Difficult Parents

Written by a popular middle-grade author, this heartfelt and important treatment of anxiety and depression centers on a 10-year-old boy who begins to handle his grief after his mother disappears by creating a fantasy narrative of where she’s gone, with the help of a kindly neighbor who survived separation from her father during World War II.

This three part story follows the life of Grace Owens. From her tumultuous, abusive home life, to her disastrous first marriage, Grace's rough life changes her from a young, innocent child to a hardened, unhappy adult. One day, Grace meets Joseph. Can he help her turn her life around, or will he only bring her more heartache and pain? Follow Grace through this tense, emotional drama as she tries to find true happiness and peace. Will she ever find saving grace?

The death of a parent is heartbreaking, but the issues surrounding suicide can be even more devastating. My Grief is Like the Ocean was written by mental health professionals who wanted to support caregivers during incredibly difficult conversations with children. Using the latest research and clinical guidance, and told from the perspective of a boy who lost his father to suicide, this book will help children to feel supported. When caregivers and children listen to this book together, they will gain a valuable resource for engaging in honest discussions to help families heal.

Tobey wants a better life - for him and for Callie Rose. He wants nothing to do with the violent gangs that rule the world he lives in. But when he's offered the chance to earn some extra money, how much could it hurt to just this once say yes? Callie Rose knows all about the danger of saying yes. She knows about terrible mistakes, and violence and family feuds, and the fierce divide between Noughts and Crosses. And knowing so much about the past makes her afraid for her future. Because sometimes, one little bad decision can change everything....

Lalo Lesperance lives with his older brother and Mexican American mother in a low-income apartment building in Miami. They moved there from a subdivision after the family lost Lalo’s Haitian American father. At school, Lalo is known as the boy who can’t remember anything and needs special help in all his classes. But when the first COVID lockdown hits, he finds himself in a friendship of convenience with Vivi, a Mexican American kid his age who gets perfect grades and who never gave him a second thought when they were in school.

Rose wants to be alone but instead she's on a road trip of discovery with her mother. This is a warm, generous novel big on family dynamics and a rich portrait of a feisty young girl facing up to love, loss and life's big issues.

Davey's father has been murdered – and the aftermath is causing her family to fall apart. Davey's heartbroken mum plucks them up and takes them to stay with her prim and proper aunt in Los Alamos. She escapes the claustrophobic house by cycling up to the canyon, where she meets a mysterious older boy called Wolf: intense, brooding and also about to lose someone close to him. But falling for someone won't make her dad come back – there are no easy answers when you need to stick your broken family back together.

Runaway Bunny, The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant, and Goodnight Moon are national treasures and many of us remember them from our childhoods. Catherine Zeta-Jones narrates The Runaway Bunny in a new piano-trio version composed by GPR Records artistic director and four-time Emmy Award Winner, Glen Roven. This piece premiered at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony. Runaway Bunny was written in 1942 and has been published continuously since that time - it's a wonderful timeless story of free thinking and creativity.

Sixteen years have passed since Sephy Hadley first met Callum McGregor. For Callie Rose, growing up mixed race in a world where bitter prejudice divides Noughts and Crosses has meant she's an outsider wherever she turns. Enter Jude McGregor. Jude teaches Callie about her real family history, and the more she learns the more he persuades her where her loyalties really lie. But soon Callie is caught in a trap she can't get out of - one which will have deadly consequences.

Katie can't leave her house during the day: she has a rare disease that makes even the smallest amount of sunlight deadly. But everything changes when one evening, singing her heart out on a deserted station platform, she meets Charlie. Before the night is out, Katie is smitten. But she hasn't told Charlie her secret. She just wants to have her normal love story before reality kicks in. Lost in her nighttime summer romance, Katie knows that love will light the way.

On the night that Aunty dies, the Raggedy Witches come for Mup's mam. Pale, cold, relentless, they will do anything to coax Mam back to Witches Borough. When they kidnap Mup's dad, Mup and her mam must leave the mundane world to rescue him. But Mam is strange on this side of the border - striding, powerful, and distant. Even if they can save Dad, Mup is not sure anything will ever be the same again....

Luke left his old life—his dead mother, his alcoholic father—behind in New York City when he came to Moab, Utah, eight months ago. Seventeen years old and technically a runaway, he found work and a new home at a youth hostel nestled in the red sandstone valley. Now, he has reinvented himself as a guy who lives for the present, and it seems to be working—particularly when it comes to his relationship with his beautiful co-worker, Tangerine.

TWO SISTERS: Kate is bound for Stanford and an M.D. - if her family will let her go. Mary wants only to stay home and paint. When their loving but repressive father dies, they must figure out how to support themselves and their mother, who is in a permanent vegetative state, and how to get along in all their uneasy sisterhood. THREE YOUNG MEN: Then three men sway their lives: Kate's boyfriend Simon offers to marry her, providing much-needed stability. Mary is drawn to Marcos, though she fears his violent past. And Andy tempts Kate with more than romance....

When 11-year-old Katy Sue loses her mother, Edna, to meningitis, she and her family must adjust to life without her. The rural farm in the 1940s provides a natural backdrop that is rhythmic and routine but unforgiving, even when a family member dies.

Ro thinks her family is totally unlike anyone else's; Jodie is afraid of herself. So they spend a long time stepping carefully around the truth, hiding secrets that they know are too terrible to reveal. These shadows from the past just won't go away and in a hostile society Ro and Jodie end up with only each other - and that grab bag of feelings that go to make up a friend: love, hate, guilt, and forgiveness.

Twelve-year-old Sadé has been escaping to an imaginary world ever since her mum passed away—with its candy-floss lilac sky, she goes on endless adventures atop her purple-winged bird, Nix. But soon she discovers that frightening shadow beasts live here too and they are seeping into the real world. Luckily, when her sister signs her up to an anonymous grief counselling group, Sadé finds her anxiety gets better. But then she's asked to perform spoken word in the talent show. The beasts won't let her get on stage.

When Mary Pinny dies from a snakebite, she leaves her young daughter, Comity, and husband Herbert in the Middle of Nowhere. As Stationmaster of the Kinkindele Repeater Station, Herbert Pinny takes great pride in his job; receiving morse messages and passing them down the Wire. But Comity dreams of a different life and sends letters to her grandmother and her snooty aunt full of colourful tales of her imaginary life. That is, until the new station assistant, Quartz Hogg, arrives and brings Comity and her father sharply back down to earth.

Jack the husky dog and his friend Maria face losses together when Maria's father dies suddenly one summer. Maria is a young girl of 11 years of age dealing with one of life's most difficult challenges, the death of a parent. She goes from experiencing a normal childhood with a normally present mother and father to almost instantly having to accept and assume the role of a child being raised solely by her mother, now a single parent. Jack the husky dog serves as her friend and coach as she finds her way through the many stages of grieving.

Thirty-four years have passed since Sephy Hadley - a Cross - first met Callum McGregor - a nought. Their love was forbidden, powerful - and deadly. Life is seemingly very different now for noughts and Crosses - including for Sephy and Callum's families. But old wounds from the past are hard to heal, and when you're playing a game as dangerous as they are, it won't be long before someone gets caught in the crossfire.

Feather Tucker has two wishes: To get her mum healthy again. To win the Junior UK swimming championships. When Feather comes home on New Year's Eve to find her mother - one of Britain's most obese women- in a diabetic coma, she realises something has to be done to save her mum's life. But when her mum refuses to cooperate, Feather realises that the problem runs deeper than just her mum's unhealthy appetite.