The sequel to the award-winning Stepping on the Cracks. “Sometimes heart-rending, sometimes funny, Gordy Smith will prove memorable to all who meet him.”—Booklist (starred review) In Following My Own Footsteps, sixth-grader Gordy Smith comes to grips with the fear that he’ll turn out no better than his abusive father . . . With his father now in jail and one brother hospitalized, Gordy’s mother has no choice but to take the family to their wealthy grandmother’s house in North Carolina. There Gordy meets William, a boy who had polio and is now wheelchair bound. Though they become friends, Gordy’s plans to help William fail spectacularly. Matters only get worse when Gordy’s father is released from prison and his mother is poised to give him a second chance. Gordy must decide where he belongs—with his dysfunctional parents or with the grandma who is more than his match in toughness, in courage, and in love. “A cast of unforgettable characters inhabit this work, seasoned with WW II setting but utterly contemporary in its concerns. Hahn is in top form, proving through Gordy’s first-person narration that real love can triumph over all kinds of adversity, and often does.”—Kirkus Reviews “The complex characterizations, period setting and Gordy’s brave attempts to break a cycle of violence will hold readers’ interest.”—Publishers Weekly “It’s a timeless social issue really, in any era, of having a dysfunctional abusive parent . . . A very good story showcasing complex friendships, familial relationships, and inner conflict, all set in WW2 America.”—Cats and Fiction

In a small Southern town in 1944, two girls secretly help a seriously ill army deserter, a decision that changes their perceptions of right and wrong. Issues of moral ambiguity and accepting consequences for actions are thoughtfully considered in this deftly crafted story.

In Follow My Footsteps, Sara Safari and Jeffrey Kottler recount the thrilling tale of Sara's climb to the top of Mount Everest for a cause: bringing awareness to the plight of marginalized girls and victims of child sex trafficking around the world. As a young girl in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, Sara experienced firsthand the oppressive, restrictive environment that enables the sex-trafficking trade to thrive. She found herself with little personal freedom and few rights under the law, and she knew there had to be something better. As an adult, Sara wanted to empower children who'd been cast aside by society, so she set out on a journey fraught with obstacles and life-threatening peril. She'd never before understood the quest for the glory that came with standing atop the world. But what better way to show these young girls that they can do anything they put their minds to? Her own heartbreaking past makes the story of her determination all the more inspirational. The trials she faced changed her forever and helped her discover a strength she didn't know she had.

A brilliant father, a complicated legacy, and a son's hard-won journey of self-discovery. William Matthews was a much-admired, award-winning poet and teacher who lived hard and died in 1997 at the age of 55. This clear-eyed, often wryly funny memoir pays homage to a charismatic father as the son struggles to step out from his considerable shadow.

Richard Holmes knew he had become a true biographer the day his bank bounced a check that he had inadvertently dated 1772. Because for the acclaimed chronicler of Shelley and Coleridge, biography is a physical pursuit, an ardent and arduous retracing of footsteps that may have vanished centuries before. In this gripping book, Holmes takes us from France’s Massif Central, where he followed the route taken by Robert Louis Stevenson and a sweet-natured donkey, to Mary Wollstonecraft’s Revolutionary Paris, to the Italian villages where Percy Shelley tried to cast off the strictures of English morality and marriage. Footsteps is a wonderful exploration of the ties between biographers and their subjects, filled with passion and revelations. “Deeply impressive . . . Footsteps is a singular event in the modern history of biography, and in itself a delightful reading experience.”—Alfred Kazin “This exhilarating book, part biography, part autobiography, shows the biographer as sleuth and huntsman, tracking his subjects through space and time.”—The Observer “A modern masterpiece . . . [Holmes is] the most romantic of contemporary biographers and probably the most revolutionary in spirit and form.”—Michael Holroyd, author of Bernard Shaw

"A journey through fear to freedom"--Cover

Gordy couldn't be more unhappy about moving back to his hometown of College Hill, where everybody knows his family's troubled history. In North Carolina, Gordy's life had finally seemed to be on the right track. But in College Hill, Gordy and his sister, June, move into a cramped apartment with their brother Stu and his new family. The principal at Gordy's school immediately has it in for him, his old pals encourage him to cause trouble, and his one-time nemesis, Elizabeth, hates him more than ever. It seems to Gordy as though the whole world is against him. Will he slip back into his old trouble-making ways for good, or will he be able to keep growing into the successful person he was striving to become?