NCW Libraries

Determined to get to Nashville to find her mother in 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home, eventually accepting a ride from a Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby.

"From Percival Everett--a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards--comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

In 1932, Minnesota's Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits upset the superintendent. Forced to flee, Odie and his brother Albert, their bestfriend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy, steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi. During one unforgettable summer,...

When lonely Ravani Foster discovers his new friend Virginia and her six mysterious runaway companions are in danger, he must fight to keep them safe, or lose the only person who has ever understood him. In the dead of night, a truck arrives in Slaughterville, a small town curiously named after its windowless slaughterhouse. Seven mysterious kids with suitcases step out of the vehicle and into an abandoned home on a dead-end street, looking over their...

"The son of a Mississippi policeman finds a boy living in hiding in the wilderness and tries to help him without giving away his secret"--

"Sal planned it for almost a year before they ran. She nicked an Ordnance Survey map from the school library. She bought a compass, a Bear Grylls knife, waterproofs, and a first aid kit from Amazon using credit cards she'd robbed. She read the 'SAS Survival Handbook' and watched loads of YouTube videos. And now Sal knows a lot of stuff. Like how to build a shelter and start a fire. How to estimate distances, snare rabbits, and shoot an airgun. And...

"For years, Harris Hayes has taught his daughter, Aggie, the ways of the northern woods. So when her mother's depression worsens, Harris shows the girl how to find and sketch the nests of wild birds as an antidote to sadness. Aggie is in a tree far overhead when her unpredictable mother spots her and forbids her to climb. Angry, the ten-year-old accidentally lights a tragic fire, then flees downriver. She lands her boat near untamed forest, where...

"Fearing his father, a young Amish boy flees his home in Pennsylvania in 1872 in the aftermath of a disastrous fire. Having never experienced the ways of the English, Joshua embarks on an epic journey to reach California"-- 1867. Growing up among the Pennsylvania Amish, Joshua knows that his father is a respected church deacon-- but he also has a weakness for drink, and has violent rages. After a disastrous fire, Joshua runs away from home and embarks...

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries. From the Publisher: He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog"...

Joy delamere is suffocating. From asthma, from her parents, and from her boyfriend, Asher, who is smothering her from the inside out. She can take his cruel words, his tender words... until the night they go too far. To escape, Joy sacrifices her suburban life to find the one who offered his help, a homeless boy called Creed. He introduces her to a world of fierce loyalty, to its rules of survival, and to love-a world she won't easily let go. Set...