Sharon Darrow

For sixteen-year-old Sissy and her brother Boy, trash is a reminder of one too many sorry foster placements they've endured, a way of life they can't wait to escape. Now on the run in search of their big sister Raynell, ironically they are forced to rely on their trash-picking skills for sustenance and shelter.

Reunited at last with Raynell in St. Louis, Boy and Sissy shed their old identities, reinvent themselves as graffiti artists, and splash their new names on city bridges and walls. But one night's expedition goes horribly wrong, and Sissy looks again to trash, this time as the beginning of something artful and beautiful.

Two teen siblings run from foster life -- and find new expression as graffiti artists -- in a stark but hopeful poetic novel.

Young-adult novel
12 yrs and up
Grade 7 and up

Lexieville, Arkansas, can hardly be called a town - it’s just a handful of shotgun houses squatting at the end of a gravel road off the two-lane highway out of Sardis. For many in the Lexie clan, this is the only place they’ve ever been, the only home they’ll ever know. Truly Lexie’s dreams of a better life, if she had them once upon a time, have worn threadbare and frail as an ancient quilt. Her devoted but hapless husband, John, long ago accepted his lot in life but hasn’t given up hope that their two children, Jobe and Pert, might lead the lives they’ve only imagined.

But Jobe has already dropped out of high school and looks to be marrying young. Only Pert still harbors a youthful and fierce determination to get out, and get out as fast as she can. She aims to wipe the detested red dust of Lexieville off her feet and put on a new life like a bright, clean, fresh coat of paint. The weight of history is hard to shrug off, however, and seems to grow heavier as Pert moves closer to independence. With little support and no role models to follow, will she have the strength to fend off generations’ worth of fatalism, and the confidence to defend her dreams?

Sharon Darrow’s harrowing coming-of-age tale, told from the points of view of mother, son, and daughter, is rich with metaphorical significance and - like its small-town heroine - is obstinately, everlastingly hopeful.

Young-adult novel
14 yrs and up
Grade 9 and up

illustrator: Angela Barrett

Long before Mary Shelley published her Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein, in 1818, at the age of nineteen, she shared fireside ghost tales at the home of family friends in Scotland. It was there that the headstrong girl - orphaned by her mother, spurned by her stepmother, and sent away by her father - spent two of her happiest teenage years. The brooding Scottish landscape and warm family atmosphere so influenced the author’s life and art that some believe her famous novel took root there.

To illuminate this period in Mary Shelley’s life, Sharon Darrow skillfully spins fiction from fact. Her words are masterfully matched by Angela Barrett’s exquisite, atmospheric, authentically detailed illustrations. The result is a rich tapestry of stories within stories - those told, those written, and more extraordinary, those lived.

Haunting and deeply moving - a beautifully illustrated, fictionalized account of a formative time in the life of the teenage girl who wrote our most enduring horror story.

Ages 8-12

Illustrated by Kathryn Brown

Miss Raney reigns triumphant as she grips the reins of her old nag, undaunted by the rain-indeed, the tornado!-which tries in vain to deprive her of a first prize at the County Fair. And therein lies a tale of courage, of never-say-can't, of perseverance that will strike a chord in the heart of every also-ran. Miss Raney simply will have that blue ribbon for her Sooner Biscuits this year!

Disregard the fact that her first batch burned while she was pumping a nice drink from the well; or that the flour bin was empty and black clouds were rolling in as she clamped on her bonnet and dove onto Old Thunder's back to ride to town for more. Forget that every prize-winning neighbor along the way pointed to the sky and warned her to head home. Concentrate on the swirling, whirling funnel that near to killed Miss Raney and Old Thunder, but that also power-sifted the flour so that her biscuits fairly floated from the oven into willing taster Thunder's hungry mouth.

And therein lies the surprise ending, not a hint of which you'll get from me. Brown's watercolor pictures are absolutely perfect in capturing the characters and their country village setting. All in all, a real winner of a book.
Reviewer: Judy Chernak

Ages 3-8