As this little family moves through the world, the girl notes some of the ways that her parents are different from each other, and how she is different from both of them. With each difference she lists, she highlights the ways that their individual characteristics join together to make her family. The fact that her mother is African American and her father is white is just one of the many interesting things that make this little girl and her family “just right.”

    Tim was about to enter a world of the past, with bullying boys, stones and Indian spirits of long ago. But they were real spirits, real stones, very real memories…In this powerful family saga, author Tim Tingle tells the story of his family’s move from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, TX. Spanning 50 years, Saltypie describes the problems encountered by his Choctaw grandmother—from her orphan days at an Indian boarding school to hardships encountered in her new home on the Gulf Coast.Tingle says, “Stories of modern Indian families rarely grace the printed page. Long before I began writing, I knew this story must be told.” Seen through the innocent eyes of a young boy, Saltypie — a 2011 Skipping Stones honor book, WordCraft Circle 2012 Children's Literature Award-winner, and winner of the 2011 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People in the category of Grades 4-6 — is the story of one family’s efforts to honor the past while struggling to gain a foothold in modern America.Tim Tingle, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is a sought-after storyteller for folklore festivals, library conferences, and schools across America. At the request of Choctaw Chief Pyle, Tim tells a story to the tribe every year before Pyle’s State of the Nation Address at the Choctaw Labor Day Gathering. Tim’s previous and often reprinted books from Cinco Puntos Press—Walking the Choctaw Road and Crossing Bok Chitto—received numerous awards, but what makes Tim the proudest is the recognition he receives from the American Indian communities.Karen Clarkson, a Choctaw tribal member, is a self-taught artist who specializes in portraits of Native Americans. She did not start painting until after her children had left home; she has since been widely acclaimed as a Native American painter. She lives in San Leandro, California.

    A wonderful picture book introduction to a legendary American writer."Today I'm going to wearMy favorite pink blouseI'm going with my daddyTo visit Langston's house."It's a special day when a little girl and her father go to visit the house where the great poet Langston Hughes lived-especially when the little girl is a poet herself!This rhythmic tale is a wonderful introduction to the work and world of Langston Hughes, who was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance and an American cultural hero.

    He shuts all the windows to keep in his mother’s familiar smell and scratches open the cut on his knee to remember her comforting voice. He doesn’t know how to speak to his dad anymore, and when Grandma visits and throws open the windows, it’s more than the boy can take—until his grandmother shows him another way to feel that his mom’s love is near. With tenderness, touches of humor, and unflinching emotional truth, Charlotte Moundlic captures the loneliness of grief through the eyes of a child, rendered with sympathy and charm in Olivier Tallec’s expressive illustrations.

    His relatives send her away and she becomes a buffalo. Her husband follows and undergoes the Buffalo chief's tests to take on buffalo form thus strengthening the relationship between the people and the buffalo.

    It is a friendship that children who read this book will long remember.

    But Kai is determined to bust a move in this fun and sweet celebration of African American families. Kai's aunt is getting married, and everyone in the family is excited about the wedding...except Kai. For Kai's family, weddings mean dancing to the Electric Slide--a groovy line dance with steps that Kai finds tricky to master. More than anything Kai wants to prove that he can boogie down with the rest of the Donovans and earn a cool nickname from his Granddad. With help from his family and a little encouragement from his new uncle, Kai is able to break through his nerves and break it down on the dance floor in this humorous contemporary story with all the right moves.

    A young student receives a family tree assignment in school, but she can only trace back three generations. Grandma gathers the whole family, and the student learns that 400 years ago, in 1619, their ancestors were stolen and brought to America by white slave traders. But before that, they had a home, a land, a language. She learns how the people said to be born on the water survived.

    Grandma brings special things to eat, Grandpa lights the candles, and everyone in the family celebrates their heritage.

    On her first night, she's wakened by the muezzin at the nearby mosque calling the faithful to prayer, and Yasmin watches from her bed as her grandmother prepares to pray. A visit with Grandmother is always special, but this time it is even more so. Her grandmother makes Yasmin prayer clothes, buys her a prayer rug, and teaches her the five prayers that Muslims perform over the course of a day. When it's time for Yasmin to board a plane and return home, her grandmother gives her a present that her granddaughter opens when she arrives: a prayer clock in the shape of a mosque, with an alarm that sounds like a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Maha Addasi's warm and endearing story is richly illustrated by Ned Gannon. Features a text in English and Arabic, and includes an author's note and glossary.Book Details: Format: Hardcover Publication Date: 9/1/2010 Pages: 32 Reading Level: Age 7 and Up

    But what can she do to protect Joaqu�n and his mother from the Border Patrol as the van cruises slowly up the street toward their hiding place?Writer Gloria Anzald�a is a major Mexican American literary voice. Illustrator Consuelo M�ndez is a noted Latin American artist. Both grew up in South Texas. In this, their first collaboration, they have captured not only the hardship of daily life on the border, but also the beauty of the landscape and the dignity and generosity of spirit that the Mexican Americans and the Mexican immigrants share.

    When Quinn the Owl makes a new friend, a firefly named Blink, she is filled with joy. But one night, Quinn wakes up to find her friend has disappeared in a flash. “Momma, why didn’t God make Blink stay with me? Didn’t he know how much I loved him?”“God doesn’t always stop bad things from happening, Quinn. But He does promise that He will always be with you, and He will never stop being your friend.” Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully written, Quinn Says Goodbye is designed for children dealing with different kinds of loss, whether it be death of a pet or a family member, or simply the loss of a favorite toy. Remind little ones that although people and things might not be in their life forever, God will never leave them.

    But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton’s mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that’s no way to live.Armed with his grandfather’s brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping he can join them on the road. But on the journey that takes him through the New York City subways and to Washington Square Park, Clayton learns some things that surprise him.

    He played with my toys and broke them, and he left dirty footprints all over my bed. But then Stevie left again, and I missed him. I missed playing Cowboys and Indians on the stoop and watching cartoons in the morning. Maybe... just maybe, Stevie wasn't so bad after all.

    From Pura Belpré Award–winning author Margarita Engle comes a lively, rhythmic picture book about a little girl visiting her grandfather who is a pregonero—a singing street vendor in Cuba—and helping him sell his frutas.When we visit mi abuelo, I help him sell frutas, singing the names of each fruit as we walk, our footsteps like drumbeats, our hands like maracas, shaking… The little girl loves visiting her grandfather in Cuba and singing his special songs to sell all kinds of fruit: mango, limón, naranja, piña, and more! Even when they’re apart, grandfather and granddaughter can share rhymes between their countries like un abrazo—a hug—made of words carried on letters that soar across the distance like songbirds.