A Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award Finalist
Twelve-year-old Sky and her father are horse whisperers—their preternatural tenderness and understanding of horses, and Sky’s uncanny ability to actually understand what they’re saying become their livelihood during the foaling season at multimillion dollar horse farms. They’re sought after by the most prestigious farms in the country to keep pregnant horses calm and stress-free until they give birth. But this spring, something awful is happening…foal after foal is a stillborn, and no one knows why. And worse for Sky, who lost her mother only months earlier, her most beloved horse is about to have her first foal. In agony, Sky takes it upon herself to figure out what the vets are missing, and stop it before even more foals are lost.
Lift Your Light a Little Higher: The Story of Stephen Bishop, Slave-Explorer
illustrated by multiple Caldecott Honor & Coretta Scott King winning artist, Bryan Collier
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Chosen to represent KY in the Pavilion of States at the Library of Congress’ 16th annual National Book Festival, Washington, DC
Welcome to Mammoth Cave.
My name’s Stephen Bishop, and I’ll be your guide.
So come with me, by the light of my lantern
into the deepest, biggest cave in all of the United States.
Down here, beneath the earth, I’m not just a slave.
I’m a pioneer. I’m a guide. I’m a man.
And this is my story….
Dream of Night
a Black-Eyed Susan Award-Winner
Untamable. Damaged. Angry.
Once full of promise and life, now lost in the shadows of abuse. This is Dream of Night’s story…and it is also Shiloh’s. One is a Thoroughbred racehorse, the other a twelve-year old foster child. By chance they both find themselves under the care of Jessalyn DiLima, a final stop for each…so why are they both so resistant to the love Jess has to offer?
“Another impressive book by the author of Here’s How I See It/Here’s How It Is.” –Kirkus Reviews
Grumpy Grandpa
illustrated by Ross MacDonald
Grandparents.com 2009 Summer Reading List: Preschool
Of all the entries in the new crop of picture books, Grumpy Grandpa is my kids’ hands-down favorite. A young boy dreads going to his Grandpa’s house for a two-week vacation, assuming that a terrible time awaits him. Little does he realize that Grandpa was once a boy himself!
(Shhhhh! Don’t tell HIM that!)
A truly loveable and undeniably grumpy book to share with a grandpa, or anyone who’s ever felt…grumpy!
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Here’s How I See It—Here’s How It Is
A Bank Street Best Book of 2010
here’s how i see itRave reviews, an endless request for autographs, my name in lights on Broadway.
here’s how it isThe audience is half empty, I spend zero time onstage, my dad’s midlife crisis is about to ruin the playhouse…and my family.
Junebug dreams of being a leading lady someday. A serious actress, a stage actress, a real actress. And it should be easy for her to get her start — her parents own the Blue Moon Playhouse, after all, and her dad performed on Broadway (once). But the truth is, at (almost) thirteen, she’s not even a supporting actress or a stand-in or an understudy or even a child actor has-been. In the current Blue Moon production, her role is this: thunder, props…and stagehand (gopher, actually). And lately it seems like maybe the stagehand mindset — go unnoticed, don’t say a word — is rubbing off on Junebug’s personality. She’s starting to feel as though her opinions never count, her worries aren’t taken seriously, that she’s becoming the ultimate stagehand: invisible. And that’s not a role she’s happy with.
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That Book Woman
illustrated by David Small
- A Junior Library Guild Selection
- A First Book Selection
- Winner: Christopher Medal
- Winner: Great Lakes Book Award
- A Texas Bluebonnet State Award Nominee
- A KY Bluegrass Award Nominee
- A Parenting Magazine Best Books 2008 Selection
- A Smithsonian Magazine Best Books 2008 Selection
- An honorable mention for Favorite Picture Book of the Year in the 2008 “Cuffies,” from Children’s Booksellers nationwide!
Cal is not the readin’ type. Living way high up in the Appalachian Mountains, he’d rather help Pap plow or go out after wandering sheep than try some book learning. Nope. Cal does not want to sit stoney-still reading some chicken scratch. But that Book Woman keeps coming just the same. She comes in the rain. She comes in the snow. She comes right up the side of the mountain, and Cal knows that’s not easy riding. And all just to lend his sister some books. Why, that woman must be plain foolish — or is she braver than he ever thought?
That Book Woman is a rare and moving tale that honors a special part of American history — the Pack Horse Librarians, who helped untold numbers of children see the stories amid the chicken scratch, and thus made them into lifetime readers.
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Angel Coming
illustrated by Susan Gaber
Mama says we must be ready,
ready for that angel coming.High in the hills of Kentucky, a little girl eagerly awaits the arrival of a very special visitor — an “angel” who, she is told, will come riding up the mountain on horseback, carrying a baby sister or brother in her saddlebag.
Li”l sis is what I”m wanting.
Li”l sis is what I”ll call her.
I”ll braid her hair right pretty,
brush it out most every night.
But the “angel” is not exactly what the young narrator imagined, and neither is the precious bundle that comes when she least expects it.
This gem of a story highlights a little-known piece of American history: the Frontier Nursing Service, a pioneering group of women who came to be called “angels on horseback.”
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Making the Run
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
loner lu, crazy luAll her life Lulu McClellan has heard the names. Growing up in a small Kentucky town, Lu has forever felt like she’s on the outside looking in. Maybe that’s why she takes pictures-to make sense of what she sees and feels but doesn’t always understand.
countdown to freedom
Now that graduation is almost here, Lu and her friend Ginny are moving in a quick blur of drugs and drink. Lu thinks she’s just marking time, waiting for the moment when life will begin for real.
end of innocenceBut the road is full of unmarked twists and turns. Without warning, Lu free-falls into first love, white Ginny begins a deadly spiral into oblivion.
a startling portrait
In stark, poetic prose, Heather Henson writes about what it means to come to a crucial crossroads and find the courage to make a run for the unknown.
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