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Weird Rules to Follow
By Kim Spencer. 2022
The Probability of Everything
By Sarah Everett. 2023
“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book ClubNPR Books We Love…
2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's LiteratureA heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye."My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last ChanceThe Reading Group: A festive FREE short story (1)
By Della Parker. 2016
'Brims with laughs, love, family and friendship. You will love this heartwarming read!' Trisha Ashley. Meet the Reading Group: six…
women in the seaside village of Little Sanderton come together every month to share their love of reading. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss . . . and don't forget the glass of red!Grace knows that the holiday season is going to be different this year. No turkey, no tinsel, no gorgeously wrapped gifts under the tree . . . how on earth is she going to break it to her little boys that Christmas is effectively cancelled? And can she bear to tell anyone her embarrassing secret? Enter the Reading Group: Grace's life might have turned upside down but there's no problem they can't solve.The Reading Group: February (Part #3)
By Della Parker. 2016
'Brims with laughs, love, family and friendship. You will love this heartwarming read!' Trisha Ashley. Meet the Reading Group: six…
women in the seaside village of Little Sanderton come together every month to share their love of reading. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss . . . and don't forget the glass of red!Kate has tried to be a good wife to her husband Anton. Ever since he got demoted at work - answering to a woman no less - Anton simply hasn't been the same. Kate wants to help, but as the months pass and Anton pulls away from her both emotionally and physically, Kate can't help but feel a bit abandoned. Then Kate means Bob: the handsome, blue-eyed carpenter that Anton has hired to refurbish their kitchen. Kate instantly feels a powerful physical connection between them . . . but dare she risk her marriage for a man she barely knows?This month the Reading Group is enjoying Lady Chatterley's Lover . . . and trying not to giggle too much at the naughty parts!Let Him Go: A Novel
By Larry Watson. 2013
The celebrated author of Montana 1948 (over 400,000 copies sold) returns to the American West in this riveting tale of…
familial love and its unexpected consequences.Dalton, North Dakota. It's September 1951: years since George and Margaret Blackledge lost their son James when he was thrown from a horse; months since his widow Lorna took off with their only grandson and married Donnie Weboy. Margaret is steadfast, resolved to find and retrieve her grandson Jimmy - the one person in this world keeping James's memory alive - while George, a retired sheriff, is none too eager to stir up trouble. Unable to sway his wife from her mission, George takes to the road with Margaret by his side, traveling through the Dakota badlands to Gladstone, Montana. When Margaret tries to convince Lorna to return home to North Dakota and bring little Jimmy with her, the Blackledges find themselves entangled with the entire Weboy clan, who are determined not to give up the boy without a fight. From the author who brought us Montana 1948, Let Him Go is pitch-perfect, gutsy, and unwavering. Larry Watson is at his storytelling finest in this unforgettable return to the American West.The Gods of Second Chances
By Reid Psaltis, Dan Berne. 2014
Family means everything to widowed Alaskan fisherman Ray Bancroft, raising his granddaughter with help from a multitude of gods and…
goddesses-not to mention rituals ad-libbed at sea by his half-Tlingit best friend. But statues and otter bone ceremonies aren't enough when Ray's estranged daughter returns from prison, her search for a safe harbor threatening everything he holds sacred.That Summer
By David French. 2000
It's Memorial Day, 1990, and Margaret Ryan has returned from Vermont to the Ontario cottage country where, thirty-two years before,…
she had vacationed with her disintegrating family at a lakeside resort. For herself and her sister Daisy, it was a time of awakening, a time of discovery. Both of the girls fall in love with two of the local boys. Daisy, on the lookout for action, cruising the dances at the resort, can't deal with what she initiates, and falls victim to her own confusion and naiveté. Not even the neighbour, the eccentric, bourbon-drinking, cigar-smoking Mrs. Crump, who knows all the fairy-tale spells to capture the heart of a lover, can save Daisy from drowning in her own misadventure. At the same time, Margaret, bookish and withdrawn, inhabiting a universe defined by poets and novelists, is seduced in spite of herself. As Margaret, the narrator, watches Maggie, her younger self, relive the innocence and beauty of that summer, the play moves inexorably back to the heartbreak of a headlong surrender to experience, both won and lost in a single day. Cinematic in its feel and pacing, recalling the 1950s genre of Dirty Dancing and My American Cousin, That Summer is a meditation on what endures of fleeting moments over time. Cast of 5 women and 2 men.Home, Away
By Jeff Gillenkirk. 2010
Jason Thibodeaux has a $42 million contract to play baseball when the son he lost in a searing custody battle…
reappears in his life. Home, Away follows Thibodeaux's rise as a pitcher and his agonized decision to quit in his prime to care for his troubled son. Their evolving relationship redefines the meaning of fatherhood itself.Riding With the Queen
By Jennie Shortridge. 2003
Take the long way home. . . Full of big dreams of the fast life, Tallie Beck hit the road…
at the age of seventeen to become a rock ’n roll star—and vowed never to look back. Now, at thirty-four, she’s little more than a down-and-out singer who smokes and drinks too much and knows better than to make promises she can’t keep. Dumped by her latest band and low on cash, Tallie has no choice but to go back to Denver. Back to her crazy mother, and her resentful younger sister, Jane, who’s never forgiven her for leaving. But seeing her family again after all these years stirs something unexpected in Tallie. And after so many miles on that long, exhilarating, scary—and often lonely—road, she’s looking back to trace some wrong turns, and figure out the way to where she really wants to go. . . .The Lyre and the Lambs
By Sydney Avey. 2014
A feast of family can be a plate load of problems b It s the Sixites…
Modernity and tradition clash as two newlywed couples set up house together Dee and her daughter Valerie move with their husbands into a modern glass house Valerie built in a proudly rural Los Altos California neighborhood When their young relatives start showing up and moving in the neighbors get suspicious Then a body is found in the backyard and the life they are trying to build comes undone Father Mike is back to guide Dee through a difficult time with humor and grace even as his own life is unraveling Now he s going to have to take some of his own advice about love The sequel to The Sheep Walker s Daughter The Lyre and the Lambs explores the passions that draw people together and the faith it takes overcome traumaBordertown Café
By Kelly Rebar. 2003
Seventeen-year-old Jimmy faces the archetypal Canadian dilemma: stay home in Canada, with all its obvious flaws, or go south (young…
man) to the Land of Opportunity. Should he stay with his mother at the Bordertown Café or haul off with his trucker father? Family history is the border's story writ large. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.The Reading Group: January
By Della Parker. 2016
'Brims with laughs, love, family and friendship. You will love this heartwarming read!' Trisha Ashley. Meet the Reading Group: six…
women in the seaside village of Little Sanderton come together every month to share their love of reading. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss . . . and don't forget the glass of red!Anne-Marie has always considered herself a bit of a matchmaker - never mind that she's only got one real success under her belt. And this year she's determined to up her game: Little Sanderton's singles could certainly benefit from her expertise! But while Anne Marie thinks she knows what's best for everyone else, her own life couldn't be less of a fairytale romance. Between looking after her cranky father and running her own business, she doesn't have time for a relationship. Her friends in the Reading Group know better though: after all, love can be found in the most unexpected of places . . .This January the Reading Group is tackling Jane Austen's Emma . . . but who's got time for fiction when romance is in the air?A Different Home: A New Foster Child's Story
By John Degarmo, Norma Jeanne Trammell, Kelly Degarmo. 2014
A sensitive picture book to help ease the anxieties of foster children aged 4 to 10 entering placement. In A…
Different Home, Jessie tells us her story of being placed in foster care. At first she is worried and has lots of questions. The new home is not like her old home -- she has a different bedroom, different clothes, and there's different food for breakfast. She also misses her family. When Jim and Debbie, her foster parents, answer her questions she begins to feel better and see that this different home is kind of nice. Written in simple language and fully illustrated in color, this storybook is designed to help children in care, or moving into care, to settle in and answer some of the questions they may have. Accompanied by notes for adults on how to use the story with children, it will be a useful book for foster parents and caseworkers, as well as social workers, teachers and anyone else working with children in foster care.Guys Like Me
By Howard Curtis, Dominique Fabre. 2015
"Fabre is a genius of these nuanced, interior moments ... The story Fabre tells is that of every one of…
us: looking for meaning in the mundane, moving through our lives, our interactions, as if through the fabric of a dream ... How do we live? it asks to consider. And: What does our existence mean?"--Los Angeles Times"Guys Like Me is a short, arresting tale that ...not only offers keen insights into the mind of its middle-aged protagonist, but also provides the reader with a unique tour of what everyday life in the low-key suburbs of Paris must truly be like."--Typographical Era"Readers will take pleasure in this well-told tale with a satisfying ending."--Publishers Weekly"The setting may be Paris, but it's not the Paris of grand avenues and pricey cafés. In fact, Fabre's hero is a recognizable everyman, from any country."-Library JournalA smile like a soft flash of light . . . travels through this moving novel and tells, in words that are muted and profoundly humane, of life as it is."-Le Monde"Fabre speaks to us of luck and misfortune, of the accidents that make a man or defeat him. He talks about our ordinary disappointments and our small moments of calm. Fabre is the discreet megaphone of the man in the crowd."-Elle"In this novel one finds the intimate geography of an author who lays bare the essence of Paris and its outskirts."-La Quinzaine littéraireDominique Fabre, born in Paris and a lifelong resident of the city, exposes the shadowy, anonymous lives of many who inhabit the French capital. In this quiet, subdued tale, a middle-aged office worker, divorced and alienated from his only son, meets up with two childhood friends who are similarly adrift, without passions or prospects. He's looking for a second act to his mournful life, seeking the harbor of love and a true connection with his son. Set in palpably real Paris streets that feel miles away from the City of Light, Guys Like Me is a stirring novel of regret and absence, yet not without a glimmer of hope.Dominique Fabre, born in 1960, writes about people living on society's margins. He is a lifelong resident of Paris, France. His previous novel, The Waitress Was New, was also translated into English.The Business of Naming Things
By Michael Coffey. 2015
"Riveting . . . vibrant and unsparing." -Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)"Superb. . . . Startlingly original." -Library Journal…
(starred review)"Once I started reading these stories, I couldn't stop. They absorbed me thoroughly, with their taut narratives and evocative language-the language of a poet." -JAY PARINI, author of Jesus: The Human Face of God and The Last Station"Sherwood Anderson would recognize this world of lonely, longing characters, whose surface lives Coffey tenderly plumbs. These beautiful stories-spare, rich, wise and compelling-go to the heart." -FREDERIC TUTEN, author of Self Portraits: Fictions and Tintin in the New World"Whether [Coffey is] writing about a sinning priest or a man who's made a career out of branding or about himself, we can smell Coffey's protagonists and feel their breath on our cheek. Like Chekhov, he must be a notebook writer; how else to explain the strange quirks and the perfect but unaccountable details that animate these intimate portraits?" -EDMUND WHITE, author of Inside a Pearl and A Boy's Own StoryAmong these eight stories, a fan of writer (and fellow adoptee) Harold Brodkey gains an audience with him at his life's end, two pals take a Joycean sojourn, a man whose business is naming things meets a woman who may not be what she seems, and a father discovers his son is a suspect in an assassination attempt on the president. In each tale, Michael Coffey's exquisite attention to character underlies the brutally honest perspectives of his disenchanted fathers, damaged sons, and orphans left feeling perpetually disconnected.Michael Coffey is the author of three books of poems and 27 Men Out, a book about baseball's perfect games. He also co-edited The Irish in America, a book about Irish immigration to America, which was a companion volume to a PBS documentary series. He divides his time between Manhattan and Bolton Landing, New York. The Business of Naming Things is his first work of fiction.Crossing the Continent
By Michel Tremblay, Sheila Fischman. 1998
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, to a Cree mother and a French father, Réauna, affectionately known throughout Tremblay's work as…
"Nana," was sent with her two younger sisters, Béa and Alice, to be raised on her maternal grandparents' farm in Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan, a francophone Catholic enclave of two hundred souls. At the age of ten, amid swaying fields of wheat under the idyllic prairie sky of her loving foster family, Nana is suddenly told by her mother, whom she hasn't seen in five years and who now lives in Montreal, to come "home" and help take care of her new baby brother.So it is that Nana, with her faint recollection of the smell of the sea, embarks alone on an epic journey by train through Regina, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, on which she encounters a dizzying array of strangers and distant relatives, including Ti-Lou, the "she-wolf of Ottawa."To our delight, Michel Tremblay here takes his readers outside Quebec for the first time, on a quintessential North American journey - it is 1913, at a time of industry and adventure, when crossing the continent was an enterprise undertaken by so many, young and old, from myriads of cultures, unimpeded by the abstractly constructed borders and identities that have so fractured our world of today.This, the first in Tremblay's series of "crossings" novels, provides us with the back-story to the characters of his great Chronicles of Plateau Mont-Royal, particularly of his mother, "The Fat Woman Next Door ..." and his maternal grandmother, who, though largely uneducated, was a voracious reader and introduced him to the world of reading and books, including Tintin adventure comics, mass-market novels, and The Inn of the Guardian Angel, which fascinated the young Tremblay with its sections of dramatic dialogue, inspiring the many great plays he would eventually write.Big Sister
By Marianne Richmond. 2011
Mom and dad told me I am going to be a big sister. "No thanks," I said. "We already have…
me. "Such may be the funny and truthful sentiment of a "big-sister-to-be" upon hearing the announcement of a new sibling. A baby brings changes for the entire family – some unexpected, some confusing, some exciting – and all a wonderful adventure! An endearing story, Big Sister recounts the humorous journey – and happy ending – of one spirited little girl's experience with her expanding family.Steps and Stones
By Gail Silver, Christiane Kromer. 2011
When Anh's friends leave and he feels left out at school, his anger shows up to keep him company. Anh…
the protagonist of Gail Silver's previous book Anh's Anger, is a typical and easy-to-relate-to elementary school-age boy. His anger, personified as a red hairy impulsive creature, teaches him some valuable lessons about not getting carried away by his strong emotions. By counting his steps and coordinating them with his breathing Anh is able to slow down and take his anger for a peaceful and magically transformative walk.Reach and Teach.com called Anh's Anger, "One of the best books we've ever seen on the issue of dealing with anger." The New Yorker review highlighted how the book uses "deep breathing... to regain control during a tantrum." And Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh calls the Anh's Anger series, "a wonderful gift for both children and adults who want to learn how to turn unhappy situations into joyful ones."Steps and Stones the second of the Anh's Anger Story trilogy will help children learn to understand the causes of their own strong emotions, and teaches them peaceful ways to resolve difficulties through mindfulness and meditation. An invaluable tool for parents and teachers alike.Steps and Stones is beautifully illustrated by New York artist and children's book illustrator Christiane Krömer. Using a mix of paper, acrylic, cardboard, and found materials, her vibrant multi-textured collages reflect the connection between the characters and their environment and echo the wide range of emotions that come together in the story.Gail Silver writes: "If, at an early age, children become comfortable with identifying and articulating their anger, then they can feel confident working through anger in healthy ways during their adolescent years. There is a lot of adolescent violence in the news today. I am overwhelmed with pain and sadness every time I hear of an adolescent using a gun. While these teens are deeply troubled and have many problems, unresolved anger plays a part in their difficulty. I hope these books can be used as a preventative resource. We can only practice what we know or what we are willing to learn. My hope is that the Anh's Anger stories can contribute to a decrease in adolescent aggression and violence by teaching children at an early age how to safely understand and express their anger."The Ultimate Gift
By Jim Stovall. 2001
What would you do to inherit a million dollars? Would you be willing to change your life? Jason Stevens is…
about to find out in Jim Stovall's The Ultimate Gift.Red Stevens has died, and the older members of his family receive their millions with greedy anticipation. But a different fate awaits young Jason, whom Stevens, his great-uncle, believes may be the last vestige of hope in the family."Although to date your life seems to be a sorry excuse for anything I would call promising, there does seem to be a spark of something in you that I hope we can fan into a flame. For that reason, I am not making you an instant millionaire."What Stevens does give Jason leads to The Ultimate Gift. Young and old will take this timeless tale to heart.A Different Home: A New Foster Child's Story
By John Degarmo, Norma Trammell, Kelly Degarmo. 2014
A sensitive picture book to help ease the anxieties of foster children aged 4 to 10 entering placement. In A…
Different Home, Jessie tells us her story of being placed in foster care. At first she is worried and has lots of questions. The new home is not like her old home -- she has a different bedroom, different clothes, and there's different food for breakfast. She also misses her family. When Jim and Debbie, her foster parents, answer her questions she begins to feel better and see that this different home is kind of nice. Written in simple language and fully illustrated in color, this storybook is designed to help children in care, or moving into care, to settle in and answer some of the questions they may have. Accompanied by notes for adults on how to use the story with children, it will be a useful book for foster parents and caseworkers, as well as social workers, teachers and anyone else working with children in foster care.