Author: Cynthia Kadohata
Published: 2004 Katie and her sister Lynn are best friends. They recently have moved to Georgia and get funny looks because they are Japanese, and there aren’t many people who look like them there. In order to make ends meet, their parents have to work long days and sometimes don’t even come home at night and just sleep a few hours in between their shifts at work. Lynn and Katie do everything together, but then Lynn gets sick and spends a lot of time in bed. At first her parents just think she’s anemic and isn’t getting enough iron in her diet. But Lynn doesn’t get better. In order to pay for her medical care, Lynn and Katie’s parents are working even more than they were before Lynn got sick. With her parents gone all the time, Katie has to take care of Lynn. Katie can’t remember a time without Lynn, but she’s worried she’s going to have to figure out how to live without her in her future. This is a great, devastating book about the relationship between sisters.
0 Comments
Author: K.A. Holt
Published: 2015 Written in verse, House Arrest is about a boy named Timothy who stole someone’s wallet and got caught. He is sentenced by the judge to spend a year at his home under house arrest, writing in a court-ordered journal. If he can get through a year without getting in more trouble, then he won’t have to go to juvie. Timothy knows that stealing is wrong, but he stole the wallet to try to pay for his sick baby brother Levi’s expensive medicine. When Levi was born, there was something wrong. He has to breathe through a trach, a plastic tube in his neck. He gets sick all the time, and he struggles with breathing. Timothy and his mom know how to care for him, but they need the help of a nurse because his mom works. In his journal, Timothy writes about the struggles his family faces, like how they don’t have enough money, how his dad left after Levi was born, and how the the nurse treats Levi badly sometimes. With the money situation and Levi’s health getting worse, Timothy’s mom is thinking about sending Levi to live in a facility. Timothy will do anything to keep his brother home and healthy. But what can he do? Author: Darcey Rosenblatt
Published: 2017 It is the year 1982, and Iran and Iraq are in a war. Young boys in Iran are going to fight in a war that they don’t understand. Reza’s dad was killed fighting, and Reza’s mom wants him to sign up to fight so he can die a hero too. Reza doesn’t want to go to war, but because of the pressure from his mom, he decides to enlist along with his friend Ebi. Soon Reza finds out that the war he signed up for is not at all what he expected. The boys who signed up at the same time Reza and Ebi did are put in an awful situation where they either do not survive or are injured. Reza loses consciousness and wakes up in a hospital in a prisoner-of-war camp in Iraq. Ebi is not with him. The POW camp is actually not as bad as some of the other camps, except for one of the guards who doesn’t like Reza and makes it his mission to make Reza’s life miserable. Reza decides to do what he can in order to find out where Ebi is and meet him. That is, if his friend is even still alive. Author: Robert Hoge
Published: 2015 In his memoir, Robert writes about how he was born with a tumor in the middle of his face and disfigured legs. His parents were not expecting this, and his mom didn't know how to handle it after she gave birth. For awhile, she considered leaving Robert at the hospital instead of taking him home. The doctors removed the tumor, made him a new nose, but that was only the beginning of the many surgeries and procedures Robert would have to face throughout his childhood. Robert talks about the many mean nicknames he received in school because of the way he looked and how people would react to seeing him. When the doctors told him that they could do one final surgery to make his face look almost "normal," Robert has to decide if the risks are worth it or not. Ugly is a great book for readers who love Wonder. Author: Dusti Bowling
Published: 2017 Whenever someone asks Aven what happened to her arms, she makes up a ridiculous story, like she lost them in an alligator wrestling match. But really Aven was born without arms. She has learned to be self-sufficient and can do everything that others can do, only instead of using her hands, she uses her feet. When Aven's parents adopted her, they made sure that Aven learned how to do things on her own. When Aven's dad gets a new job in Arizona managing an old theme park, Aven has to leave behind everything she knows. Suddenly, Aven is the new girl at school. She misses her old school where everyone understood her and were used to her being different. Now Aven is scared to eat lunch at school because she doesn't want anyone to think she's weird. Soon Aven makes a new friend, a boy named Connor who also feels like an outcast because he has Tourette Syndrome and can't control some of the things he says and does. Together they discover old secrets at the old theme park, and Aven uncovers more about her past. Chase is the school bully. He and his other friends on the football team terrorize their classmates, even making one of them switch schools. They don’t often get in trouble because of how well-known their parents are in the community. Chase is awful to others. One day he falls off the roof of his house, and when he wakes up he discovers that he can’t remember anything. He has amnesia. He goes to school and immediately notices how people react to him. He can’t remember any of the awful things he has done or who he has done them to. When Chase hears about the things he used to do, he is horrified. He wants to be nothing like the guy he used to be. But some of his football friends want the old Chase back. When a boy who was bullied by Chase and his friends so bad that he had to change schools, comes back to school, everyone is waiting to see if Chase really has changed or not.
|
Follow us on Instagram! @slmslibrary
Categories
All
Archives
August 2022
|