Books

Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Morgan is SICK to DEATH of eating oatmeal for breakfast, wearing closed-toed shoes, and always doing the practical thing. She’s so fed up that one morning on her way to the bus stop, she vows to never be practical again.

Elizabeth turns her shirt inside out, tosses her shoes into the shrubs, and demands that her best friend Melissa call her “Twigs” from now on. Melissa is a bit shocked, and then shocks herself and Elizabeth further by suggesting that the MOST impractical thing would be to not go to school at all.

Then the bus honks its horn right around the corner and things get a little squirrely.

Elizabeth and Melissa learn things they never knew about their mothers, make decisions they never thought they’d make, and end up in the woods armed only with their backpacks, their wits, and dreams of adventure.

Bears, tin cans, ruffians, and the wild beauty of nature await.

Taj Agera grew up among the renowned menders of Kezzor. Now he can’t even fix a cooking pot, much less the deeper rips in the fabric of the world—or his own heart. That became clear when his dad was murdered by an assassin. And when he and his mum were banished from their village in the aftermath.

There’s no way those things can be fixed. Mending anything that really matters is impossible. His life is in tatters.

Now, he and his mum are scraping out a living in the foreign city of Nakaimen. But there are two problems: The assassin isn’t done with them yet, and Taj’s impulse to mend things keeps triggering.

As the assassin’s intentions become clearer and the consequences of inaction more dire, Taj realizes he has to do something, even if all he can manage is the first tenet of mending.

If he succeeds, he’ll keep the assassin from killing again. And maybe he can prove to himself that mending is possible at the same time.

A collection of poems about life, loss, and our continual struggle to reach for wonder and hope in the midst of our own flaws and the brokenness of the world around us.