Poetry For Teens

Jesse-Ray Lewis, 19, enters a West Virginia "safe house" with few possessions beyond the kerchiefs that identify him as a gang member. An age-out foster child, he lands in Bluefield, where a charity gives him food. What follows is the personal, dramatic story of two people who intervene in the life of a homeless, drug-abusing teen with a background of violence and neglect. In their next-door suite called the safe house, they impose three rules: "No alcohol or drugs. You have to work. You have to go to school." Jesse-Ray expresses gratitude. But what does he want? The couple struggles to determine his true motives....

Through this series of poems, Eunice Olsen, a former Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore, Miss Universe Singapore 2000, actress, host, and executive producer of WomenTalk, hopes to encourage girls from all over the world to know they can be who they want to be and to never give up, just like these women role models whose stories give us hope and strength. This book is for the boys as well, who will play a really important role and be there to empower these girls, to respect women, and to help bring our world to gender parity.

Martin Rising is a stunning, poetic presentation of the final months of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life - told in a rich embroidery of visions, color, musical cadence, deep emotion, and multiple layers of meaning. Against a backdrop of the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, Tennessee, the book builds to its rousing crescendo as King delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech - where his life’s commitment to peaceful activism and his dream of equality ascend to their highest peak.

Ancient Mesopotamia is often referred to as the “cradle of civilization”, and there’s good reason for it. If you take a look at history, a lot of firsts happened in Mesopotamia. These origins were soon adapted by different civilizations around the world. They were refined until almost perfected.

There are times in life when we are faced with decisions having everlasting effects. Hunter is a high school student, forced to choose which path to take. Hitting his head during an LDS church basketball game, his memory is shaken. The results leave him scrambling to make sense of his relationships with his family, his friends, and the teachings harbored deep inside him. Hunter is left to choose between his best friend and his old life or to embrace his family and the feelings pushing against his past. And then there's Jessie. She won't give the old Hunter the time of day.

"I lie in the dust and lookup at the world...." So begins the narration of an allegory revealing irony behind a perspective twist of education. "...I gaze up at the grasses towering above me. I watch the feet of people as they pass, some shuffling, some lightly and barely touching the ground. Some with steps like a dance. I have lain in rain and sun and seen the lightening streak across the sky. I wonder if today is the day my life will move on again...."

John Brown, a maligned and condemned abolitionist, lived a great life. His heroic deeds to end slavery deserve our attention and praise.

Somewhere between the twisted worlds of Tim Burton, the parables of C.S. Lewis, and the bouncing meters of Dr. Seuss, you'll find the upside down town of Nottingswood. Having cast out the majestic guardian who was once their protector, Nottingswood built the Great Wall to block out the sun. Now holed up in their houses, Nottingsfolk are content to let their town decay into a colorless wasteland. Until one day...a curious cry from the center of town catches the attention of a pair of twins who guard the Great Nottings Gate.

In compelling poetry, the spirits of Frederick Douglas, John Brown, and William Tecumseh Sherman come alive. So does the heart-rending tale of a Confederate son and Union father, the desperate struggle of boys fighting like men, the horrifying shrieks of the wounded, and the pitiful plight of a toil-weary slave. One poetic letter finds distraught parents aching for a son who hasn’t been heard from in months. Another spotlights a wounded lad languishing in a POW camp, determined to survive his living nightmare.

In moving verse, Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis gives new voice to seventeen heroes of civil rights. This commanding collection of poems invites the listener to hear in each verse the thunder that lies in every voice, no matter how small. Featuring civil rights luminaries Coretta Scott King, Harvey Milk, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Sylvia Mendez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mamie Carthan Till, Helen Zia, Josh Gibson, Dennis James Banks, Mitsuye Endo, Ellison Onizuka, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

Distilled from his successful 2003 book, A Radical Incarnation, Colin reads this amusing but very insightful spiritual fantasy that hints at a possible re-frame of what appears to look like a terrible disaster in Iraq and the Middle East. Could it be the unfoldment of a Divine Plan to heal America and awaken humanity? The story line suggests that it might be. It is about a soul being prepared by Harley, his Angel of Incarnation for his upcoming incarnation.

Award-winning author Helen Frost takes us into the breathtaking Alaskan winter landscape in this thrilling adventure with a touch of fantasy. Twelve-year-old Willow - whose heritage is both Athabascan Indian and European - wants nothing more than to mush the sled dogs to her grandparents’ home. After pressing her parents for some time, she is finally allowed to go alone. But when she commits a critical mistake, Willow wonders how she’ll ever make things right again.

New York Times best-selling author Nikki Grimes has received numerous accolades for her writing, including the Coretta Scott King Award. In Planet Middle School, 12-year-old Joylin Johnson is satisfied with her life. Everything seems pretty simple: a nice, relaxed game of basketball with the boys is all she needs to keep her happy. But it all changes when her best girlfriend starts flirting with her best guy friend.

Senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school with a stolen gun, threatens his girlfriend, Emily Beam, and then takes his own life. Soon after, angry and guilt-ridden Emily is sent to a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where two quirky fellow students and the spirit of Emily Dickinson offer helping hands. But it is up to Emily Beam to heal her own damaged self, to find the good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.

Ana Rosa is a blossoming young writer growing up in a poor seaside village in the Dominican Republic. At the young age of 12, she finds herself faced with turning points that will make up who she is, watching her brother's search for a future, learning to dance and to love, and finding out what it means to be a part of a community.

A hilarious spoof of the classic poem that shows how the holidays can take a toll on us all.

The journey west by wagon train promises to be long and arduous for nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Graves and her parents and eight siblings. Yet she is hopeful about their new life in California: freedom from the demands of family, maybe some romance, better opportunities for all. But when winter comes early to the Sierra Nevada and their group gets a late start, the Graves family, traveling alongside the Donner and Reed parties, must endure one of the most harrowing and storied journeys in American history.

Inside this audiobook, you will find: Funny nonsense from my mind. Zany rhymes and slimy tales.

When Lonnie Collins Motion was seven years old, his life changed forever. Now Lonnie is eleven and his life is about to change again. His teacher, Ms. Marcus, is showing him ways to put his jumbled feelings on paper. And suddenly, Lonnie has a whole new way to tell the world about his life, his friends, his little sister, Lili, and even his foster mom, Miss Edna, who started out crabby but isn’t so bad after all. Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical voice captures Lonnie’s thoughtful perspectives of the world and his determination to one day put a family together again.

Written in free verse, Hidden is a compelling tale about an unlikely friendship between two girls. Darra Monson and Wren Abbott first cross paths when Darra’s deadbeat dad is arrested for theft and kidnapping after he steals a car - unaware that Wren was sitting in the back. Years later, the girls - now teens - attend the same summer camp, and are forced to confront the fateful event that changed their lives.