World Family

Twelve-year-old Bo Bo lives with his uncle U Ba in Kalaw, a town in Burma. An unusually perceptive child, Bo Bo can read people’s emotions in their eyes. This acute sensitivity only makes his unconventional home life more difficult: His father comes to visit him once a year, and he can hardly remember his mother, who, for unclear reasons, keeps herself away from her son. Everything changes when Bo Bo discovers the story of his parents’ great love, which threatens to break down in the whirlwind of political events, and of his mother’s mysterious sickness.

Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever. Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past.

Mimi is not thrilled to be spending her summer in Karachi, Pakistan, with grandparents she’s never met. Secretly, she wishes to find her long-absent father, and plans to write to him in her beautiful new journal. The cook's daughter, Sakina, still hasn't told her parents that she'll be accepted to school only if she can improve her English test score - but then, how could her family possibly afford to lose the money she earns working with her Abba in a rich family's kitchen?

A heartbroken and humiliated Ricky Graves took the life of a classmate and himself. Five months later, the sleepy community is still in shock and mourning. Ricky's sister, Alyssa, returns to confront her shattered, withdrawn mother and her guilt over the brother she left adrift. Mark McVitry, the lone survivor of the deadly outburst sparked by his own cruelty, is tormented by visions of Ricky's vengeful spirit. Ricky's surrogate older brother, Corky Meeks, grapples with doubts about the fragile boy he tried to protect but may have doomed instead.

When the Valiant weighs anchor, the Irish that are crammed into her hold break into song, and with the hymn, say good-bye to the island of their birth. Famine, nationalism, and sectarian strife have crippled the Emerald Isle, and those who can afford it crowd aboard leaky ships, risking death for the possibility of a better life.

Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D. E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touching tale of love, loss and redemption through friendship.

Otto and Sheed are the local sleuths in their zany Virginia town, masters of unraveling mischief using their unmatched powers of deduction. And as the summer winds down and the first day of school looms, the boys are craving just a little bit more time for fun, even as they bicker over what kind of fun they want to have. That is, until a mysterious man appears with a camera that literally freezes time.

Tomi was born in Hawaii. His grandfather and parents were born in Japan and came to America to escape poverty. World War II seems far away from Tomi and his friends, who are too busy playing ball on their eighth-grade team, the Rats. But then Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese, and the United States declares war on Japan. Japanese men are rounded up, and Tomi’s father and grandfather are arrested. It’s a terrifying time to be Japanese in America. But one thing doesn’t change: the loyalty of Tomi’s buddies, the Rats.

There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad's Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name – Jamilah Towfeek. For the past three years Jamie has hidden her Lebanese background from everyone at school. It's only with her email friend John that she can really be herself. But now things are getting complicated: the most popular boy in school is interested in her, but there's no way he would be if he knew the truth.

Eking out a living as a teacher's aide in a small New Mexican border town, Tía Regina is also raising her teenage nephew, Gabo, a hardworking boy who has entered the country illegally and aspires to the priesthood. When Gabo's father, Rafa, disappears while crossing over from Mexico, Regina fears the worst. After several days of waiting and an ominous phone call from a woman who may be connected to a smuggling ring, Regina and Gabo resolve to find Rafa.

Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the 19th century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans, looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).

Lex fled Memphis years ago, making ends meet with odd jobs teaching English around the world. She only returns when she has no choice, when her godmother presents her with a bargain she can't refuse. Lex has never understood her mother, who died tragically right before Lex's college graduation, but now she's got a chance to read her journals, to try and figure out what sent her mother spiraling all those years ago.

Maybe your kids are like many others - glued to their smartphones, social media, and streaming entertainment. While we know excessive screen time, especially social media, isn’t healthy, how do we teach our kids to become screen-wise? Prioritizing connection over correction, Parenting Generation Screen equips you with key questions and conversations to help you process screen limits with and for your kids. You’ll learn how to dialogue in meaningful ways about social media, entertainment, and screen time so they learn to be wise in the digital world.

Acclaimed romance author Katie Lane inspires listeners to believe in true love. When Faith Aldridge learns she has a twin sister, she treks to Bramble, Texas, to find her. But Bramble’s residents think Faith is her sister, Hope, and they take action to reunite Faith with Hope’s ex-flame, Slate. When the real Hope finally shows up, Faith pulls out all the stops to hold onto her newfound passion.

When privileged parents say that they "want what's best" for their child, they don't consciously add "and not for other children." Yet the practical effect of parents with privilege relentlessly pursuing their own child's interests is that other children are left behind. Author Sarah W. Jaffe interviewed dozens of parents who are resisting the cultural pressures to seek "the best" for only their kids while navigating some of the major decisions that parents make—about childcare, schools, how they use their time and money, and the legacy they hope to leave their kids.

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed is stuck in a city that wants nothing to do with him. Newly arrived in Brussels, Belgium, Ahmed fled a life of uncertainty and suffering in Aleppo, Syria, only to lose his father on the perilous journey to the shores of Europe. Now, Ahmed’s struggling to get by on his own, but with no one left to trust and nowhere to go, he’s starting to lose hope. Then he meets Max, a 13-year-old American boy from Washington, DC. Together, Max and Ahmed will defy the odds, learning from each other what it means to be brave and how hope can change your destiny.

Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He’s never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter - cold and unkind. In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she’s missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: A girl who is in foster care, an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means “family” in his native language.

After World War II, Mathilde leaves France for Morocco to be with her husband, whom she met while he was fighting for the French army. A spirited young woman, she now finds herself a farmer’s wife, her vitality sapped by the isolation, the harsh climate, and the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner. But she refuses to be subjugated or confined to her role as mother of a growing family.

This is the real world of modern Karachi as seen through the eyes of a young woman in an elite family. Here are the hidden dramatic realities of the upper class, the undertow of religion, revealing the truth sometimes spoken in hushed whispers, more often swept away by the flourish of silk saris at extravagant dinner parties...or perhaps never mentioned at all.

Berlin, 1943: Ava Müller is a proud supporter of the German war effort, working for Joseph Goebbels alongside her father, a high-ranking official in the Reich. With her sister Hanna, a nurse, braving bombing raids to save lives, they are a model Nazi family. Until Ava discovers her parents and Hanna are secretly working for the resistance… Returning to their country home, Ava is shocked to find her childhood friend Eliana Goldman and her family hidden in the attic.