Washoe County Library System

Peter finds his demanding two-and-a-half-year-old brother an ever increasing problem.

The author reveals how, shortly after giving birth to a child she adored, she drank herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide before a spiritual awakening led her to sobriety.

In 1969, the town of Red Clover, South Carolina, led by an enthusiastic new Latin teacher, supports thirteen-year-old Karlene as she wins her school spelling bee and strives to qualify for the National Bee, despite family problems and a growing desire for romance.

In 1957, problems at the mine threaten to ruin Christmas for fifth-grader Don, his family, and the rest of their Oklahoma coal town, but Don's bloodhound, Frank, is determined to do whatever it takes to make the holiday special for Don and his six-year-old sister, Susan. Alternate chapters are told from the human and canine points of view.

In 1947, with her jovial stepfather Joe back from the war and family life returning to normal, teenage Evie, smitten by the handsome young ex-GI who seems to have a secret hold on Joe, finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies whose devastating outcome change her life and that of her family forever.

Eleven-year-old April is delighted when President and Mrs. Hoover build a school near her Madison County, Virginia, home but her family's poverty, grief over the accidental death of her brother, and other problems may mean that April can never learn to read from the wonderful teacher, Miss Vest.

Since the death of his mother, Tobin's family life and school life have been in disarray, but after he starts raising chickens with his seventh-grade classmate, Henry, everything starts to fall into place.

A tale told in dual narratives during the 1918 flu epidemic in New York and in 1955 San Jose explores the nature of family secrets and the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, as a 14-year-old girl becomes increasingly concerned about her writer mother's advancing depression.

Raised by his grandparents, first in Mississippi then in Wisconsin, ten-year-old Lymon moves to Chicago in 1945 to live with the mother he never knew, while yearning for his father.

When twelve-year-old Boomerang Broom discovers a wish-granting baby mermaid, he takes her home and his little sister begs to keep her, with unexpected consequences.