Washoe County Library System

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait...

"A young boy passes a painting of a hand on a wall in his neighborhood and watches others placing their own hands against it. The act means something different for each of them: Ms. Iris tells him it is a link to her home country; for Devin, it connects him to his older sister, who just left for college; for Savannah, it reminds her of her grandmother who passed away. The boy thinks of those who are on the other side of the mural, of loved ones lost...

"A searing expose of the effects of mass incarceration on the families of those locked up - including the 2.7 million American children who have a parent in jail - told through the stories of three families struggling to live the best lives they can within the confines of a brutal system"--Through these stories, Harvey reveals a shadow system of laws and regulations enacted to dehumanize the incarcerated and profit off their families -- from mandatory...

Children who have a parent in prison express their feelings of sadness, anger, worry, and embarrassment and suggest that talking to others and keeping in contact with the missing parent helps them deal with the situation.

As a foster kid, Jacaranda has learned the hard way that the less she talks about her mother and why she's in jail, the better. But when a video of Jacaranda singing goes viral, a mysterious benefactor offers her a life-changing opportunity: a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school for performing arts, and she eagerly accepts. Pouring her heart out to her sponsor despite having never met them, Jackie (to her new friends) tries to navigate this...

"The New York Times bestselling author of Writing My Wrongs invites men everywhere on a journey of honesty and healing through this book of moving letters to his sons-one whom he is raising and the other whose childhood took place during Senghor's nineteen-year incarceration. Shaka Senghor has lived the life of two fathers. With his first son, Jay, born shortly after Senghor was incarcerated for second-degree murder, he experienced the regret of his...

A satire on the English Civil Service, with descriptions of prison life. First published in 1857. Little Dorrit grows up in Marshalsea prison, where her father is confined for his debts, and she helps to feed the family with her needlework until her father receives an inheritance when she is in her teens, and more problems ensue. Set in England in the mid 1800s, this novel portrays a prison-world in which the shadow of the Marshalsea reaches from...

"Celebrated author Angela Cervantes' brand new novel combines a chilling ghost story with her award-winning, heartfelt storytelling style. One two, the Caretaker’s coming for you. Three-four, you’ll breathe no more. Five-six, you’ll float like sticks. Seven, eight, you’ll meet your fate. Rafael Fuentes isn’t easily scared. He loves writing ghost stories, reading scary books, and entertaining his friends with terrifying tales he creates...