Frank Carlson Library

In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

Perfect for fans of Hatchet and the I Survived series, this harrowing middle grade debut novel-in-verse from a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet tells the story of a young girl who wakes up one day to find herself utterly alone in her small Colorado town. When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone--left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated...

Twelve stories on human relations. In Charades, a traditional family game on Christmas turns sour when the charades hit too close to home, while in Agnes of Iowa, a woman's ambition to be worldly remains unfulfilled by an encounter with a poet from Africa.

"Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood - but secretly, she pours her dreams and frustrations onto the pages of her notebook like prayers. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, Xiomara doesn't know how she could ever attend without her religious mami finding out. But even so, in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent."--taken from back cover. Xiomara...

"Anne Perry's "vastly entertaining" (The Star-Ledger) holiday novels are "as delicious as mince pie and plum pudding" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). A Christmas Hope is just as delectable--the gripping story of an unforgettable battle between goodness and evil in Victorian London--and a lonely woman's search for meaning in her life. Although she lacks for nothing, Claudine Burroughs dreads the holiday season for forcing her to face how empty her life...

"New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini celebrates Christmas, past and present, with a wondrous novel inspired by the classic poem "Christmas Bells," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I heard the bells on Christmas Day/ Their old familiar carols play/ And wild and sweet/ The words repeat/Of peace on earth, good-will to men! In 1860, the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow family celebrated Christmas at Craigie House, their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts....

The four poets appearing in this collection carry forward a proud and independent spirit. They call themselves White Buffalo, after a now-defunct cafe in Pittsburg, Kansas, that offered writers, poets, artists, musicians, and friends a place of warmth and community, which in turn fostered an environment of challenge and diversity. With craft and passion the poets each knew how to remember, resurrect those indomitable, lost places, folks, and ghosts...

The year is 1597. Elizabeth is queen. Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain's Men are packing London's Globe Theatre. And the severed heads of Catholic insurgents are impaled on the Tower's gates. One fourteen-year-old boy, seeking his fortune and perhaps the father who abandoned him as a child, should arouse no one's interest. But within a week of his arrival, Richard Malory is robbed, beaten, and threatened at knifepoint. Someone wants him...

"The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at an upscale department store called Goode's, are run off their feet selling ladies' cocktail dresses during the busy season. But in Sydney in the 1950s, there's always time to pursue other goals... Patty, in her mid-thirties, has been working at Goode's for years. She's married to Frank, who eats a steak for dinner every night, watches a few minutes of TV, and then turns...