communities

"Elizabeth Acevedo has said that reading Lorraine Avila feels like an "UPPERCUT to the senses." We couldn't agree more. We have never encountered an author with prose of this sensitivity and fire. Yolanda Alvarez is having a good year. She's starting to feel at home Julia De Burgos High, her school in the Bronx. She has her best friend Victory, and maybe something with Jose, a senior boy she's getting to know. She's confident her initiation into her family's bruja tradition will happen soon. But then a white boy, the son of a politician, appears at Julia De Burgos High, and his vibes are off. And Yolanda's initiation begins with a series of troubling visions of the violence this boy threatens. How can Yolanda protect her community, in a world that doesn't listen? Only with the wisdom and love of her family, friends, and community - and the Brujas Diosas, her ancestors and guides. The Making of Yolanda La Bruja is the book this country, struggling with the plague of gun violence, so desperately needs, but which few could write. Here Lorraine Avila brings a story born from the intersection of race, justice, education, and spirituality that will capture readers everywhere.".

"A vision of a world where community care and safety are not the jobs of police, based on a protest poem written by Petrus after the police officer who killed Michael Brown was not charged"--Provided by publisher.

"This nonfiction title features carefully leveled text and engages emergent readers with its vivid photographs of a changing neighborhood. Pairs with the fiction title Grampa's Photos"--Provided by publisher.

"Readers of this book learn about what happens at the grocery store and how important they are to the communities they are part of"--Provided by publisher.

"Young readers will love learning about the brave men and women who are firefighters in their community"--Provided by publisher.

A long ago "accident." An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help, but doesn't know how. And a ghostly dybbuk, that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her. That is the setting for this suspenseful novel of a girl who seems to have lost everything, including her best friend Kayla, and a mother who was once vibrant and popular, but who now can't always get out of bed in the morning. As tensions escalate in the Jewish community of Beacon with incidents of vandalism and a swastika carved into new concrete poured near the synagogue, so does the tension grow between Aviva and Kayla and the girls at their school, and so do the actions of the dybbuk grow worse. Could real harm be coming Aviva's way? And is it somehow related to the "accident" that took her father years ago? Aviva vs. the Dybbuk is a compelling, tender story about friendship and community, grief and healing, and one indomitable girl who somehow manages to connect them all.

"Learning about the LGBTQ+ community involves much more than just learning what each letter in this acronym stands for, and readers are introduced to the many different kinds of people who identify as part of this community as they discover facts about each group's struggle for basic rights and acceptance. Informative, empathetic text presents this sensitive topic in a way that's easy for young readers to understand, and fact boxes give them additional information about the struggles this community has faced in the past and continue to face in the present"--Provided by publisher.

"Based on actual events, this picture book tells the story of the first Earth Day through the eyes of a young girl named Sam"--Provided by publisher.

"In this … book of maps, [the reader will] explore the neighborhoods of 16 kids from around the globe, from the United States to India to Cambodia. Learn all about where these children live, where they go to school, their favorite places to plat and more!"--Back cover.

Shane, a boy with big dancing dreams, learns the meaning of courage and community.