Content Finder

“Rotten English” spans the globe to offer an overview of the best non-standard English writing of the past two centuries, with a focus on the most recent decades. The book collects the poetry, essays, short stories, and novels of the best in global vernacular writing from Mark Twain to Junot Diaz.

Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and Kristi, the next-door friend she’s always wished for, it’s her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?

Meet Jenna Boller, star employee at Gladstone Shoe Store in Chicago. Standing a gawky 5’11” at 16 years old, Jenna is the kind of girl most likely to stand out in the crowd — for all the wrong reasons. But that doesn’t stop Madeline Gladstone, the president of Gladstone’s Shoes, from hiring Jenna to drive her cross country in a last ditch effort to stop Elden Gladstone from taking over his mother’s company and turning a quality business into a shop-and-schlock empire. Now Jenna Boller shoe salesperson is about to become a shoe-store spy as she joins her crusty old employer for an eye-opening adventure that will teach them both the rules of the road — and the rules of life. (from Penguin.com)

When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village, 13-year-old Jessie discovers it is actually a 1995 tourist site under unseen observation by heartless scientists, and it’s up to Jessie to escape the village and save the lives of the dying children.