young adult nonfiction

"Something is wrong with Claire, but she doesn't know what. Nobody does, not even her doctors. All she wants is to return to her happy and athletic teenage self. But her accumulating symptoms--chronic fatigue, pounding headaches, weight gain--hint that there's something not right inside Claire's body. Claire's high school experience becomes filled with MRIs, visits to the Mayo Clinic, and multiple surgeries to remove a brain tumor. But even in her most difficult moments battling chronic illness, Claire manages to find solace in her family, her closest friends, and her art. A deeply personal and visually arresting memoir that draws on the author's high school diaries and drawings, One in a Million is also a sophisticated portrayal of pain, depression, and fear that any teen or adult can relate to. With a sensitive preface and an author's note connecting past to present, this true story of resilience strikes a moving balance between raw honesty in the face of medical and mental trauma and the everyday musings of a teenager."--.

"A true American epic in verse, Walking Gentry Home tells the story of Alora Young's ancestors, from the unnamed women the historical record has forgotten but Alora brings to life through imagination; to Amy, the first of her foremothers to arrive in Tennessee, buried in an unmarked grave unlike the white man who enslaved her and fathered her child; through Alora's great-grandmother Gentry, unhappily married at fourteen; to her own mother, the teenage beauty queen rejected by her white neighbors; down to Alora in the present day as she leaves childhood behind and becomes a young woman. The lives of these women come together to form a narrative that speaks of generational curses, coming of age, homes and small towns, fleeting loves and lasting consequences, and the brutal and ever-present legacy of slavery in the American South. Each poem is a story-in-verse and together they form an arresting saga. Both heart-wrenching and inspiring, this unique family memoir finds joy and pride where others might only see despair. Informed by archival research, the will and testament of a slaver, formal interviews, family lore, and even a DNA test, Walking Gentry Home gives voice to those most often muted: Black girls and women in America"--.

When a young girl gets trapped in a strange new world of spirits, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and rescue her parents.