Realistic Fiction
Each day Minnie and her family struggle to get by in the poorest part of Mumbai. They struggle to make ends meet, have enough to provide for a decent education, and always wonder if there will be enough of necessities, primarily water. When a series of unfortunate events forces Minnie to take over her mother’s job in a fancy high-rise building, Minnie learns about the inequity of water access.
When Donovan leaves a novel, The Adventurers, on the kitchen table, his mother checks out this new assigned read by scanning the end. Her interpretation of the ending sets into motion a chain of events that leads to a community meeting pitting those that want to ban the book against those that support its inclusion in the curriculum.
Fawn Creek, Louisiana is the quintessential sleepy, southern, small town. Nothing ever seems to happen, and everything always seems to stay the same. That is until Orchid Mason, a new 7th grader moves to the area. Orchid’s tales of living in cities across the globe enthrall Fawn Creek’s young people, giving them hope that they can break free from their community’s small, confining expectations.
After Hurricane Leo wreaks havoc on the small town of Canaan, a group of friends – Evan, Jason, Mitchell, and CJ – meet to survey the damage inflicted on their makeshift fort in the woods. At first, the friends are irritated when Evan brings Ricky, the new kid to town. Soon, their annoyance is mostly put aside after Ricky discovers a metal door recently uncovered by the hurricane’s destruction.
When the coronavirus starts to spread in Asia, the Wei-Evans family, an Asian American family living in Hong Kong, is faced with a dilemma: do they stay or leave? The kids, son Bowen, son Knox, and daughter Lea, struggle to understand the significance of the decision’s consequences. Their mother soon decides to move them all, with the exception of their father, back to the United States.
Mimi’s parents run a Greek restaurant, and when faced with financial difficulties, they must move the family from Massachusetts to Wilford Island, Florida. Mimi holds tight to her hope of playing piano in the Young Artists competition at Carnegie Hall, but everything else is different: new school, no friends, and a balmy climate.
