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NER |
Chess Rumble
(age 10+) by Greg Neri family ... illness/loss ... school ... poetry Publisher comments: A story in free verse poetry in which Marcus, a boy from the inner city who suffers bullying, is grieving his sister's death, and has been labeled a troublemaker finds a way to cope with his anger with the help of an unlikely mentor, who teaches him to play chess. |
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SMI |
Keeping the Night Watch
(age 10+) by Hope Anita Smith poetry ... family ... illness/loss Publisher comments: My best friend, Preacher, is being just that. His sermon today is on fathers and I am his congregation. "Dads are light. They have no roots. One strong wind, and they're gone. Out of here. History." With a click, a bang, a whisper, or no noise at all. There are so many ways that a door can close, but it's not just the closing; it's the knowing. And thirteen-year-old CJ knows too much...about losing his father, about his family's pain, and especially about what it means to hold things together when times are the toughest. In this beautifully written and powerfully moving novel in poems, Hope Anita Smith tells the story of a young man's struggle to accept a father who has walked out on his family. Here, in CJ's words, is a portrait of hurt and healing, and finding the strength to open the door again. |
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HES |
Out of the Dust
(age 10+) by Karen Hesse letters/journal ... historical ... poetry In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. |