A father tells his young son the story behind each of his tattoos.

For seventeen-year-old Rose, it keeps happening - the car crash. The car crash that put her sister, Ivy, in a coma with only a respirator keeping her alive. While Rose tries to find support from her reticent mother, distraction from the series of boys she meets at the town's gorge at night, and empathy from her neighbor William T., what she really needs must come from within herself - a release of what's been welling up inside. Heartrending, honest,...

Who gets to choose? When a young woman emerges from a lengthy coma-like state she must face the decisions that were made about her body-without her consent-in this powerful novel of reclamation and hope. 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...

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award, author Alison McGhee pens tales shimmering with shrewd truth and wild imaginings. In this moving novel, she tells of the growing friendship between two oddly matched people as they share their very different world. 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...

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. Acclaimed author Alison McGhee is known for her brilliant adult novels, such as Shadow Baby. Christina Moore's poignant narration adds new dimensions to this amazing...

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.

All the apprehension about school "firsts" is playfully presented in these reassuring stories. In Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth, advice from a "knowledgeable" second grader has the first grade worry-wart convinced that her new teacher is really a 300-year old alien who steals baby teeth from her students. This is especially worrisome since she has a secret: her first tooth is loose! A witty, and spot-on depiction of first-day-of-school jitters, this...

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.

The angels are aflutter: a baby is soon to be born! One small angel can tell this baby is especially special. And holy moly, are their presents extraordinary. The little angel wants to give a present too, but, what could she possibly offer that is as worthy as the others' gifts? At a loss for ideas, she peeks over the side of her platform and spies something going on in the desert - a caravan of kings on camels, lost in the dark. She does the only...

An illustrated story, written as a non-rhyming sestina poem, about a little girl who is lured outside by the moon on Halloween night, attempts to fly on her broom like a witch, and eventually soars through the sky before returning to her family.