My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
Author: Annabel Pitcher
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2012-08-14
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316201855

My sister Rose lives on the mantelpiece. Well, some of her does. A collarbone, two ribs, a bit of skull, and a little toe. !--StartFragment-- To ten-year-old Jamie, his family has fallen apart because of the loss of someone he barely remembers: his sister Rose, who died five years ago in a terrorist bombing. To his father, life is impossible to make sense of when he lives in a world that could so cruelly take away a ten-year-old girl. To Rose's surviving fifteen year old twin, Jas, everyday she lives in Rose's ever present shadow, forever feeling the loss like a limb, but unable to be seen for herself alone. Told with warmth and humor, this powerful novel is a sophisticated take on one family's struggle to make sense of the loss that's torn them apart... and their discovery of what it means to stay together. !--EndFragment--

Ketchup Clouds

Ketchup Clouds
Author: Annabel Pitcher
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2013-11-12
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0316246778

Dear Mr. S. Harris, Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam, not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe. . . . I know what it's like. Mine wasn't a woman. Mine was a boy. And I killed him exactly three months ago. Zoe has an unconventional pen pal--Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other. Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her heart and her fears after months of silence. Mr. Harris may never respond to Zoe's letters, but at least somebody will know her story--somebody who knows what it's like to kill a person you love. Only through her unusual confession can Zoe hope to atone for her mistakes that have torn lives apart, and work to put her own life back together again. Rising literary star Annabel Pitcher pens a captivating second novel, rich with her distinctive balance between humor and heart. Annabel explores the themes of first love, guilt, and grief, introducing a character with a witty voice and true emotional resonance.

The Line Tender

The Line Tender
Author: Kate Allen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0735231613

Funny, poignant, and deeply moving, The Line Tender is a story of nature's enduring mystery and a girl determined to find meaning and connection within it. Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart's marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. In fact, she was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, collecting shark data when she died suddenly. Lucy was seven. Since then Lucy and her father have kept their heads above water--thanks in large part to a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her twelfth summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a great white--and then another tragedy, cutting short a friendship everyone insists was "meaningful" but no one can tell Lucy what it all meant. To survive the fresh wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious old widower to her mother's unfinished research on the Great White's return to Cape Cod. If Lucy can find a way to help this unlikely quartet follow the sharks her mother loved, she'll finally be able to look beyond what she's lost and toward what's left to be discovered. ★"Confidently voiced."—Kirkus Reviews, starred ★"Richly layered."—Publishers Weekly, starred ★"A hopeful path forward."—Booklist, starred ★"Life-affirming."—BCCB, starred ★"Big-hearted." —Bookpage, starred ★“Will appeal to just about everyone.” – SLC, starred ★"Exquisitely, beautifully real."—Shelf Awareness, starred

Polaris

Polaris
Author: Michael Northrop
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2017-10-31
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 133816399X

A crew of children must pilot a ship across unfamiliar seas while a strange creature lurks belowdecks in this fast-paced survival story from New York Times bestselling author Michael Northrop. Alone at sea, with only the stars to guide them...The proud sailing ship Polaris is on a mission to explore new lands, and its crew is eager to bring their discoveries back home. But when half the landing party fails to return from the Amazon jungle, the tensions lead to a bloody mutiny. The remaining adults abandon ship, leaving behind a cabin boy, a botanist's assistant, and a handful of deckhands -- none of them older than twelve. Troubled by whispers of a strange tropical illness and rumors of a wild beast lurking onshore, the young sailors are desperate to steer the vessel to safety. When one of their own already missing and a strange smell drifting up from below deck, the novice crew begins to suspect that someone -- or something -- else is onboard. Having steeled themselves for the treacherous journey home, they now have more to fear than the raging waters of the Atlantic...

Confessions of a Closet Catholic

Confessions of a Closet Catholic
Author: Sarah Darer Littman
Publisher: Puffin Books
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2006-05-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780142405970

Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award! An "eleven-going-on-twelve-year-old Jewish girl" searches for her identity in what Publisher's Weekly called a "reassuring debut novel about finding one's personal peace-and-comfort zone." Justine Silver's best friend, Mary Catherine McAllister, has given up chocolate for Lent, but Justine doesn't think God wants her to make that kind of sacrifice. So she's decided to give up being Jewish instead. Eleven-year-old Justine pours her heart out to her teddy bear, "Father Ted," in a homemade closet confessional. But when Justine's beloved Bubbe suffers a stroke, Justine worries that her religious exploration is responsible. Worse, she must suddenly contemplate life without Bubbe. Ultimately, it's Bubbe's quiet understanding of Justine's search for identity that helps Justine to find faith in the most important place of all-within herself.

The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream

The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream
Author: Jeannie Zusy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2023-10-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982185392

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine meets Early Morning Riser with a dash of Where’d You Go, Bernadette in this “funny and insightful” (Real Simple) novel about one woman whose life is turned upside down when she becomes caregiver to her sister with special needs. Every family has its fault lines, and when Maggie gets a call from the ER in Maryland where her older sister lives, the cracks start to appear. Ginny, her sugar-loving and diabetic older sister with intellectual disabilities, has overdosed on strawberry Jell-O. Maggie knows Ginny really can’t live on her own, so she brings her sister and her occasionally vicious dog to live near her in upstate New York. Their other sister, Betsy, is against the idea but as a professional surfer, she is conveniently thousands of miles away. Thus, Maggie’s life as a caretaker begins. It will take all of her dark humor and patience, already spread thin after a separation, raising two boys, freelancing, an ex who just won’t go away, and starting a dating life, to deal with Ginny’s diapers, sugar addiction, porn habit, and refusal to cooperate. “The Frederick sisters will have you laughing out loud—often through tears—in this roller coaster ride of a novel that explores what it means to be family” (Tracey Lange, New York Times bestselling author).

Black Heart Blue

Black Heart Blue
Author: Louisa Reid
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2012-05-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0718158776

'They tried to make me go to my sister's funeral today. In the end I'd had to give in ... I'd been walking in her shadow for sixteen years and I liked its cool darkness. It was a good place to hide.' How would you feel if your twin sister died suddenly? Particularly if she was the beautiful one and you were horribly disfigured. And how would it feel to be alone now if you and your sister were the only ones to know the truth about what takes place behind closed doors at home? And what would you do if it was your parents who brought danger and terror into your life? Would you dare reveal how your sister died? And would you be brave enough to find an escape of your own? Black Heart Blue is a powerful novel about the domestic horrors that can unfold within a small community - and one girl's quest to stand up for the truth.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
Total Pages: 86
Release: 1967-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780822212263

THE STORY: The home of the Blackwoods near a Vermont village is a lonely, ominous abode, and Constance, the young mistress of the place, can't go out of the house without being insulted and stoned by the villagers. They have also composed a nasty s

Nothing Ever Happens Here

Nothing Ever Happens Here
Author: Sarah Hagger-Holt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1499811829

Warm and hopeful, this is a touching and honest depiction of a family changing together-and staying together. "I wonder what people would think if they could take the front off our house like a doll's house and watch us. All in the same house, but everyone separate. No one talking, but everyone thinking the same thing. Will we ever be a normal family again?" Izzy's family is under the spotlight when her dad comes out as Danielle, a trans woman. Izzy is terrified her family will be torn apart. Will she lose her dad? Will her parents break up? And what will people at school say? Now all eyes are on Izzy. Can she face her fears, find her voice, and stand up for her family and what's right?

Fewer, Better Things

Fewer, Better Things
Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1632869667

From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.