Monroe Free Library

He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But something made her turn around and go back. They met nearly every week for years, and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades.

Illustrator James McMullan discusses how his early childhood in China and his wartime journeys with his mother influenced his life and career.

"They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future."--Publisher.

Gary Soto writes that when he was five "what I knew best was at ground level." In this lively collection of short essays, Soto takes his listener to a ground-level perspective, recreating in vivid detail the sights, sounds, smells, and textures he knew growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood tie it all together: his Buddha "splotched with gold," the taps of his shoes, and the "engines of sparks that lived beneath...

Haya grew up with the name, Eva Zimmerman, and learned she was Jewish when she was almost eight-years-old, and tells about life in Communist Romania.

"Tyler's brain is different. Unlike his friends, he has a hard time paying attention in class. He acts out in goofy, over-the-top ways. Sometimes, he even does dangerous things--like cut up a bus seat with a pocketknife or hang out of an attic window. To the adults in his life, Tyler seems like a troublemaker. But he knows that he's not. Tyler is curious and creative. He's the best artist in his grade, and when he can focus, he gets great grades....

"This is YA nonfiction. It's the memoir of a boy named Sungju who grew up in North Korea and, at the age of twelve, was forced to live on the streets and fend for himself after his parents disappeared. Finally, after years of being homeless and living with a gang, Sungju is reunited with his maternal grandparents and, eventually, his father"-- "Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense...