As he tries to come to terms with his mother's death, Vernon finds solace in his growing relationship with the neighborhood outcasts, an alcoholic and her retarded son.
Four siblings struggle to maintain a seminormal home life when their single mother's alcoholism becomes debilitating.
"This year's going to be a good one. The kind that I need." Twelve-year-old Easter Ann Peters has a plan to make seventh grade awesome: Operation Cool. She's determined to erase years of being known as the quiet, straight-A student who can't think of a decent comeback to a bully she calls Horse Girl. When the confident new girl, Wreni, becomes her long-needed best friend, Easter lets her personality shine. The coolest guy in school takes a sudden interest. But as tough times at school fade away,...
Thirteen-year-old Toby, a prematurely gray-haired Pittsburgh Pirates fan and baseball card collector, tries to cope with his brother's drug use, his father's absence, and his mother dating Stanley the Food King.
Fiona is a child of Irish immigrants; Yolanda is black. Compelled by financial hardship and concern about her daughter, Fiona’s mother has reunited with her husband, who struggles with alcoholism and the violence it triggers in him. Their new life offers Fiona the hope of normalcy and of finally being accepted by her peers. But her friendship with Yolanda is not something her new friends will tolerate, and so Fiona deceives both Yolanda and herself as she tries to make a life.
Written specifically for children ages 4-8, this brightly illustrated book candidly tackles the confusion and fear children face when a parent enters treatment. With vibrant illustrations by Mike Motz and a parent guide page included, parents now have a helpful tool that will ease children's apprehension when someone they love must confront reality Addiction is a devastating disease not only to the person who suffers from it, but also to family members. It's hard enough to explain to an adult ho...
Jean Ure returns with more warmth and wit in a brilliant book about what happens when two girls decide to run away from home. Fourteen-year-old Jade is fed up with fighting with her mum and step-dad, and her shy sixteen-year-old friend Honey is having a miserable time with her mum, but when Jade decides they should both run away, Honey isn't so sure. It's only when they get to London and things don't work out quite how they expected that Honey shows she has hidden depths, and...
Carrie and Mae-Ling both attend an exclusive private school in Sydney, but their backgrounds couldn't be more different. Carrie enjoys the lifestyle her successful father affords her, whilst Mae-Ling is an illegal immigrant from Vietnam. Trying to establish herself in a new country, Mae-Ling's mother has high expectations of her quiet, hard-working daughter. But now that daughter is lying in hospital with a suspected ecstasy overdose. Sat in the waiting room, Carrie is faced with explaining to M...
Deadly Drive (Surviving Southside ( Hoon Accident )) (Surviving Southside)
by Justine Fontes
Thirteen-year-old Boli and his friends are deep in the middle of a game of marbles. An older boy named Mosca has won the prized Devil's Fire marble. His pals are jealous and want to win it away from him. This is Izayoc, the place of tears, a small pueblo in a tiny valley west of Mexico City where nothing much happens. It's a typical hot Sunday morning except that on the way to church someone discovers the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in t...
