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Showing 1 - 20 of 161 items
By Shauntay Grant. 2018
Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, Young People’s Literature – Illustrated BooksWhen a young girl visits the site of…
Africville, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the stories she’s heard from her family come to mind. She imagines what the community was once like — the brightly painted houses nestled into the hillside, the field where boys played football, the pond where all the kids went rafting, the bountiful fishing, the huge bonfires. Coming out of her reverie, she visits the present-day park and the sundial where her great- grandmother’s name is carved in stone, and celebrates a summer day at the annual Africville Reunion/Festival.Africville was a vibrant Black community for more than 150 years. But even though its residents paid municipal taxes, they lived without running water, sewers, paved roads and police, fire-truck and ambulance services. Over time, the city located a slaughterhouse, a hospital for infectious disease, and even the city garbage dump nearby. In the 1960s, city officials decided to demolish the community, moving people out in city dump trucks and relocating them in public housing.Today, Africville has been replaced by a park, where former residents and their families gather each summer to remember their community.By Andreas Souvaliotis. 2019
Updated and expanded: A new edition of the inspiring memoir by one of Canada's most unusual, successful and socially conscious…
businesspeople."I am different. I have always been different. I grew up scared of being found out, scared of my natural inability to fit in, to conform, to look and sound and dress and behave 'normal.' I was always drawn to the different ones and I observed them with fascination--but the thought of being even a little bit like them mortified me. I was desperate to fit in. . . ." --From MisfitAndreas Souvaliotis was raised at a time when being on the autism spectrum wasn't easily diagnosed or even discussed. Minds like his were simply considered odd. He also knew from an early age he was gay, and it terrified him as he was growing up with openly homophobic parents in one of Europe's least tolerant societies.Andreas's differences made him an outsider, right through to his mid-forties. And then suddenly, everything changed. Misfit is the extraordinary memoir of a man who realized there was strength in his strangeness, that it could be used as a force for good. "It all happened in a flash. On a beautiful spring morning in 2007, sitting in my backyard and licking my wounds from a spectacular career derailment, I came up with a big idea--and I found myself contemplating the most daring and unconventional pursuit of my life." The weird kid from Greece was on his way to making his world, and everyone's world, a better place.Andreas Souvaliotis's inspiring story shows us that everyone has what it takes to trigger positive change, and that none of us should see our differences and quirks as handicaps.• The author is donating all of his proceeds from this book to 6 Degrees, a global charitable initiative that promotes inclusion, diversity, belonging and citizenhip. 6degreesto.comBy Laura Amy Schlitz. 2021
The Newbery Medal–winning author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! gives readers a virtuoso performance in verse in this profoundly original…
epic pitched just right for fans of poetry, history, mythology, and fantasy. Welcome to ancient Greece as only genius storyteller Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, "ringed by a restless sea," live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto is a spoiled aristocrat, a girl as precious as amber but willful and wild. She'll marry and be tamed—the curse of all highborn girls—but risk her life for a season first to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos—Amber and Clay—never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force. Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archaeological "artifacts," this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate the over—and underworlds of human historyBy Beth Powning. 2021
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A novel of orphans and widows, terror and hope, and the relationships that hold us together when things…
fall apart.With murder dominating the news, the respected wife of a New Brunswick sea captain is drawn into the case of a British home child whose bad luck has turned worse. Mortified that she must purchase the girl in a pauper auction to save her from the lechery of wealthy townsmen, Josephine Galloway finds herself suddenly the proprietor of a boarding house kept afloat by the sweat and tears of a curious and not completely compatible collection of women, including this English teenager, Flora Salford. Flora's place in her new "family" cannot be complete until she rescues the missing person in her life, the only one who understands the trials she has come through and fresh horrors met since they were separated years before.Reconnecting with characters of Beth Powning's beloved The Sea Captain's Wife, The Sister's Tale is a story of women finding their way, together, through terrible circumstances they could neither predict nor avoid, but will stop at nothing to overcome.By Roxane Orgill. 2018
A novel in verse. Story of the siege of Boston that launched the war to defeat the British. Follows the…
events from the summer of 1775 to the spring of 1776, and gives voice to the soldiers and civilians of that time. For grades 6-9. 2018By Linda Byler. 2017
Hannah and her family still struggle with the events of The Homestead (DB 88593), but they are settling into life…
in North Dakota when tragedy strikes. As other Amish families decide to return to Lancaster, Hannah and her family face the same decision, even as she is being courted. 2017By Margarita Engle, Rudy Gutierrez. 2018
A novel in verse. In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day, then…
jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot-suit wearing younger brother, Ray. But one night, racial violence leads to murder. Some violence. For junior and senior high and older readers. 2018By R. L. Toalson. 2018
A novel in verse. In 1972, after his father is killed, Paulie is sent to live with his Aunt Bee…
in Houston, a city fighting desegregation. But as Paulie gets into fights with a black student, he is forced to understand the circumstances surrounding his father's death. For grades 4-7. 2018By Kip Wilson. 2019
A novel in verse. Sophie Scholl, a young German college student, challenges the Nazi regime during World War II as…
part of the White Rose, a nonviolent resistance group. For grades 6-9 and older readers. 2019By Hope Anita Smith, Lea Lyon, Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet. 2019
A novel in verse and fictionalized account of the experiences of a Polish Jew, Moishe, who, with his parents, brother,…
and a sister, struggles to survive the Nazi invasion and the Holocaust. For grades 4-7 and older readers. 2019By Linda Byler. 2017
Teenaged Hannah resents her parents when they leave Lancaster County after losing the farm during the Depression. Settling in North…
Dakota, the family struggles without the support of the Amish community. Hannah seeks help from ranch hand Clay Jenkins and wrestles with her feelings for him. 2017By Margarita Engle. 2016
Novel in verse. In 1870s Cuba, Antonio Chuffat, a messenger boy of Chinese, African, and Cuban descent, becomes a translator…
and documents the freedom struggle of indentured Chinese laborers in his country. For grades 5-8. 2016By Ashley Bryan. 2016
Eleven enslaved people narrate their experiences as pieces of property and talk about personal dreams and desires that could never…
be taken away from them. Based on original slave auction and plantation estate documents. For grades 3-6. 2016By Jeannine Atkins. 2016
Biographical novel in verse featuring three notable women scientists in three different time periods: Maria Merian, a naturalist and scientific…
illustrator; Mary Anning, a fossil collector and paleontologist; and Maria Mitchell, an astronomer. For grades 4-7. 2016By Carole Boston Weatherford, Jeffery Boston Weatherford. 2016
History in verse that celebrates the Tuskegee Airmen. Recounts the challenges faced by the African American pilots in WWII, who…
triumphed in the skies and blew past the color barriers as fighter squadrons. For grades 5-8. 2016By Dav Pilkey, Richard Blanco. 2015
By Ann Turner, Ann Warren Turner, James Ransome. 2015
By Marilyn Hilton. 2015
Novel in verse. In 1969, seventh-grader Mimi and her family move to an all-white town in Vermont, where Mimi's mixed-race…
background and interest in "boyish" topics like astronomy and carpentry make her feel like an outsider. For grades 4-7. 2015By Nikki Grimes, Jerome Lagarrigue Lagarrigue. 2002
A collection of poems tells the story of a young, impressionable boy moving to a city neighborhood with his mother.…
He meets his mother's tough-looking friend Blue, and as the older man watches out for the boy a bond develops. For grades 2-4 and older readers. 1999By Thanhha Lai, Thanhhà Lai. 2011
Ten-year-old H ̉writes poems to chronicle the life-changing year of 1975, when H,̉ her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam…
and resettle in Alabama. For grades 4-7. National Book Award. 2011