The Colors Of Rain

This historical middle grade novel written in free verse, set against the backdrop of the desegregation battles that took place in Houston, Texas, in 1972, is about a young boy and his family dealing with loss and the revelation of dark family secrets. Ten-year-old Paulie Sanders hates his name because it also belonged to his daddy—his daddy who killed a fellow white man and then crashed his car. With his mama unable to cope, Paulie and his sister, Charlie, move in with their Aunt Bee and attend a new elementary school. But it’s 1972, and this new school puts them right in the middle of the Houston School District’s war on desegregation. Paulie soon begins to question everything. He hears his daddy’s crime was a race-related one; he killed a white man defending a black man, and when Paulie starts picking fights with a black boy at school, he must face his reasons for doing so. When dark family secrets are revealed, the way forward for everyone will change the way Paulie thinks about family forever. The Colors of the Rain is an authentic, heartbreaking portrait of loss and human connection during an era fraught with racial tension set in verse from debut author R. L. Toalson.

Three stories. One small town. Once they collide, life will never be the same. Evan made a deathbed promise to his dad: to hold their family together and lead them well. In the face of challenges on every side, Evan neglects his studies, and to make up his grade, he must write the story of the girl in his class who always has a palm-sized masterpiece painted on her left hand. Rain has lived in Ivy Hollow nearly her entire life. The circumstances of her story have never been easy to come to terms with, but they've never been a secret... until now. Her senior year brings two new students to her small-town school, and both turn out to be a threat to the life she's created for herself. Her long-buried past is being exposed all over again, and she's terrified of facing it. Jordan doesn't want anything to do with Ivy Hollow, but her mom's new business has them living there anyway. While she's unpacking boxes, Jordan discovers a dark family secret that will shatter every conception she's ever had-and it just might have something to do with the girl at school who has a unique name and only one hand.

The fruit of a palm tree changes from green to orange when it becomes ripe. Its color lets monkeys know when the fruit is ready to eat. The bright purple color of a flower tells a hummingbird there is sweet nectar inside. Early readers will be taken on a dazzling journey in this simple yet captivating text about the bright colors of a rain forest, and what meanings they reveal. Each 24-page book features controlled text with age-appropriate vocabulary and simple sentence construction. Stunning photos closely align with descriptive text that will grab kids’ attention. While practicing their reading skills, emergent readers won’t be able to stop turning the pages as they learn about colors.

Melancholy and exuberance, refreshment and drowning. Admit you mostly only take notice of the rain when it's an annoyance. And its color - if you even consider it - then must be grey. But rain has many colors. It depends on how you look, and from where. Are you mostly inside? How about from the top of a tree, or a cloud, or the surface of the sea? Open up your magic box and free the butterflies. Don't let the python paralyze you, as he did the chickens. The deer? Maybe she had been barking at us. Our obliviousness the danger she sensed. This is the second of three volumes of poetry drafted during the first two decades of this century. Like the poems in the first volume, these have come to me through dreams, visions, events and observation. But unlike the darker lairs that birthed most of volume one, these poems alight from the sky. I hope you enjoy.

Lileala has just been named the Rare Indigo – beauty among beauties – and is about to embrace her stardom, until something threatens to change her whole lifestyle and turn the planet of Swazembi upside down. -- Colonized by the descendants of Earth’s West African Dogon Tribe, the planet of Swazembi is a blazing, color-rich utopia and famous vacation center of the galaxy. No one is used to serious trouble in this idyllic, peace-loving world, least of all the Rare Indigo. But Lileala’s perfect, pampered lifestyle is about to be shattered. The unthinkable happens and her glorious midnight skin becomes infected with a mysterious disease. Where her skin should glisten like diamonds mixed with coal, instead it scabs and scars. On top of that, she starts to hear voices in her head, and everything around her becomes confusing and frightening. Lileala’s destiny, however, goes far beyond her beauty. While searching for a cure, she stumbles upon something much more valuable. A new power awakens inside her, and she realizes her whole life, and the galaxy with it, is about to change… File Under: Science Fiction [ True Colors | Embrace the Change | What Will Be | Dancing in the Rain ]