Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney is at its heart a story of mothers and daughters. In this case, there are three generations of mothers and daughters who all make mistakes but ultimately struggle to do the best they can.
Each of the storytellers, Madeline, Desiree and Ariel has a distinct voice. Madeline is super-responsible, [...]

Tonia is single-minded in her desire to escape the hard life and insecurity on a kibbutz in Israel for the easy life she imagines waits for her in the United States. She even keeps a magazine photo of her ideal American home tacked up to her wall to remind herself of her dream.
Tonia’s parents had [...]

Evie spends a lot of her time alone, and for the most part she likes it that way. She’s worlds apart from her mother, who seems obsessed with looking perfect all the time. At lunch in school she sits with a group she calls The Whisperers, because they talk quietly to one another. But at [...]

Harry is a fox who lives in Foxboro during a time of deprivation. Winter has been harsh, and food is scarce. His brother, Isaac, leads the government, and while the two haven’t gotten along since childhood, Isaac is entrusting Harry with the task of finding an old fortress reputedly full of rabbits.
Quentin is a rabbit [...]

Recently I wrote a review of Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes. I highly recommend this book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12, possibly even older. I just became aware of a few other resources that go along with Tortilla Sun, that I thought you’d like to know about too.
If you want [...]

How I Made It to Eighteen by Tracy White says it’s “mostly a true story” about the experiences of Stacy Black and her journey from a breakdown through therapy and institutionalization and to the other side. It’s a powerful story in a simple presentation.
With words and through graphic images, we meet Stacy’s friends, and we [...]

Noonie is sure that she will someday be a famous artist. She knows many well-known artists go through periods where they focus on color, and she herself has been through a blue period. This came after her mom died while she was in kindergarten and her dad’s job as an archeologist took him to locations [...]

Will Grayson #1 believes in two rules: 1. Don’t care too much. 2. Shut up. He’s pretty sure if he follows those he can make it through high school. But he’s not always good at following them. The last time he violated his rules was to defend his best friend Tiny Cooper, who is gay, [...]

Everyone knows that Naima draws the most beautiful alpana patterns in her Bangladeshi village. But she wonders what good can come from her talent if she can’t help her father drive a rickshaw because she’s a girl. Money is tight for the family, and Naima worries that her mother’s heirloom bracelets will need to be [...]

Abbie Adams has a lot to worry about. Her little brother isn’t always good at controlling his magic, so she often has to use her own magic to reverse his spells and make his first-grade teacher and his classmates forget weird things they’ve seen. But sometimes she forgets to cover her own tracks well enough, [...]