Photo by Rachel Hofmeister
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WorksGrowing Up Rita
(Published through Createspace, 2011) Rita Martinez is twelve-years-old. She was born in the United States to a mother who came here illegally. It's about what happens when Rita's mother is caught up in an immigration raid and they are separated. Henrietta Hornbuckle’s Circus of Life
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010) Henrietta’s life could be the envy of any kid. She’s never lived in a house or had to go to school. All she wants is to become a great clown like her father and for life to stay the same, the last thing it ever does. Finding Stinko
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007) Newboy is a lifelong product of the foster care system. To save himself he runs away in search of something better. Along the way he acquires his first friends, some of the skills he’ll need to survive, and hope. The Bamboozlers
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux – 2005) Albert’s grandfather, Wendell, is a semi- retired career swindler with a final trick up his sleeve. The two of them, and a three-legged dog named Hollywood, descend on Seattle where they join up with some of Wendell’s former colleagues to con a con man who has it coming. Die Schalwiner ("The Bamboozlers" in Germany) won the Lux award for April, 2011, for young people's literature. Beekman's Big Deal
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004) Beekman O'Day was born in Manhattan and has lived his whole life there, in hotels and apartments, wherever his father could afford. He's bounced from one private school to another. If he could have anything he wanted, it would be to stay in one place, to find some stability in this chaotic life. When they end up at Nutting Court, a mews filled with strange and eccentric residents, he begins to believe that this might be the place. Then his world gets turned upside down again. Melonhead
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002) MELONHEAD is the name that's followed Sidney T. Mellon Jr. everywhere he's lived. At the age of twelve he's had quite enough, of that and the family problems caused by divorce. What begins as a routine visit to his father, becomes a solo bus trip across America, from Los Angeles to the Atlantic ocean. Along the way he meets a series of people who, in small ways, begin to change things for him. Then, when things look their bleakest, he comes to understand where his place in life is. |
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