The Broken Girl In The Red Shoes

"Robert cradled Jacob in his arms until his tiny heart stopped beating... The nurse physically unpeeled Robert's fingers to remove Jacob's body from his hands." The Broken Girl in the Red Shoes takes you on a journey where a mother dies, taking her daughter's soul with her and leaving her heart and mind devastated and body engulfed by grief. The girl reflects on her mother's heartache throughout her life as she leads you to a haunted convent. We learn how the daughter recovers from her grief and gains back her soul and, in the process, learns never to alter the path of fate.

Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award! “A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative—based on the author’s childhood in the 1960s—a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie’s plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro’s Cuba to New York City. Just when she’s finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English—and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood’s hopscotch queen—a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie’s world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

After leaving an unfulfilling relationship, a young woman eats reckless amounts of doughnuts and candy, but there's never enough to fill the void inside her. One day, she comes across an audiobook exploring an old fairy tale and can't resist buying it. When she gets home and begins to listen to the recording, the voice of the cantadora--the keeper of old stories--and the tale she weaves about a wild child of the forest adopted by a wealthy old lady--feeds the young woman's starved spirit. The orphan in the fairy tale withers in the confines of the old lady's home and church until a pair of shoes made from red leather spark the child's heart. But the shoes are dangerous... Once Upon a Time Today is a collection of contemporary fairy tale retellings for those who have already left home. The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales is a prelude to the collection and includes the three short stories: "The Girl Who Watched for Elves" "The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes" "The Girl Who Couldn't Sing" Novellas in the Once Upon a Time Today collection: Beautiful Beautiful Dreaming of the Sea The Tree Hugger I Am Lily Dane

There was once a poor little girl called Karen. In summer, she walked barefoot and in winter, she wore clogs that hurt her feet. She had no choice, it was all she had. Dame Shoemaker wanted to help her and sewed, as best she could, a pair of red shoes. When she wore them for the first time, Karen’s life took an unexpected turn. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Match Girl". His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and "Frozen", which is loosely based on "The Snow Queen", in 2013. Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.

Nakai is a bright, curious, and ambitious nine-year old girl who lives with her parents in Labadi, a small village in Ghana, West Africa. She has never owned a pair of real shoes beyond the makeshift ones her father crafts for her at the start of the school year. One day, while selling her mother's nut bread at the market to help support her family, she finds a surprising treasure that inspires a quest: a Sears catalog from the United States. She is absolutely mesmerized by the American fashions-especially a dazzling pair of red shoes. Excited and inspired, she races home to share her discovery. Undaunted by her parents, who sadly admit that they cannot afford to buy the shoes for her, Nakai becomes more determined than ever to solve her problem. She quickly decides to find a way to buy them for herself. With the help of her independent-minded pet goat, Bongo, she embarks on a series of adventures and plans-some more successful than others-to raise the money she needs to buy her very first pair of shoes.

Elsie Martinez Trujillo Alcaraz, 'Naunny' to her grandson and communication scholar Nick Trujillo, was a working class woman, daughter of New Mexico Hispanos, and eventually the resident of a Los Angeles nursing home. She becomes the focal point for Trujillo's experimental ethnography of family relations, aging, and ethnic identity throughout the twentieth century. Collecting narratives of his grandmother's life, Trujillo learns how family members use stories to define the family's sense of itself and create collective views on intergenerational relations, social history, gender, class, and ethnicity. Through these stories, family photos, and his own recollections, supplemented with Elsie's letters and journal entries, the author is able to explore topics often ignored in life histories of the elderly--sexuality, body image, eating disorders, marital discord, mobility patterns, racial prejudice, and interactions with the health care system. Trujillo's presentation brings Naunny's humor, liveliness, and generosity alive for scholars and students alike and provides a vivid portrait of being Hispanic and female in the 20th century American west.

Jessica Harrington grew up not really knowing her biological father. He was something of an enigma, living in a country thousands of miles away. She was very much part of a single-parent family, relying on her mother for everything. That is, until her mother's boyfriend stepped into her life. The Girl in the Pink Shoes is a harrowing and graphic account of a young girl's physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, already a convicted paedophile. Jessica Harrington thought she would be protected. After all, wasn't that what mums were supposed to do? Jessica's mother betrayed her and looked the other way. She allowed the devil himself into her daughter's bedroom. What followed was years of the most horrific abuse imaginable, brutal rapes, video recordings from hidden cameras, and introductions to other paedophiles. Warned that if she ever breathed a word to anyone, she would be tortured and killed, there was never a safe place to hide from the horrors she faced on a daily basis. Bullied at school, raped and beaten at home, Jessica saw no way out and tried to take her own life. But even then, the abuse and the torment continued for many years. An incredible story from one of life's true survivors that will leave a lasting impression long after the last page has been turned.

Praise for Na'ima B. Robert's previous publications: "Interesting, and certainly timely."—Kirkus Reviews, on Boy Vs Girl "Highly recommended."—TheBookBag.co.uk, on Black Sheep "Robert's poetic style is captivating."—School Library Journal, on Ramadan Moon When Ali first meets Amirah, he notices everything about her—her hijab, her long eyelashes and her red trainers—in the time it takes to have one look, before lowering his gaze. And, although Ali is still coming to terms with the loss of his mother and exploring his identity as a Muslim, and although Amirah has sworn never to get married, they can't stop thinking about each other. Can Ali and Amirah ever have a halal "happily ever after"? Na'ima B. Robert is descended from Scottish Highlanders on her father's side and the Zulu people on her mother's side. She was born in Leeds, England, grew up in Zimbabwe, and went to university in London, England. At high school, her loves included performing arts, public speaking, and writing stories that shocked her teachers! She has written several multicultural books for children which have won, and been shortlisted, for numerous awards. Na'ima divides her time between London and Cairo, Egypt, and dreams of living on a farm with her own horses. Until then, she is happy to be a mum to her four children and keep reading and writing books that take her to a different world each time.