Elvira’s family has never been the warm, fuzzy type. Most of the time, Elvira can’t stand the sight of her little sister, Kerrie. Elvira and her mother, Mel, fight more often than not. Mel hasn’t spoken to her own family in years. And when Mel announces she’s pregnant again, Elvira’s daddy storms off to Las Vegas to enter an Elvis impersonator competition. But when an urgent phone call sends Elivra, Mel, and Kerrie on an unexpected trip to visit Mel’s family, Elvira discovers that love doesn’t always look like it does in television commercials–it can be as simple as a bucket of blueberries, an attic full of memories, or a song. But it’s there all right. You just have to know how to look for it.
Ten-year-old Lexie used to love going to the shore. For as long as she can remember, she's spent every summer there with her parents, eating hamburgers, swimming in the ocean, and combing the beach for treasure. This summer is going to be different though. Lexie's mom and daddy are divorced, and for the first time Mom won't be there. To make matters worse, Daddy has a surprise—his new girlfriend, Vicky, and her two sons are coming to stay with them for a week! Now Lexie has to share her house with perky Vicky, Vicky's moody teenage son Ben, and messy three-year-old Harris. The little beach house just doesn't seem big enough for so many people. Is there still room for Lexie? In a voice that's sharp, funny, and sincere, Newbery Honor-winning author Audrey Couloumbis tells the story of a girl discovering that if you pay attention, sometimes you can find treasure in the most unlikely places.
The summer Grace turns thirteen is when everything changes. The Vietnam War is raging, and Grace's brother, Collin, is drafted. But Collin decides to take a stand and burn his draft card, igniting a war within the family. Grace suddenly finds herself bewildered and angry, thrust into a turbulent political climate. The war is everywhere, and Grace quickly learns that she cannot escape it, no matter how hard she tries.
I'm old enough to stay home alone, you know." Mom said, "Not a chance. Who's going to lug the loot ba—" and the locks on the door sprung open. I opened the door and unloaded the cart. It took five minutes, probably less. "Mom?" I said, looking around when I'd finished. I didn't see her. "Mom?" I yelled. "Mom?" It's a few days before Christmas when 10-year-old Jake's mom slips and breaks her leg. For as long as Jake can remember, it's just been him and his mom, so with no one else to look after him the hospital contacts the gruff granddad Jake only knows through awkward twice-a-year phone calls. When grandad shows up, he's nothing like Jake expected. But as Jake gets to know his grandfather and a makeshift family of friends and neighbors come together around him and his mom, he realizes that this might not be such a bad Christmas after all. With beautiful spare writing that will appeal to fans of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Higher Power of Lucky, Newbery Honor—winning author Audrey Couloumbis tells a story as warm and welcome as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day and shows that the best gift of all is the gift of family.
When twelve-year-old Casey came home to an empty apartment, she didn't think much of it. But when she wakes up the next morning, and her stepmother, Sylvia, still hasn't come home, she knows that something is wrong. Casey doesn't have any other family--and she's afraid that the police will put her in foster care, so when landlord's teenaged son offers to help, Casey is more than willing to accept. Until, she learns that his help comes at a price. If Casey says yes, she'll be breaking the law. If she says no, she doesn't know how she'll survive.
1941. Greece. For 12-year-old Petros, World War II feels far away. But when the Germans invade Greece, the war is suddenly impossibly close. Overnight, neighbors become enemies. People begin to keep secrets (Petros's family most of all). And for the first time, Petros has the chance to prove himself to his older brother, Zola. Soon what were once just boys' games become matters of life and death as Petros and Zola each wonder if, like their Resistance fighter cousin, they too can make a difference. Based on the true story of Akila Couloumbis's wartime boyhood, Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis, writing with her husband Akila, explores what it was like coming of age in Nazi occupied Greece, and tells a story of family, friendship, and unlikely heroes.
A Southern charmer for fans of Newbery Honor book Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage Audrey Couloumbis's masterful debut novel brings to mind Karen Hesse, Katherine Paterson, and Betsy Byars's The Summer of the Swans—it is a story you will never forget. Willa Jo and Little Sister are up on the roof at Aunt Patty’s house. Willa Jo went up to watch the sunrise, and Little Sister followed, like she always does. But by mid-morning, they are still up on that roof, and soon it’s clear it wasn’t just the sunrise that brought them there. The trouble is, coming down would mean they’d have to explain, and they just can’t find the words. This is a funny, sometimes heartbreaking, story about sisters, about grief, and about healing. Two girls must come to terms with the death of their baby sister, their mother’s unshakable depression, and the ridiculously controlling aunt who takes them in and means well but just doesn’t understand children. Willa Jo has to try and make things right in their new home, but she and Aunt Patty keep butting heads. Until the morning the two girls climb up to the roof of her house. Aunt Patty tries everything she can think of to get them down, but in the end, the solution is miraculously simple. A Newbery Honor Book An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Eleven-year-old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy and voracious reader of Western adventure novels. When she and her sister Maude escape their self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier, they begin an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about. This time however, the "wanted woman" isn't a dime-novel villian, it's Sallie's very own sister! What follows is not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how two sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws—and lived to tell the tale!
“A fifteen-year-old creates an alter ego to woo his dream girl. Compulsively readable.” —The New York Times This quirky, flirty, and smart story will appeal to fans of Frank Portman’s King Dork, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park. It’s not exactly a love story . . . but it’s pretty close. It’s 1977. Fifteen-year-old Vinnie is recovering from the worst case of acne his dermatologist’s ever seen. His girl moved to California without saying good-bye. And the ink on his parents’ divorce papers is barely dry when his mom announces they’re moving from Queens to Long Island. The silver lining? Moving next door to Patsy, everyone’s dream girl. Not that she’d ever notice him. But when Vinnie calls Patsy one night, it leads to a chain of anonymous midnight conversations, and the two develop a surprisingly strong connection despite the lies it’s built on. But as Vinnie gets to know Patsy in real life, it’s clear that both identities can’t survive. . . .
The papers call Maude notorious. But 12-year-old Sallie knows her big sister didn't do the things the stories say . . . not on purpose anyway. In fact, she and Maude have made a fresh start and are trying to live on the up-and-up. But just when the girls are settling into their new life, Maude is arrested—and before you can say "jailbreak," the orphaned sisters are back on the run! In the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Misadventures of Maude March, Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis once again takes on a dizzingly fast, delightfully rowdy, and altogether heartwarming ride through the old west—proving that half the fun of any journey is the getting there.
Due to a misunderstanding over her involvement in a botched robbery, Maude, with younger sister Sallie, hides out at the home of an uncle, but when she is discovered and arrested, the orphaned sisters flee, trying to clear Maude's name.
The papers call Maude notorious. But 12-year-old Sallie knows her big sister didn't do the things the stories say . . . not on purpose anyway. In fact, she and Maude have made a fresh start and are trying to live on the up-and-up. But just when the girls are settling into their new life, Maude is arrested—and before you can say "jailbreak," the orphaned sisters are back on the run! In the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Misadventures of Maude March, Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis once again takes on a dizzingly fast, delightfully rowdy, and altogether heartwarming ride through the old west—proving that half the fun of any journey is the getting there.
Ten-year-old Lexie used to love going to the shore. For as long as she can remember, she's spent every summer there with her parents, eating hamburgers, swimming in the ocean, and combing the beach for treasure. This summer is going to be different though. Lexie's mom and daddy are divorced, and for the first time Mom won't be there. To make matters worse, Daddy has a surprise—his new girlfriend, Vicky, and her two sons are coming to stay with them for a week! Now Lexie has to share her house with perky Vicky, Vicky's moody teenage son Ben, and messy three-year-old Harris. The little beach house just doesn't seem big enough for so many people. Is there still room for Lexie? In a voice that's sharp, funny, and sincere, Newbery Honor-winning author Audrey Couloumbis tells the story of a girl discovering that if you pay attention, sometimes you can find treasure in the most unlikely places.
Thirteen-year-old Elvira worries about her future when, after a fight, her father heads to Las Vegas for an Elvis impersonator competition and her pregnant mother takes her and her younger sister to Memphis to visit a grandmother the girls have never met.
I'm old enough to stay home alone, you know." Mom said, "Not a chance. Who's going to lug the loot ba—" and the locks on the door sprung open. I opened the door and unloaded the cart. It took five minutes, probably less. "Mom?" I said, looking around when I'd finished. I didn't see her. "Mom?" I yelled. "Mom?" It's a few days before Christmas when 10-year-old Jake's mom slips and breaks her leg. For as long as Jake can remember, it's just been him and his mom, so with no one else to look after him the hospital contacts the gruff granddad Jake only knows through awkward twice-a-year phone calls. When grandad shows up, he's nothing like Jake expected. But as Jake gets to know his grandfather and a makeshift family of friends and neighbors come together around him and his mom, he realizes that this might not be such a bad Christmas after all. With beautiful spare writing that will appeal to fans of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Higher Power of Lucky, Newbery Honor—winning author Audrey Couloumbis tells a story as warm and welcome as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day and shows that the best gift of all is the gift of family.
“A fifteen-year-old creates an alter ego to woo his dream girl. Compulsively readable.” —The New York Times This quirky, flirty, and smart story will appeal to fans of Frank Portman’s King Dork, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park. It’s not exactly a love story . . . but it’s pretty close. It’s 1977. Fifteen-year-old Vinnie is recovering from the worst case of acne his dermatologist’s ever seen. His girl moved to California without saying good-bye. And the ink on his parents’ divorce papers is barely dry when his mom announces they’re moving from Queens to Long Island. The silver lining? Moving next door to Patsy, everyone’s dream girl. Not that she’d ever notice him. But when Vinnie calls Patsy one night, it leads to a chain of anonymous midnight conversations, and the two develop a surprisingly strong connection despite the lies it’s built on. But as Vinnie gets to know Patsy in real life, it’s clear that both identities can’t survive. . . .
Eleven-year-old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy and voracious reader of Western adventure novels. When she and her sister Maude escape their self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier, they begin an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about. This time however, the "wanted woman" isn't a dime-novel villian, it's Sallie's very own sister! What follows is not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how two sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws—and lived to tell the tale!
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.