Central Kansas Library System

Gabby daydreams to tune out her parents' arguments, but when her parents divorce and she begins a new school, daydreaming gets her into trouble. Her mother scolds her for it, her teacher keeps telling her to pay attention, and the other kids tease her...until she finds a friend who also daydreams and her teacher decides to work a daydreaming-writing session into every school day. With a notebook "thick with daydreams," Gabby grows more confident about...

Bullied and shamed her whole life for being fat, twelve-year-old Ellie finally gains the confidence to stand up for herself, with the help of some wonderful new allies.--

Jack is studying poetry again in school, and he continues to write poems reflecting his understanding of famous poems and how they relate to his life.

"Bobby, who is bullied by the kids at school for living in a home with a front yard that is filled with garbage, meets a young artist who teaches him to see himself as more than "Junk Boy.""-- Junk. That’s what the kids at school call Bobby Lang. Trying desperately to live under the radar at school-- and at the home he shares with his angry, neglectful father-- Bobby develops a sort of proud loneliness. The only buffer between him and the...

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people... In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance -- and Papi's secrets -- the two girls are forced to...

"A novel in verse about a boy escaping slavers during the nineteenth century"-- 11-year-old Kofi Offin dreams of water. Its mysterious, immersive quality. The rich, earthy scent of the current. The clearness, its urgent whisper that beckons with promises and secrets… Kofi has heard the call on the banks of Upper Kwanta, in the village where he lives. He loves these things above all else: his family, the fireside tales of his father’s...

Seventeen-year-old Pattyn, the eldest daughter in a large Mormon family, is sent to her aunt's Nevada ranch for the summer, where she temporarily escapes her alcoholic, abusive father and finds love and acceptance, only to lose everything when she returns home.

"Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood - but secretly, she pours her dreams and frustrations onto the pages of her notebook like prayers. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, Xiomara doesn't know how she could ever attend without her religious mami finding out. But even so, in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent."--taken from back cover. Xiomara...

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. 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. Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and...

When fourteen-year-olds Wren and Darra meet at a Michigan summer camp, both are overwhelmed by memories from six years earlier when Darra's father stole a car, unaware that Wren was hiding in the back.