Central Kansas Library System

This helpful guidebook explores speech disorders in detail, covering causes and effects, treatments, and medical advances. Readers will understand what it is like to live with speech disorders as well.

"Twelve-year-old Jacky "Ha-Ha" Hart is a class clown with a penchant for pranking--and when she's required to act in the school play to appease her frustrated teachers, she must conquer her stutter"-- Jacky Ha-Ha loves to make people laugh, and cracking wise helps distract her from thinking about not-so-funny things in her life, like her mom serving in a dangerous, faraway war, and a dad who's hardly ever home. When she's required to act in the school...

Lazarus Weathers, a high school senior from the wrong side of the tracks, seeks to protect his half-brother while pitching his way out of poverty, one strike at a time. Lazarus "Laz" Weathers has always been shy, and his issue with stuttering when he speaks hasn't helped. Stuck in a Seattle trailer park, Laz finds baseball helps him escape from the world of poverty and drugs. When he gets an opportunity to pitch for the rich kids across town, he...

"Parallel plotlines set in different times, one told in text and one in art, inform each other as a young girl unravels the mystery of a ghost next door"-- 1982: Mary is a lonely orphan at the Thornhill Institute For Children at the very moment that it's shutting its doors. When her few friends are all adopted or re-homed and she's left to face a volatile bully alone, her revenge will have a lasting effect on the bully, on Mary, and on Thornhill...

Fourth grader Robert Morris Reynolds, who cannot say his name properly because he has trouble pronouncing his Rs, works hard with a speech therapist to overcome his problem.

"Kids with speech impairment sometimes find the world to be a very frustrating place. They can hear and see and understand what's going on around them, but it can be very difficult for them to communicate with other people. Depending on the type of speech impairment, they might have trouble saying certain sounds or the words might get stuck in their throat when they try to talk, or when they try to say a word a different word might come out instead....

Macey is a lively little girl who loves adventure and taking the stage! She also happens to have difficulties with speech. See what Macey has to say about her experiences communicating, ways to help make interactions more successful, and how she enjoys her childhood in the same way her friends do. -- from cover.

Gerald, whose communication in the form of clangs, toots, and blasts, distresses his parents and the kids at school.

Oscar is a young crab who, when he gets excited, mixes up his words, causing his classmates to laugh at him, but Doctor Octopus knows some games that might help.