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  A Card for My Father

  Samantha Thornhill

  A Card For My Father by Samantha Thornhill with illustrations by Morgan Clement is the first title in a trilogy of picture books exploring the lasting effects, big and small, of a father’s incarceration on his first-grade daughter, Flora. In A Card For My Father, how can Flora complete her class assignment to write a Father’s Day card when she’s never met her father?

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  After Tupac & D Foster

  Jacqueline Woodson

  In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.

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  All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated

  Nell Bernstein

  In this "moving condemnation of the U.S. penal system and its effect on families" (Parents’ Press), award-winning journalist Nell Bernstein takes an intimate look at parents and children—over two million of them—torn apart by our current incarceration policy. Described as "meticulously reported and sensitively written" by Salon, the book is "brimming with compelling case studies...and recommendations for change" (Orlando Sentinel); Our Weekly Los Angelescalls it "a must-read for lawmakers as well as for lawbreakers."

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  Amber was Brave, Essie was Smart

  Vera B. Williams

  A series of poems tells how two sisters help each other deal with life while their mother is working and their father has been sent to jail.

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  An Ember in the Ashes

  Sabaa Tahir

  Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.

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  An Inmate's Daughter

  Jan Walker

  Jenna's mother forbids her to tell her friends that her dad is in prison. Prison reflects on wives and children. Keeping the fact of prison secret becomes more difficult when the newspaper runs a story about Jenna's "Good Samaritan" rescue at the McNeil Island Corrections Center. She just wants to fit in. As Jenna writes in her journal, children of prisoners are doing time too.

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  Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

  Benjamin Alire Senz

  Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

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  A Visit to the Big House

  Oliver Butterworth

  When Willy, Rose, and their mother go to visit Daddy in prison, they are quite anxious. But once Daddy appears and they can talk and ask questions.

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  Bait

  Alex Sanchez

  Diego keeps getting into trouble because of his explosive temper until he finally finds a probation officer who helps him get to the root of his anger so that he can stop running from his past.

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  Breaking Out

  Barthe DeClements

  As thirteen-year-old Jerry enters junior high school, he continues to adjust to the fact that his father is in prison for theft. Sequel to "Five Finger Discount" and "Monkey See Monkey Do."

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  Bronxwood

  Coe Booth

  Tyrell's life is spinning out of control after his father is released from prison, his little brother is placed in foster care, and the drug dealers he's living with are pressuring him to start dealing.

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  Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London

  Andrea Warren

  Warren takes you on a journey into the workhouses, slums, factories, and schools of Victorian England, and into the world of Dickens. She shows how he used his pen to do battle on behalf of the poor, becoming one of the great reformers of his or any age.

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  Compromised

  Heidi Ayarbe

  With her con-man father in prison, fifteen-year-old Maya sets out from Reno, Nevada, for Boise, Idaho, hoping to stay out of foster care by finding an aunt she never knew existed, but a fellow runaway complicates all of her scientifically-devised plans.

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  Coping When a Parent is in Jail

  John J. La Valle

  This book discusses problems that are common to children who have incarcerated parents.

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  Dad's in Prison

  Sandra Cain and Margaret Speed

  Tells the story of two brothers whose father is sent to prison. Narrated by the elder brother, the book describes the boys' experiences and emotions during and after their father's arrest and throughout their first visit to see him in prison.

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  Dear Yvette (Throwback Diaries)

  Ni-Ni Simone

  After a street fights ends with a jail sentence, Yvette is forced to live far from anything and anyone she's ever known, but starting her life over again may show her what it means to have a real family.

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  Deena Misses Her Mom

  Jonae Haynesworth, Jesse Holmes, Layonnie Jones, and Kahliya Ruffin

  Lately, Deena has been getting angry. A lot. She acts out in school and keeps getting in trouble. Everyone is surprised because she used to be very calm, but that was before her mother went to jail. Her dad, her grandma, and her best friend Josey all do their best to help her out, but Deena doesn’t want to talk about it. Will a day at the carnival with her Dad help her open up?

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  Do Not Pass Go

  Kirkpatrick Hill

  When Deet's father is jailed for using drugs, Deet learns that prison is not what he expected, nor are other people necessarily the way he thought they were.

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  Far Apart, Close in Heart: Being a Family When a Loved One is Incarcerated

  Becky Birtha

  Children from all walks of life experience various emotions when their parent is in jail or prison, but they learn there are ways to communicate their feelings that will help improve their situation and remind them they are not alone.

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  Fighting for Dontae

  Mike Castan

  When Mexican American seventh-grader Javier is assigned to work with a special education class and connects with Dontae, who has both physical and mental disabilities, his reputation among gang members and drug abusers no longer seems very important.

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  Find Me

  Romily Bernard

  When teen hacker and foster child Wick Tate finds a dead classmate's diary on her front step, with a note reading "Find me," she sets off on a perverse game of hide-and-seek to catch the killer.

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  Finlater

  Shawn Stewart Ruff

  In this Lambda Literary Award-winning debut, the course of growing up in just-this-side-of-segregation 1970s Cincinnati, Ohio, seems predictable if uninspiring for Cliffy Douglas. That is, until the deadbeat father of this gifted 13-year-old black kid from the Finlater Gardens Projects appears out of nowhere. The real fun and trouble begin when Noah, a Jewish boy he meets in junior high school, takes him on a joyride to first lust and love.

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  Five-Finger Discount

  Barthe DeClements

  Ten-year-old Jerry's attempts to adjust to his new school and make new friends are complicated by his determination to keep secret the fact that his father is serving time in the local prison for being a thief.

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  Four-Four-Two

  Dean Hughes

  From the author of Soldier Boys and Search and Destroy comes a thought-provoking, action-packed story based on the little-known history of the Japanese Americans who fought with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. Yuki Nakahara is an American. But it's the start of World War II, and America doesn't see it that way. Like many other Japanese Americans, Yuki and his family have been forced into an internment camp in the Utah desert. But Yuki isn't willing to sit back and accept this injustice-it's his country too, and he's going to prove it by enlisting in the army to fight for the Allies. When Yuki and his friend Shig ship out, they aren't prepared for the experiences they'll encounter as members of the "Four-Four-Two," a segregated regiment made up entirely of Japanese-American soldiers. Before Yuki returns home-if he returns home-he'll come face to face with persistent prejudices, grueling combat he never imagined, and friendships deeper than he knew possible.

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  Freak the Mighty

  Rodman Philbrick

  At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.