Showing results by narrator "Sisi Johnson" in All Categories

Frankie Sparks can't wait to enter the town-wide sled design contest. With the help of a team, she must design and build a sled using only cardboard and duct tape. And there are PRIZES!

It’s springtime in Ms. Cupid’s class, and the entire class is excited to build their very own leprechaun traps. Maybe, if they catch one, they will all get the gift of good luck! And after a few magical clues, it looks like there might be a leprechaun on the loose in Frankie Sparks’s house! Her best friend, Maya, is convinced the leprechaun exists, but Frankie has her doubts - especially when it feels like every trap she designs fails! Will Frankie and Maya find their lucky charm, or figure out how to create some luck all on their own?

Ivy and Bean meets Aliens in My Pocket in this start to a brand-new chapter book series about Frankie Sparks, a third grader who uses her love for science and math to help her solve problems she comes across in her daily life. The best thing EVER is happening in Frankie Sparks's third-grade class: They are getting a class pet! Their teacher, Miss Cupid, tells them they will vote on their pet, but it has to meet some "parameters." 

It's time for the annual school talent show, and Frankie is excited to audition with her magic act! She wants to be just like her idol, Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic. But on the day of the audition, Frankie's best friend and Magician's Assistant, Maya, gets a big, scary case of stage fright! How can Maya be Frankie's helper on stage if she can't bring herself to speak in front of their audience? It's up to Frankie Sparks to invent just the perfect thing to help her best friend cope with the spotlight!

During the hardships of obtaining emancipation, two couples shared one home in Illinois. Residing with them was a young Black girl named Polly Crocket. But after five years, Polly, along with the two couples, were abducted, placed into a canoe, and taken down South where they became slaves. Polly was then bought by a prior who, after a year, faced setbacks that required him to sell all he owned, including Polly.

What's a Brooklyn girl to do when her best friend is away for the whole summer? Aimless and unhappy with her new foster mother, Kate falls into the hands of a stylish It Chick who whips her into fashionable shape. Armed with new confidence and a game plan to get her man, Kate quickly falls under her new bestie's bad influence. Told through Kate's witty, fearless point of view, this two-in-one edition of Hot Girl and Bad Boy present powerful stories from an important voice in young-adult fiction.

A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller." From Kentucky to the California desert, these 42 short stories - ranging from the '80s and '90s to present day - expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more.

This comical companion to Ross Burach's The Very Impatient Caterpillar pays loving homage to every child's struggle to persist through challenges while also delivering a lighthearted lesson on butterfly migration. Remember, if at first you don't succeed, fly, fly again!

Aria Blue seems like an ordinary 12-year-old. She loves music, and colorful shoelaces, and taste-testing various types of cookies. But there is much more to Aria than meets the eye. She can use her shadow like a door to travel from place to place. She can dream things into existence. And she can see when certain people need help. Because Aria is a guardian angel. Her mission? To find and guide three different girls - Gabby, Caroline, and Mikayla - through their different problems. If she succeeds, Aria will earn her wings.

Ross Burach's hilarious, tongue-in-cheek exploration of metamorphosis will make you flutter with glee, while also providing real facts about how caterpillars transform into butterflies.

When rising star Paris Secord (aka DJ ParSec) is found dead on her turntables, it sends the local music scene reeling. No one is feeling that grief more than her shunned pre-fame best friend, Kya, and ParSec's chief groupie, Fuse - two sworn enemies who happened to be the ones who discovered her body. The police have few leads, and when the trail quickly turns cold, the authorities don't seem to be pushing too hard to investigate further. Only no one counted on Paris's deeply loyal fans, ParSec Nation, or the outrage that would drive Fuse and Kya to work together.

Ever since she was little, Leah Vernon was told what to believe and how to act. There wasn’t any room for imperfection. "Good" Muslim girls listened more than they spoke. They didn’t have a missing father or a mother with a mental disability. They didn’t have fat bodies or grow up wishing they could be like the white characters they saw on TV. They didn’t have husbands who abused and cheated on them. They certainly didn’t have secret abortions.

It's 1944, and in a small Southern town, 11-year-old Ella spends her summers running wild with her cousins and friends. But life isn't always so sunny. The deep racial tension that simmers beneath their town's peaceful facade never quite goes away, and Ella misses her mama - a beautiful jazz singer who lives in Boston.   

Eleven-year-old Jenae doesn’t have any friends - and she’s just fine with that. She’s so good at being invisible in school, it’s almost like she has a superpower, like her idol, Astrid Dane. At home, Jenae has plenty of company, like her no-nonsense mama; her older brother, Malcolm, who is home from college after a basketball injury; and her beloved grandpa, Gee. Then a new student shows up at school - a boy named Aubrey with fiery red hair and a smile that won’t quit. Jenae can’t figure out why he keeps popping up everywhere she goes. 

Things have changed in the Tibbs house, and Mya isn’t happy about it. She’s stuck in the middle between an exceptionally cute baby sister and an exceptionally smart older brother. And her tired parents seem to only notice the "exceptional" kids in the house. So when a class project lassoes Mya into starting her own school newspaper, she’s sure this will earn her the star status she wants from her parents. But the same project also gives Mya’s archenemy, Naomi Jackson, a chance to prove she is a better friend to the twins, Skye and Starr, than Mya is.

Culture shock knocks city girl Agnes "Nes" Murphy-Pujols off-kilter when she's transplanted mid-senior year from Brooklyn to a small Southern town after her mother's relationship with a coworker self-destructs. On top of the move, Nes is nursing a broken heart and severe homesickness, so her plan is simple: keep her head down, graduate, and get out. Too bad that flies out the window on day one, when she opens her smart mouth and pits herself against the school's reigning belle and the principal. Her rebellious streak attracts the attention of local golden boy Doyle Rahn.

It's the day before the big parade. Alta can think about only one thing: Wilma Rudolph, three-time Olympic gold medalist. She'll be riding on a float tomorrow. See, Alta is the quickest kid in Clarksville, Tennessee, just like Wilma once was. It doesn't matter that Alta's shoes have holes because Wilma came from hard times, too. But what happens when a new girl with shiny new shoes comes along and challenges Alta to a race? Will she still be the quickest kid?

During a visit to her grandma's house, a young girl discovers a box of poems in the attic - poems written by her mother when she was growing up. Her mother's family often moved around the United States and the world because her father was in the air force. Over the years her mother used poetry to record her experiences in the many places the family lived. Reading the poems and sharing those experiences through her mother's eyes, the young girl feels closer to her mother than ever before.

Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother, Big Ma, and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles' half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven't spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that's been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible.

Meet Mare, a grandmother with flair and a fascinating past. Octavia and Tali are dreading the road trip their parents are forcing them to take with their grandmother over the summer. After all, Mare isn’t your typical grandmother. She drives a red sports car, wears stiletto shoes, flippy wigs, and push-up bras, and insists that she’s too young to be called Grandma. But somewhere on the road, Octavia and Tali discover there’s more to Mare than what you see.