"Mira lives in a gray and hopeless urban community until a muralist arrives and, along with his paints and brushes, brings color, joy, and togetherness to Mira and her neighbors"--
Finding herself forgiven on a rain-scrubbed morning after a difficult day, Melena makes a fresh start, and shares the song in her heart with her family and friends.
While Milo and his sister travel to a detention center to visit their incarcerated mother, he observes strangers on the subway and draws what he imagines their lives to be.
Ruthie Tober's family is known for the beautiful, warm mittens they knit so when she and her mother meet a deaf woman and her baby and give them shelter, Ruthie decides to design very special mittens for them.
Mike is the perfect mix of both his parents - his father with deep brown skin and his mother with creamy skin and honey colored hair. But when people look at his biracial family funny and say they don't match, he doesn't care because he knows he's exactly who he was meant to be.
"A young Muslim girl puts on a head scarf and not only feels closer to her mother, she also imagines herself as a queen, the sun, a superhero, and more." --
David Sheldon finds it difficult to pay attention and follow directions. His teacher, Mrs. Gorski, has had enough of David's brainstorms, but David "brainstorms" a way to manage his "wiggle fidgets."
While volunteering with her mother at a community center, a seven-year-old girl befriends Suhana, also seven, whose cerebral palsy makes it difficult for her to communicate or control her movements. Includes facts about cerebral palsy.
"Sometimes Mummy has happy days, where she talks and laughs all day long. Sometimes Mummy is sad. She cries all day and stays in bed. Sometimes she's so sad she has to go to hospital." The symptoms of a mental illness can be challenging enough for adults to understand and live with. For a child whose parent lives with bipolar disorder, witnessing and experiencing the highs and lows that this particular mental illness brings with it can be very difficult...
Older sister Rachel tells the story of her relationship with Alicia, her younger sister who is very different and very special because she has Down syndrome.
A homesick little girl who has recently moved to an unfamiliar country comforts herself by clinging to an old blanket, but when she meets a new friend, the relationship helps her take her first steps into a new culture.
When Samuel's father, the grand vizier, hears Hamza call Samuel names and tells his son to make sure Hamza never speaks an unkind word to him again, Samuel knows he must obey but has a hard time finding the right means to do so. Includes information about Jewish poet Samuel Ha-Nagid and the legend which inspired the story.
"Helen needs some special shoes for her auntie's wedding. She tries on all kinds of shoes at home, but some are too big and some are too small - and none of them are special sparkly shoes. So Helen and her mum take a trip to the market to see if they can find the perfect pair of shoes for Helen."--Amazon.com.
Describes how his creative life was profoundly shaped by a neurological condition called synesthesia which caused him to experience colors as sounds and sounds as colors.