“As puzzle pieces click into place, The Missing Piece of Charlie O’Reilly reveals that it’s stories—and family—that make us whole. A deeply satisfying and beautiful book.” —Elana K. Arnold, National Book Award finalist and author of The Question of Miracles Charlie O’Reilly is an only child. Which is why it makes everyone uncomfortable when he talks about his brother. Liam. His eight-year-old kid brother, who, up until a year ago, slept in the bunk above Charlie, took pride in being as annoying as possible, and was the only person who could make Charlie laugh until it hurt. Then came the morning when the bunk, and Liam, disappeared forever. No one even remembers him—not Charlie’s mother, who has been lost in her own troubles; and not Charlie’s father, who is gone frequently on business trips. The only person who believes Charlie is his best friend, Ana—even if she has no memory of Liam, she is as determined as Charlie is to figure out what happened to him. The search seems hopeless—until Charlie receives a mysterious note, written in Liam’s handwriting. The note leads Charlie and Ana to make some profound discoveries about a magic they didn’t know existed, and they soon realize that if they're going to save Liam, they may need to risk being forgotten themselves, forever. Rebecca K.S. Ansari’s debut novel is a stunning contemporary fantasy about love, loss, and the power to forgive that we all have inside us—even if we sometimes forget that it’s there.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 A Japanese-American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese internment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata. World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken. America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan, the country they’ve been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family’s saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own—one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako’s grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city. The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother? Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi—fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers.

Six Starred Reviews! Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book of 2019 A 2019 New York Public Library Best Book for Kids Imagination meets reality in this poetic and tender ode to childhood, illustrated by Caldecott Honor winner, John Rocco. Every year, a boy and his family go camping at Mountain Pond. Usually, they see things like an eagle fishing for his dinner, a salamander with red spots on its back, and chipmunks that come to steal food while the family sits by the campfire. But this year is different. This year, the boy is going into first grade, and his mother is encouraging him to do things on his own, just like his older brother. And the most different thing of all . . . this year, a tiger comes to the woods. With lyrical prose and dazzling art, Pulitzer Prize finalist Susan Choi and Caldecott-honor winning artist John Rocco have created a moving and joyful ode to growing up.

An ocelot. A slave. An angel thief. Multiple perspectives spanning across time are united through themes of freedom, hope, and faith in a most unusual and epic novel from Newbery Honor–winning author and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt. Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis is an angel thief. After his mother’s family rejected him for being born out of wedlock, he and his dad moved to the apartment above a local antique shop. The only payment the owner Mrs. Walker requests: marble angels, stolen from graveyards, for her to sell for thousands of dollars to collectors. But there’s one angel that would be the last they’d ever need to steal; an angel, carved by a slave, with one hand open and one hand closed. If only Cade could find it… Zorra, a young ocelot, watches the bayou rush past her yearningly. The poacher who captured and caged her has long since lost her, and Zorra is getting hungrier and thirstier by the day. Trapped, she only has the sounds of the bayou for comfort—but it tells her help will come soon. Before Zorra, Achsah, a slave, watched the very same bayou with her two young daughters. After the death of her master, Achsah is free, but she’ll be damned if her daughters aren’t freed with her. All they need to do is find the church with an angel with one hand open and one hand closed… In a masterful feat, National Book Award Honoree Kathi Appelt weaves together stories across time, connected by the bayou, an angel, and the universal desire to be free.

Stop to consider the culture of the 21st century: Each morning, you might hear a half–dozen ads on the radio before your feet touch the floor. Staggering out of bed, you'll pass brand logos on your clothing and in your bathroom. By the end of the day, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of marketing messages have targeted you. And yet so little is understood about how marketing affects our lives, our society, and our world. Enter Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant, the ad men behind The Age of Persuasion, the popular radio show broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Sirius Radio. They have made it their mission to share the back–room story of modern marketing, entertaining asides and all. "Think of advertisers as millions of ants in a colony, each working hard and each with its own objective. Except that in this colony, every single ant is competing against the others. That's the ad business. Almost every ad you see, hear, and otherwise experience is competing for a piece of your imagination. And like any cross–section of humanity, the vast, worldwide advertising community is diverse: composed of geniuses and idiots, saints and buffoons, and everything in between." From the early players to the Mad Men of the 1960s and beyond, O'Reilly and Tennant offer insights into a rapidly evolving industry. Smart and funny, The Age of Persuasion provides an entertaining — and eye–opening — look at a world driven by marketing.

In the course of their 20+-year engineering careers, authors Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman have picked up a treasure trove of wisdom and anecdotes about how successful teams work together. Their conclusion? Even among people who have spent decades learning the technical side of their jobs, most haven’t really focused on the human component. Learning to collaborate is just as important to success. If you invest in the "soft skills" of your job, you can have a much greater impact for the same amount of effort. The authors share their insights on how to lead a team effectively, navigate an organization, and build a healthy relationship with the users of your software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including "Working with Poisonous People"—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.