The Tantalizing Tale of Grace Minnaugh

The Tantalizing Tale of Grace Minnaugh
Author: Alice Kaltman
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781947548978

Eleven-year-old Grace Minnaugh is not a fan of big changes. She's miserable during her first weeks in the seaside town of La Toya, sulking like a spoiled brat. Her family embraces the California lifestyle and Grace decides to embrace the seductive beauty of the sea. One fateful morning, while taking a predawn swim, she is caught in a thunderstorm. Without the ocean skills to survive, she's sucked below the surface, convinced she will drown. Instead, a new life begins. Gills rip open from behind her ears and her legs fuse together to form a fishtail. Grace Minnaugh is a mermaid, and a gorgeous one at that. On land, Grace is still the same walking, talking social misfit she's always been. But in the salty sea, she's an underwater marvel. Grace decides not to tell a soul about her flip-floppy double life, but things get complicated when Grace befriends Alfie DeCosta, a kid who's obsessed with finding an elusive shipwreck off the coast of La Toya. Grace knows exactly where the shipwreck is. But she can't tell Alfie about it, or can she?

Rewritten

Rewritten
Author: Tara Gilboy
Publisher: North Star Editions, Inc.
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1631634348

Transported into a horror story and on the run from the evil Queen Cassandra, Gracie must save her best friend Walter and help the story’s characters escape a devastating fate. Will Gracie find the courage to rewrite her own story or is it her destiny to be the villain?

Unwritten

Unwritten
Author: Tara Gilboy
Publisher: North Star Editions, Inc.
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1631631780

In this fantasy middle-grade novel, twelve-year-old storybook character Gracie Freeman lives in the real world but longs to discover what happened in the story she came from. When she finally gets her chance, the truth isn't what she was expecting.

Dawg Towne

Dawg Towne
Author: Alice Kaltman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2021-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781733466349

Dawg Towne explores universal themes of love and loss through the deceptively simple lens of suburban life. But is life in the suburbs ever really simple? Over the course of one year in Towne, spouses die, children grow up, affairs begin and end, lies are repeatedly spoken, bad sex happens (good sex, less often), gender is questioned, and dogs go missing. Many dogs. Humorous and canine-centric, Dawg Towne is like Peyton Place re-written by Dorothy Parker and your friendly neighborhood veterinarian. And yes, this is work of fiction.

Hsi-Wei Tales

Hsi-Wei Tales
Author: Robert Wexelblatt
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-08-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781947548930

After performing a perilous service for the future Emperor, the peasant Chen Hsi-wei turns down the customary rewards in favor of receiving an education. The Court is astonished by this unheard-of request, but orders the strict teacher Shen Kuo to do what he can with the boy. In the course of copying out the words of the ancient masters, Hsi-wei begins writing poems of his own. As a young man, Hsi-wei leaves the capital for a vagabond life, supporting himself by making straw sandals. He encounters people of all stations and occupations, trekking through landscapes both flat and mountainous. He learns of the terrible price of building the Grand Canal, the miseries caused by floods, droughts, and endless wars. To his astonishment, Hsi-wei gains a degree of fame, first as a curiosity, then as a writer whose poems are beloved by the people and pass into the vast life of China.

Rump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Rumpelstiltskin

Rump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Rumpelstiltskin
Author: Liesl Shurtliff
Publisher: Yearling
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-04-22
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 030797796X

This funny fractured fairy tale goes behind the scenes of Rumpelstiltskin. New York Times Bestselling author Liesl Shurtliff "spins words into gold [Kirby Larson, Newbery Honor winner]." In a magic kingdom where your name is your destiny, 12-year-old Rump is the butt of everyone's joke. But when he finds an old spinning wheel, his luck seems to change. Rump discovers he has a gift for spinning straw into gold. His best friend, Red Riding Hood, warns him that magic is dangerous, and she’s right. With each thread he spins, he weaves himself deeper into a curse. To break the spell, Rump must go on a perilous quest, fighting off pixies, trolls, poison apples, and a wickedly foolish queen. The odds are against him, but with courage and friendship—and a cheeky sense of humor—he just might triumph in the end. A Texas Bluebonnet finalist and winner of the ILA award for middle grade fiction, Rump is perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted or Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm. And don't miss Liesl Shurtliff's other fairy tale retellings: Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk and Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood. "A fresh riff on the Grimm Brothers' Rumpelstiltskin, told with wit from the impish point of view of the troublemaker himself." —People "Lighthearted and inventive, Rump amusingly expands a classic tale." —Brandon Mull, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fablehaven.

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents
Author: Roopa Raveendran-Menon
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-02-05
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781646030149

When Chandu's parents--disappointed by his math grade and squabbling over his future--threaten to ship him off to boarding school, Chandu wonders what it would be like to have a different set of parents. He discovers, hidden in the forest, a curious storefront: The Exchange Your Parents Shop. Enrolling in their Happily Ever After Program, Chandu has the opportunity to become the child of math geniuses, movie superstars, or sports icons. Or he could choose obedient parents that bow to his every wish! Which set of parents will be his perfect fit? Traveling by elephant, peacock, hot air balloon, and even on the back of a tiger, Chandu keeps company with a talking parrot and Mustache Muthu in what becomes the adventure of a lifetime. Chandu and the Super Set of Parents is a fantastical tale of a boy's quest for love, confidence, and acceptance, set against a rich tapestry of Indian food, culture, and customs.

Monarchs Under the Sassafras Tree

Monarchs Under the Sassafras Tree
Author: Lillah Lawson
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-09-20
Genre: Cotton farmers
ISBN: 9781947548282

It's an unusually warm autumn, 1929, and O.T. Lawrence is about as content as a cotton farmer can be in Five Forks, Georgia. Nothing--not poverty, drought, or even the boll weevi--can spoil the idyllic life he shares with his doting wife and children and his beloved twin brother Walt. Until illness and Black Tuesday take everything O.T. ever held dear in one fell swoop. Grieving, drinking, and careening toward homelessness, O.T. is on the brink of ending it all when he receives an odd letter from a teenage acquaintance, the enigmatic Sivvy Hargrove, who is locked away in Milledgeville's asylum for the insane. Traveling through desperate antebellum towns, O.T. and his daughter Ginny are determined to find Sivvy and discover her story. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, Monarchs Under the Sassafras Tree is a love story to Georgia and the spirit of its people--a story of family, unconditional love, poverty, injustice, and finding the strength inside to keep on going when all is lost.

This Side of Water

This Side of Water
Author: Maureen Pilkington
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-04-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9781947548749

In This Side of Water, Maureen Pilkington's bright debut collection, precise and vivid language delivers flawed characters to their moments of reckoning. A married woman goes to the cemetery to resurrect her father; a young girl at a beach club witnesses her parents' infidelity; an icy New Year's Eve leads a devoted husband to violent clarity; a teenager spies on her mother and a Catholic priest; a Russian "dancer" visits her American husband and plays a dangerous game. In these sixteen stories, the backdrop of water--the Long Island Sound, the sulfur polluted Monangahela River, a koi pond, a basin of holy water, a tear in a boy's eye--provides a salve for these characters, ferrying them to personal ports of renewal and resolution.

A Swirl of Ocean

A Swirl of Ocean
Author: Melissa Sarno
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1524720143

A touching, timeless novel--perfect for fans of Lisa Graff and Lauren Wolk--about a girl who discovers that the ocean is holding secrets she never could have imagined. Twelve-year-old Summer loves the ocean. The smell, the immensity, the feeling she gets when she dives beneath the surface. She has lived in Barnes Bluff Bay since she was two years old, when Lindy found her on the beach. It's been the two of them ever since. But now, ten years later, Summer feels uncertainty about her place with Lindy and starts to wonder about where she came from. One night, Summer goes for a swim and gets caught in a riptide, swallowing mouthfuls of seawater. And that night, she dreams of a girl. A girl her age living in the same town, but not in the same time. Summer's not persuaded that this girl is real, but something about her feels familiar. Summer dreams again and again about this girl, Tink, and becomes convinced that she is connected to her past. As she sees Tink struggle with her sister growing away from her and her friends starting to pair off, Summer must come to terms with her own evolving home life and discover how the bonds that make us family can help heal the wounds of the past. From Melissa Sarno, the author of Just Under the Clouds, comes a new story of discovery, family, and finding where you belong.