Arcadia Public Library

Fifteen-year-old equestrian prodigy Roan Montgomery struggles to reclaim her life from her abusive father, who demands strict obedience in all aspects of her life inside and outside of the riding arena.

A deeply moving, tragicomic adventure about a boy who escapes his small town in a stolen library on wheels in search of freedom, friendship, and, most of all, family.

Didi's father is constantly pressuring her to do better: win at chess, run faster every day, shoot better, hunt better or go hungry; she is not allowed friends, or time off or any pleasures; he always reminds her that they have to be prepared to fight the rest of the world--but what he never tells her is that when she is the best he plans to hunt her.

"When Ruby King's mother is found murdered in their home in Chicago's South Side, the police dismiss it as another act of violence in a black neighborhood. But for Ruby, it's a devastating loss that leaves her on her own with her violent father. While she receives many condolences, her best friend, Layla, is the only one who understands how this puts Ruby in jeopardy. Their closeness is tested when Layla's father, the pastor of their church, demands...

"When Dahlia decided to become a foster mother, she had a few caveats: no howling newborns, no delinquents, and above all, no girls. A harrowing incident years before left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, forever wary of the heartbreak and limitation of a girl's life. Eleven years after they began fostering, Dahlia and Louie consider their family complete, but when the social worker begs them to take a young girl who has been horrifically abused...

"All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself." These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality. But even after he was rescued, his life remained haunted by memories of his years as the bruised, cowering "It"...

"An unforgettable memoir by an award-winning poet about being kidnapped from his Black father and raised by his white supremacist grandparents. When Shane McCrae was three years old, his grandparents kidnapped him and took him to suburban Texas. His mom was white and his dad was Black, and to hide his Blackness from him, his maternal grandparents stole him from his father. In the years that followed, they manipulated and controlled him, refusing to...