Sisi Aisha Johnson

Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.

"A little girl's daddy steps in to help her arrange her curly, coiling, wild hair into styles that allow her to be her natural, beautiful self." --

"Melody, the huge-hearted heroine of Out of My Mind, is a year older, and a year braver. And now with her Medi-talker, she feels nothing's out of her reach, not even summer camp. There have to be camps for differently-abled kids like her, and she's going to sleuth one out. A place where she can trek through a forest, fly on a zip line, and even ride on a horse! A place where maybe she really can finally make a real friend, make her own decisions,...

"Eleven-year-old Brooklyn girl Delphine feels overwhelmed with worries and responsibilities. She's just started sixth grade and is self-conscious about being the tallest girl in the class, and nervous about her first school dance. She's supposed to be watching her sisters, but Fern and Vonetta are hard to control. Her uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam and seems different. And her pa has a girlfriend. At least Delphine can write to her mother in Oakland,...

"Marisol loves to paint. So when her teacher asks her to help make a mural for the school library, she can't wait to begin! But wait-how can Marisol ever make a sky without blue paint? After gazing out the bus window and watching from her porch as day turns into night, she closes her eyes and starts to dream"--

After fleeing the plantation where they were enslaved, siblings Ada and Homer discover the secret community of Freewater, and work with freeborn Sanzi to protect their new home from the encroaching dangers of the outside world.

In rhyming text, when the whole family and guests show up for the big dinner at Grandma's house, it becomes clear that the house is much too small to hold them all.

"Ryan Hart has a lot on her mind--school, self-image, and especially family. Her dad finally has a new job, but money is tight. That means some changes, like selling their second car and moving into a new (old) house. But Ryan is a girl who knows how to make sunshine out of setbacks. As her brother says when he raps about her,she's got the talent that matters most: it's a talent that can't be seen, she's nice, not mean! Ryan is all about trying to...

A Christian fundamentalist group kidnaps children to raise them in Christian homes in this tale of religious intolerance in a future America. The story is told by a woman at the receiving end of their zeal, the founder of a religion which they consider heathen. By the author of Parable of the Sower. "Parable of the Talents celebrates the classic Butlerian themes of alienation and transcendence, violence and spirituality, slavery and freedom, separation...

"This comical companion to Ross Burach's "The very impatient caterpillar" pays loving homage to every child's struggle to persist through challenges while also delivering a lighthearted lesson on butterfly migration. Remember, if at first you don't succeed, fly, fly again."--Back cover.