Frankie Fish and The Sonic Suitcase


Book Description

In his first ever kids’ book, Australian comedian Peter Helliar takes young readers on a hilarious time-travel adventure about mega mischief, missing limbs, and a grandad with a wicked secret... Twelve-year-old Frankie Fish hates visiting his grandparents. Grandad Fish is cranky, and yells a lot, and has a creepy hook for a hand – plus he NEVER lets Frankie go inside his shed. But after a teensy tiny prank goes wrong at school, Frankie is packed off to Old-People Jail for the whole holidays. What Frankie doesn’t know is that Grandad has been building a home-made TIME MACHINE in the Forbidden Shed, and the old man has big plans to get his missing hand back. But when Grandad goes back in time, he changes history and accidentally wipes out Frankie’s entire family – Nanna, Mum, Dad, even his annoying sister Saint Lou. Somehow, everyone is gone but Frankie and Grandad! And it’s only a matter of time until Frankie disappears too... As the last Fish men standing, Frankie and Granddad must race back in time to undo this terrible mistake. But can they stand each other long enough to put the past back together again? And even if they manage the impossible – will Grandad's wonky time-machine ever get them home? Shortlisted for the 2018 ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children




Panic in a Suitcase


Book Description

“A virtuosic debut [and] a wry look at immigrant life in the global age.” —Vogue Having left Odessa for Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, with a sense of finality, the Nasmertov family has discovered that the divide between the old world and the new is not nearly as clear-cut as they had imagined. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, returning is just a matter of a plane ticket, and the Russian-owned shops in their adopted neighborhood stock even the most obscure comforts of home. Pursuing the American Dream once meant giving up everything, but does the dream still work if the past refuses to grow distant and mythical, remaining alarmingly within reach? If the Nasmertov parents can afford only to look forward, learning the rules of aspiration, the family’s youngest, Frida, can’t help looking back—and asking far too many questions. Yelena Akhtiorskaya’s exceptional debut has been hailed not only as the great novel of Brighton Beach but as a “breath of fresh air … [and] a testament to Akhtiorskaya’s wit, generosity, and immense talent as a young American author” (NPR).




Counterfeit Love


Book Description

Can this undercover agent save the woman he loves—or is her heart as counterfeit as the money he's been sent to track down? After all that Grandfather has sacrificed to raise her, Theresa Plane owes it to him to save the family name—and that means clearing their debt with creditors before she marries Edward Greystone. But when one of the creditors' threats leads her to stumble across a midnight meeting, she discovers that the money he owes isn't all Grandfather was hiding. And the secrets he kept have now trapped Theresa in a life-threatening fight for her home—and the truth. After months of undercover work, Secret Service operative Broderick Cosgrove is finally about to uncover the identity of the leader of a notorious counterfeiting ring. That moment of triumph turns to horror, however, when he finds undeniable proof that his former fiance is connected. Can he really believe the woman he loved is a willing participant? Protecting Theresa and proving her innocence may destroy his career—but that's better than failing her twice in one lifetime. They must form a partnership, tentative though it is. But there's no question they're both still keeping secrets—and that lack of trust, along with the dangerous criminals out for their blood, threatens their hearts, their faith, and their very survival. Combining rich history, danger, suspense, and romance, Crystal Caudill's debut novel launches this new historical series with a bang. Fans of Elizabeth Camden, Michelle Griep, and Joanna Davidson Politano will be thrilled to find another author to follow!




The Someday Suitcase


Book Description

Readers who loved The Thing About Jellyfish and Goodbye Stranger will find a mysterious magic and unforgettable friendship in The Someday Suitcase, from the critically acclaimed author of Rules for Stealing Stars. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 6, especially during homeschooling. It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom. A Bank Street Books Best Children's Book of 2018! Clover and Danny are the kind of best friends who make each other even better. They’re so important to each other that Clover believes they’re symbiotic: her favorite science word, which describes two beings who can’t function without the other. But when Danny comes down with a mysterious illness that won’t go away, the doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. So Clover decides to take matters into her own hands by making lists—list of Danny’s symptoms, his good days, his bad days. As the evidence piles up, only one thing becomes clear: Danny is only better when Clover is around. Suddenly it feels like time is running out for Clover and Danny to do everything they’ve planned together—to finally see snow, to go on a trip with the suitcase they picked out together. Will science be able to save Danny, or is this the one time when magic can overcome the unthinkable?




My Two Blankets


Book Description

When a little girl nicknamed "Cartwheel" moves to a different country with her family to be safe she has a hard time adjusting to her new home.




The Lives They Left Behind


Book Description

More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients' belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. In this fully-illustrated social history, they are skillfully examined and compared to the written record to create a moving-and devastating-group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.




Molly and Mae


Book Description

When Molly and Mae meet at the train station, two journeys begin: a trip through the countryside and an expedition through the highs and lows of friendship. At first the way is scenic and smooth—and then something goes off track. Can Molly and Mae build a bridge of kindness back to each other? Capturing the playfulness, laughter, disagreements, and reconciliations familiar to all relationships, Molly and Mae is a loving portrayal of friendship in its sweetest form.




The Black Suitcase


Book Description

Growing up poor in mid-century Limerick is a nightmare of eviction, food deprivation, flea-bites, and never enough heat. An orange at Christmas is a massive treat. And yet Seanie Morrisey, despite having to beg, scavenge, and steal to help his overwhelmed single mother and his eternally-hungry younger siblings, somehow manages to live a joyful little boy’s life. He loves fishing for eels in the River Shannon; the pennies he gets at his First Communion; his warm, extended family; the times his mother manages to earn enough to bring home fish and chips; and the giddy freedom of running wild with his little gang of friends. When Seanie is thirteen years old, he makes a mistake that gets him sent to an industrial school run by Catholic Brothers...and his life takes a dark and horrific turn. Recounted in a uniquely expressive voice resonant with the lilting musicality of its roots in Limerick, The Black Suitcase captures the joy and horror of an Irish boyhood thwarted and ruined by a cruel and twisted system. Supported by chilling historical documents, it makes the unimaginable personal and painfully real.




Torpedoed


Book Description

From award-winning author Deborah Heiligman comes Torpedoed, a true account of the attack and sinking of the passenger ship SS City of Benares, which was evacuating children from England during WWII. Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set sail for Canada with one hundred children on board. When the war ships escorting the Benares departed, a German submarine torpedoed what became known as the Children's Ship. Out of tragedy, ordinary people became heroes. This is their story. This title has Common Core connections.




The Suitcase Baby


Book Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 NED KELLY AWARD, DANGER PRIZE AND WAVERLEY LIBRARY NIB True history that is both shocking and too real, this unforgettable tale moves at the pace of a great crime novel. In the early hours of Saturday morning, 17 November 1923, a suitcase was found washed up on the shore of a small beach in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. What it contained - and why - would prove to be explosive. The murdered baby in the suitcase was one of many dead infants who were turning up in the harbour, on trains and elsewhere. These innocent victims were a devastating symptom of the clash between public morality, private passion and unrelenting poverty in a fast-growing metropolis. Police tracked down Sarah Boyd, the mother of the suitcase baby, and the complex story and subsequent murder trial of Sarah and her friend Jean Olliver became a media sensation. Sociologist Tanya Bretherton masterfully tells the engrossing and moving story of the crime that put Sarah and her baby at the centre of a social tragedy that still resonates through the decades. **Includes an extract from Tanya's latest fascinating and chilling true crime story, The Killing Streets**