Showing results by author "Alison McGhee" in All Categories

Three lonely riverside dwellers - a boy, a firefly, and a cricket - are all trying to make sense of unexpected changes in their world. Each has a secret dream, but each finds himself trapped. Becoming friends brings them happiness and solidarity, but more changes are in store. Each character stands up to his greatest fear, and, in doing so, finds his greatest strength.

Edwina "Eddie" Beckey and Sally Hobart are best friends. They love to jump rope, camp, and eat chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles. Eddie wears different colored rubber bands on her wrist. She nevers takes them off until the one day she finds an important reason to pass them on to Sally.

Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it's rough out there, and we have to help each other through.

When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondack Mountain town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a fiercely independent but loving woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, forcing Clara to build a new life for herself, far from her roots, far from her high-school boyfriend, and far from the life she had known. Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home.

Eine Geschichte vom Überleben... Sesame und Micah sind verliebt und die besten Freunde. Sie hüten ihre Geheimnisse und teilen ihre Träume. Nie zweifeln sie daran, sich die gemeinsame Zukunft aufbauen zu können, die sie sich wünschen. Bis Micah verschwindet. Verschleppt, zusammen mit seinen Eltern und weiteren Mitgliedern einer Gruppe um einen selbst ernannten Propheten. Sesame erspürt die Gefahr, in der Micah schwebt. Noch nie hat sie sich so verlassen gefühlt, noch nie hat Micah sie so sehr gebraucht wie jetzt.

Will ist einer, der geht. Von zu Hause zur Schule zur Arbeit und wieder zurück. Tag für Tag. Er geht an diesem kleinen Kerl vorbei, der auf Schmetterlinge wartet. Vorbei an Superman, dem Obdachlosen in der First Street. Vorbei an dem wahnsinnigen Hund, der immer bellt. Aber es gibt auch Orte, an denen will er nicht - kann er nicht - vorübergehen: der Brücke über die Fourth Street, dem Laden mit den hundert chinesischen Segenssprüchen, dem Haus seiner Freundin Playa.

With a missing father, sister, and grandfather - and a mother who refuses to explain - 11-year-old Clara lives with many questions. When she begins interviewing an elderly immigrant for a school biography assignmnent, she learns he too has a shadowy past. Attempting to fill in gaps, Clara invents version upon version of stories for both her new friend and herself. As the tales evolve, she uncovers some unsettling family history, but most importantly, she begins to discover what matters most in life. Filled with small surprises, Shadow Baby is at turns funny, poignant, and heartwarming.

Daisy has been working on invisibilizing herself—ever since living with her mother’s violent ex-boyfriend, and now to avoid the school bullies who are targeting her. She keeps a low profile, eating lunch with the librarian instead of in the Lunchroom of Terror and secretly counting whenever she’s anxious.But things are looking up. A new boy has befriended her and seems able to stand up to the bullies, and the stray cat she’s been feeding is starting to almost trust her.

Twenty-one-year-old Mallie Williams—scrappy, headstrong, and wise beyond her years—has just landed on her feet following a tumultuous youth when the unthinkable happens: She is violently assaulted. The crime leaves her comatose, surrounded by friends and family who are hoping against hopes for a full recovery. But soon Mallie's small community is divided. The rape has left Mallie pregnant, and while some friends are convinced that she would never keep the pregnancy, others are sure that a baby would be the only good thing to come out of all of this pain. Who gets to decide?

Clean, cold, white snow! Snow for sledding. Snow for catching on your tongue. Snow for making a SNOWMAN! Is there anything as wonderful as SNOW? Is there any better friend than a SNOWMAN? Snow isn't forever, though. The wind shifts, the weather warms and snow melts into spring. The Snowman has become something else - the fog, the rain. But, how can this boy forget his good friend? He doesn't…and he doesn't have to.

Ayla and her best friend Kiri have always been tree people. They each have their own special tree, and neighbors and family know that they are most likely to be found within the branches. But after an accident on their street, Kiri has gone somewhere so far away that Ayla can only wait and wait in her birch, longing to be able to talk with Kiri again. Then a mysterious, old-fashioned telephone appears one morning, nestled in the limbs of Ayla's birch tree.