Central Kansas Library System

"A boy on the run. A girl determined to find him. A compelling fantasy looks at issues of privilege, protest, and justice. All light in Chattana is created by one man--the Governor, who appeared after the Great Fire to bring peace and order to the city. For Pong, who was born in Namwon Prison, the magical lights represent freedom, and he dreams of the day he will be able to walk among them. But when Pong escapes from prison, he realizes that the world...

This is the story of the coon dog, Sounder, and his devotion to his master. It is also a story of humans: the father, a black sharecropper, who must feed his children, the timid mother fighting for survival, and the son who grows to maturity through his father's prison term and the devotion of Sounder.

With love and determination befitting the "world's greatest family," twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression.

A young girl from a dysfunctional family creates for herself an alternative world which nearly results in her death but which ultimately leads her to reality.

When eighth-grade school bully Tod and his friends get caught committing a crime on school property, his penalty--staying after school and writing in a journal under the eye of the school guidance counselor--reveals aspects of himself that he prefers to keep hidden.

In an unnamed Third World country, in the not-so-distant future, three "dumpsite boys" make a living picking through the mountains of garbage on the outskirts of a large city. One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences, and soon the dumpsite boys must...

The wares of the poor little match girl illuminate her cold world, bringing some beauty to her brief, tragic life.

This is going to be an odd Christmas, no doubt about it. Instead of sugar plums and stockings stuffed with goodies and stacks of presents under the tree, a Time of Bounty, I am thinking of this as the time of the dwindling. Everything is diminishing our money, the light of day and even the hours that papa works.

Thirteen-year-old Jeff's life spirals downward into homelessness after his alcoholic mother loses her job.--

Despite their own poverty since Daddy died, Mama tells nine-year-old James Otis they need to help Sarah, whose family lost everything in a fire.