“You need a stable family environment.”“You need a family that’s not all broken like yours is.” Charlie finds herself leaving her city home in Raleigh, North Carolina, sent away to small-town Colby, through no fault of her own. Her father is in jail for fighting and now he’s “getting corrected,” and her mother is depressed … Read more
What happens when a self-proclaimed “school’s biggest prankster” has to move from his cool beach-side home to the perfectly-named Yawnee Valley, filled with boring cows? (Yawnee Valley is so boring that “counting moos is a popular pastime.”) Well, it sure doesn’t feel like a “fresh start” to Miles Murphy. But it is an opportunity to … Read more
Imagine life as a gopher snake. They look ferocious. They appear to be aggressive. But really that’s just because they often get confused for rattlesnakes. “I’m big, strong, and mean – and, though not deadly to humans, my bite doesn’t exactly tickle.” Crusher, the gopher snake, would love to be a rattlesnake. Instead, she is … Read more
There’s a lot to know about Maria Luisa, better known as Malú, but let’s start with this: she loves punk music, she loves to make creative zines, and she hates cilantro. Malú’s father runs a punk record store in Florida, while Malú and her mother – whom she teases as SuperMexican – are temporarily moving … Read more
“It’s Simon Barnes here. But everybody calls me the Notorious D.O.G., because I might be little but I’ve got a loud bark. Okay, not true. Nobody calls me the Notorious D.O.G. yet.” As Simon prepares for his first day of fifth grade, he’s nervous because he’s always had trouble letting his inner voice be heard. … Read more
“Some of these places I am still getting to know, some of these places I have known all my life. All these places made me, are making me.” Amara Baker lives in Beaverton, Oregon, and all she wants for her twelfth birthday is to go to New York with her father on his business trip … Read more
