgiving turkey for a week, the boys…
put the remains under Mel's pillow for the Leftover Fairy to exchange for money. Beginning chapter book. For grades 2-4. 2002By Kimberly Holt. 1998
Louisiana, 1950s. Twelve-year-old Tiger Ann Parker begins to feel embarrassed in front of the other kids about the "slowness" of…
her parents. Her grandmother is the one who keeps the family intact. After Granny dies, Tiger has a chance to move to the city with her sophisticated aunt, but she is reluctant to abandon the parents who love her. For grades 6-9By John Fitzgerald, Diane DeGroat. 1995
In this final book about the Great Brain (the manuscript was found after the author's death), J.D. narrates eight more…
tales about how his big brother, Tom, now thirteen, continues to swindle people out of their money. Tom convinces J.D. to sell bars of soap, he almost outwits Polly Reagan in the spelling bee, and he helps rescue a gang of outlaws. For grades 4-7By Nancy Springer. 2001
Thirteen-year-old Donni, living with her father, is so upset over her parents' divorce that she gets into increasingly serious trouble…
at school. She does not realize how much her fourteen-year-old sister, Trisha, who lives with their mother, is also hurting. For grades 6-9. 2001By Jerry Spinelli. 1995
Tooter Pepperday is hopping mad. Her family is moving to her aunt's farm where there are no Big Macs and…
no pizza delivery. Once there, Tooter is even more outraged when she's told to baby-sit an abandoned egg and to turn it each day until it hatches. For grades 2-4By Laurence Yep. 1995
Teddy hates the fact that his little brother Bobby is so well behaved. He always tries to get a rise…
out of Bobby by giving him unlikable birthday presents, but this year Teddy's mother insists he buy Bobby a turtle. Teddy compromises by buying Bobby a baby alligator. To Teddy's surprise, Bobby loves his new pet! For grades 3-6By Lois Lowry. 1996
Four-year-old Sam Krupnik comes home from school delighted with a set of fangs that makes him look disgusting. His mother…
won't let him wear them in the house, so Sam decides to run away to Alaska. But after Sam leaves home, he needs food and a drink of water--and maybe there isn't any reason to hurry to Alaska. For grades 3-6By Rein Raud, Adam Cullen. 2008
The Brother is a spaghetti western told in poetic prose, simultaneously paying tribute to both Clint Eastwood and Alessandro Baricco.…
It opens with a mysterious stranger arriving in a small town controlled by a group of men-men who recently cheated the stranger's supposed sister out of her inheritance. Following his arrival, fortunes change dramatically, enraging this group of powerful men.By Helen Dewitt. 2016
Called "remarkable" (The Wall Street Journal) and "an ambitious, colossal debut novel" (Publishers Weekly), Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai is…
back in print at last Helen DeWitt's 2000 debut, The Last Samurai, was "destined to become a cult classic" (Miramax). The enterprising publisher sold the rights in twenty countries, so "Why not just, 'destined to become a classic?'" (Garth Risk Hallberg) And why must cultists tell the uninitiated it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise? Sibylla, an American-at-Oxford turned loose on London, finds herself trapped as a single mother after a misguided one-night stand. High-minded principles of child-rearing work disastrously well. J. S. Mill (taught Greek at three) and Yo Yo Ma (Bach at two) claimed the methods would work with any child; when these succeed with the boy Ludo, he causes havoc at school and is home again in a month. (Is he a prodigy, a genius? Readers looking over Ludo's shoulder find themselves easily reading Greek and more.) Lacking male role models for a fatherless boy, Sibylla turns to endless replays of Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai. But Ludo is obsessed with the one thing he wants and doesn't know: his father's name. At eleven, inspired by his own take on the classic film, he sets out on a secret quest for the father he never knew. He'll be punched, sliced, and threatened with retribution. He may not live to see twelve. Or he may find a real samurai and save a mother who thinks boredom a fate worse than death.By Mac Lethal. 2013
A family story for the twenty-first century, based on the phenomenally popular Texts from Bennett Tumblr blog, this epistolary novel…
chronicles the year that Bennett and the rest of his freeloading family moved into his cousin Mac's household.Hardworking Kansas rapper Mac has a problem, and its name is Bennett. His wannabe gangster cousin is seventeen, uses drugs and foul language, treats women worse than Charlie Sheen, and has just moved in. For the sake of aiding his addled aunt and trying to put Bennett on the straight and narrow, Mac dutifully takes them into his house when they lose their own. Through their interactions and legendary text message exchanges, one thing becomes absolutely clear: Bennett views the world differently than most. (Partly because he's looking through smoke-filled glasses). In a year of ups and downs, Mac and Bennett need to stick together and make this new family unit work. From stealing cats, to legendary fights with the uncontrollable Mercedes, to his "11 commandmints of gittin bitchez," Bennett's going to make that more than a little difficult. But if Mac pays enough attention, maybe, just maybe he'll learn something along the way himself. Regardless of whether they survive their time together, one thing's for sure, though: Bennett is no ordinary teenager, and certainly not one you'll soon forget.By Richard Wiley. 2016
"A witty, roller-coaster ride of uncertain identity set against the gritty certainties of New York City. In compelling, unadorned prose,…
Richard Wiley gives us a bewitching and ultimately moving tale." -Caryl Phillips, author of A Distant Shore and The Lost ChildDr. Ruby Okada meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed forever by the time they get to the street.Who is the mysterious man? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson, back to haunt New York as Long John Silver and Mr. Edward Hyde? Her career compromised, Ruby soon learns that her future and that of her unborn child depend on finding the key to his identity. With compelling psychological descriptions and terrifying, ineffable transformations, Bob Stevenson is an ingenious tale featuring a quirky cast of characters drawn together by mutual fascination, need, and finally, love.Richard Wiley is the author of eight novels including Soldiers in Hiding, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and Ahmed's Revenge, winner of the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. Professor emeritus at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he divides his time between Los Angeles, California and Tacoma, Washington.By Paul Shepherd. 2005
[A] haunting novel. . . . This book brims with the poetry of the working class, seldom sung lyrics of…
working men and women.--from the introduction by Larry Woiwode"Shepherd is a master craftsman, and the subtlety of his art, the unassuming elegance of its architecture, rendered me spellbound and finally grateful. I don't think I shall ever forget this fine book, its honest, guileless voice leading me along into the fire."--Bob Shacochis"A riveting exploration of what it is to be an outsider even in your own head. Shepherd has written a gripping story of childhood angst--psychologically thrilling, lyrically exact."--Janet BurrowayLevi Revel is a boy in danger of losing his family and maybe his mind. He's in awe of his father, Everest, a majestic dreamer, a master builder, a man with a violent, secret past. As the family moves from state to state, Levi hears solace in the voice of God, a voice that sends him preaching from treetops and roofs.But the family begins to fall apart, and as Levi enters adolescence, he hears more troubling things: other voices, terrifying sounds, warnings. When Everest takes him on a high-speed, cross-country chase to win back Levi's mother--by force if necessary--Levi realizes how much danger they all are in.Tender and frightening, this debut novel takes readers across America, through the eyes and ears of a child whose family is haunted by a past they can't outrun. From a boy lost in a world of imaginary voices and chilling destruction to a young man who can rebuild steeples, the story Levi tells is the triumph of persistence over moments of isolation and despair.Paul Shepherd lives in Tallahassee, Florida.'Absolutely loved this book' 5* NetGalley ReviewerIs there anything you wouldn't do for your children? Obviously be a parent governor…
and chair the PTA. But what about slander and manipulation? Dabble in a bit of hit and run? And, if necessary, how about murder? You think your school run is tough? After her unoriginal husband leaves her for his secretary, Beverley finds herself facing a life she hadn't planned for. Now a single mum forced to send her children to the failing local primary school, her children's carefully crafted futures now lie in the hands of incompetent teachers and bullying playground mums. Desperate to save her children from this situation Beverley sets out to make Harper Hill the best school it can be, but even the best laid plans go awry. Thankfully Beverley isn't afraid to take matters into her own hands - but how far is she really willing to go to fight for her children's future? If you want something done right, do it yourself.