River Readers

Claudia’s best friend, Monday, is missing. She hasn’t shown up at school and Claudia hasn’t heard from her since she returned from being away over the summer. No one will listen to Claudia, who insists something is wrong. Is Claudia over reacting or is Monday not the person Claudia thought she was.

Jerome is twelve years old when he is shot by the police and killed for playing with a toy gun in the park. Jerome was a good kid who never got in trouble. Loved by his parents and little sister, his spirit rises from his dead body and tries to find some meaning behind his death. Along the way, he encounters the ghost of Emmett Till and together they try to navigate the troubled waters of finding out if there can be any good to come out of their murders.

Ben De Backer came out as non-binary to their parents they kicked them out of the house. Suddenly homeless, they turned to their sister whom they hadn't seen or talked to in ten years. Their sister and her husband welcomed Ben with open arms. They enrolled them in a new school and an especially charismatic boy named Nathan was chosen to show them around.

Nahid has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. During her final days, she reflects on her life, her mistakes and her regrets. She and her husband, Masood, fled their native Iran during the revolution in the '80's with their young daughter. Filled with rage and resentment at the hand her fate has dealt her, Nahid tries to come to terms with her life and find some of the happiness that has alluded her all her life.

Deya is the oldest of her sisters being raised by their strictly traditional, Palestinian grandparents. As Deya nears graduation from high school, her grandparents have amped up the desire to see her married. The constant parade of potential husbands has Deya feeling trapped and hopeless, afraid of the same fate her mother met.

Thirteen years ago, Bennie Rosato took on Jason Lefkavick, a twelve-year-old boy who was sent to a juvenile detention center after fighting a class bully. Bennie couldn't free Jason, and to this day it's the case that haunts her. Jason has grown up in and out of juvenile prison, and his adulthood hasn't been any easier. Bennie no longer represents those accused of murder, but when Jason is indicted for killing the same bully he fought with as a kid, she sees no choice but to represent him.

As an inmate psychologist at a state prison, Frank Lundquist has had his fair share of surprises. But nothing could possibly prepare him for the day in which his high school object of desire, Miranda Greene, walks into his office for an appointment. Still reeling from the scandal that cost him his Manhattan private practice and landed him in his unglamorous job at Milford Basin Correctional Facility in the first place, Frank knows he has an ethical duty to reassign Miranda's case.

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason's learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason's best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family's orchard.

An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can't understand why Lieutenant Baird won't believe the story Mason has told about that day.

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It's a decision that will alter her destiny...and it's a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Reza has just moved to NYC by way of Toronto via Iran. His mother has remarried and they have moved and now live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He is anxious about starting a new school and a new life but he is mostly anxious because Reza knows he is gay.

The story takes place in 1989 the only images Reza sees of the gay community are those of people dying with AIDS. The thought paralyzes him with fear not to mention the cultural implications of being Iranian and gay.

It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis's birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently-and violently-across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit-with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.

At the advent of the violence in Syria, Jude's parents make the difficult decision to send Jude and her pregnant mother to the United States to stay with her uncle. Jude's older brother has become active in the resistance and won't leave his country and her father couldn't bear to leave his business. It was gut-wrenching to leave part of her family behind and go to a new country, whose language she barely spoke. The struggle to fit in at her new school and make new friends was a difficult one.

Caleb Franklin wanted to be extraordinary. He wanted nothing more than to escape the small town sameness of his hometown, Sutton, Indiana. His big brother (by one year), Bobby Gene was a bit more content and ready to follow the rules and expectations of his parents. This all changed, however, when 16 year old, Styx Malone came into their lives.

This graphic novel takes on a variety of issues that arise in middle school. Body image, mean girls and bullying, honesty and secrets, and first dates. I thought this was an honest look at some of the issues that teen girls experience. It was divided into individual stories and at the end of each story was a sort of summary and fact sheet sometimes in the form of an interview or a letter. I thought it was informative and age appropriate.