Questo autore è specializzato nella scrittura per giovani lettori, sebbene il suo lavoro attragga tutte le fasce d'età. I suoi libri sono pubblicati da diverse case editrici, a testimonianza di un ampio raggio d'azione. Oltre a scrivere, è un insegnante di scuola pubblica, offrendo una prospettiva unica sulla gioventù che informa le sue narrazioni. La sua passione per la narrazione si è evoluta da un profondo amore per la lettura e un persistente desiderio di scrivere in molti generi.
When a loved one dies, remembering them through shared experiences and the ways they expressed their love, helps with loss.Bushra misses her mother, her dayik. So does her brother Sherzat. Mom used to help them with homework, read to them, and tuck them into bed at night. For Bushra, she would cook kubbat halab, perfectly golden rice-and-potato patties made without meat. No one can make kubbat halab quite like Mom, but Bushra wants to try.
Maysa Mazari is alarmed by her mother's talk about arranged marriage. As a hijab-wearing Pakistani-American, she wants to find love on her own. Her judgmental Muslim clique has protected her from racist taunts, although the leader is turning on her as Maysa strays from the group because of her attraction to Haydee. Haydee Gomez is a former gang member and juvenile detention student. Now living with a clean-cut aunt, she wants to turn her life around, even though one person will never let her forget her roots-Rafe, her abusive pimp. Haydee attempts to pull away from a life of prostitution when she develops feelings for Maysa, although Rafe isn't willing to give her up too easily. Finding themselves in danger from Maysa's friends and Haydee's pimp, it's apparent their love disturbs everyone around them as they fight to stay together.
Destiny awakes with amnesia. She'd been driving on a wet road, about to leave flowers at a memorial marker of a deceased classmate, when she almost met that same fate. Her mother, Mildred, is beyond restrictive, and she doesn't want Destiny to have her cellphone back. A nurse sneaks it into her room, but it's useless without the passcode. After her hospital stay, her mother becomes physically abusive. Destiny and Gabriel, the boy she's developing feelings for, decide to drive around to jog her memory. She's positive she crashed near a memorial marker. When they find the place in question, and when Destiny remembers her phone's passcode, nothing is as it seems-and Mildred is crazier than she thought.
Not allowed to eat from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan and forbidden to date, fifteen-year-old Almira finds that temptation comes in many forms during the Muslim holy month, as she longs to feel like a typical American girl.
A children's picture book about accepting and loving your appearance.