Books with author Alison Reynolds

What happens at Nuthatcher Farm when the chickens get tired of the same old chicken feed? The rooster hatches a plan! With a pinch of genius, a dash of resourcefulness, and a little pilfering from the farmer's garden, the chickens whip up a scrumptious snack of chips and salsa. When the rest of the barnyard gets a whiff of the spicy smells and want to join in, it can mean only one thing . . . FIESTA! But when the big day arrives, all their spicy southwestern supplies are gone! Could Mr. and Mrs. Nuthatcher have caught on to the flavor craze?

“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” --Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” --Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds--the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

[Children's Fiction (Ages 10 and up)] [Read by Guy Lockard] Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team -- a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics. They all have a lot of lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold's electrifying middle grade series.Sunny is just that -- sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But Sunny's life hasn't always been sunbeamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny's dad treats him -- ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never ''Dad''-- it's no wonder Sunny thinks he's to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad's eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn't like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race.With his relationship with his dad now worse than ever, the last thing Sunny wants to do is leave the other newbies--his only friends -- behind. But you can't be on a track team and not run. So Coach asks Sunny what he wants to do. Sunny's answer? Dance. Yes, dance. But you also can't be on a track team and dance. Then, in a stroke of genius only Jason Reynolds can conceive, Sunny discovers a track event that encompasses the hard hits of hip-hop, the precision of ballet, and the showmanship of dance as a whole: the discus throw. As Sunny practices the discus, learning when to let go at just the right time, he'll let go of everything that's been eating him up inside, perhaps just in time.

[Children's Fiction (Ages 10 and up] Lu must learn to leave his ego on the sidelines if he wants to finally connect with others in the climax to the New York Times bestselling and award-winning Track series from Jason Reynolds.Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team--a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.Lu is your quintessential pretty boy athlete, complete with fancy cleats, sunglasses, and a lot of attitude. The kind of guy you either hero-worship or want to PUNCH. He runs the most loved race--the 400 meter dash--and is crazy talented. He should be--he's been running track since he was small; because he's albino his parents got him involved in sports to help with his confidence. But it sort of backfired--now Lu has confidence to spare, and the swagger hasn't earned him any friends. As in none. Plus, his dad, who also shares his son's penchant for being flashy, has gotten caught up in some type of illegal activity. The Newbies on the team (Ghost, Patina, and Sunny) don't put up with Lu's shining around, but they also don't avoid him like everyone else does. They call him out on his BS, but include him in the horseplay. Will they be the first kids to crack through his armor and see more to him than the cloak of peacock that hides his lack of color?

New York Times best-selling author Aaron Reynolds delivers an "entertainingly spooky romp" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) about Rex Dexter, who is itching to have a dog . . . but ends up with a pet chicken.One hour and fourteen minutes later, the chicken is dead (by a steamroller), Rex is cursed (by the Grim Reaper), and wild animals are haunting Rex's room (hounding him for answers). Even his best friend Darvish is not going to believe this, and that kid believes everything. Rex's uninvited ghostly guests are a chatty, messy bunch. And they need Rex to solve their mysterious deadly departures from the Middling Falls Zoo before it happens again. But how?

The Order of Stheno. Book 1: The curse of the five manikins. Jack Kidd: 12 yrs old, an only child, more or less happy with his lot despite his overprotective mother and the occasional run-in with the school bullies, has his world turned upside down when his long-lost grandfather comes to live with them; a grandfather with whom he has had no contact since he was a baby; a complete stranger, weird in appearance and even weirder in his manner. Jack's relationship with this grumpy old man who has been charged with driving him to school every day, changes dramatically when he learns of a legend involving a curse spanning centuries: a legend that has haunted the old man since his childhood. Warned by his mother not to pay any attention to his grandfather's wild storytelling, Jack nevertheless finds himself drawn into a nightmare world where witches, brownies, boggarts and werewolves, not to mention demonic possession and vampire cults, are the norm.

AND THEN THERE WERE SHOTSEverybodyran,ducked, hid, tuckedthemselves tight. Pressed our lips to thepavement and prayedthe boom, followed by the buzz of a bullet,didn't meet us.After Will's brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don't cry. Don't snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn's gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will's friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he's doing.This haunting, lyrical, powerful verse novel will blow you away.

Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died - although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can't handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad's snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt's snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. Crazy name, and she's been through more crazy stuff than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She's tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he's drawn to her, and definitely why he can't seem to shake her. Because there's nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness - and who can maybe even help take it away.

A Kirkus Award Finalist A Schneider Family Book Award Winner A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book An ALA Notable Books for Children Nominee Genie and his brother, Ernie, leave Brooklyn for the first time to spend the summer with their grandparents in Virginia ― in the country! When he figures out that Grandpop is blind, Genie thinks he’s the bravest guy ever. But he never leaves the house. Then Ernie won’t learn how to shoot. Is bravery only about proving something? What about owning up to what you won’t do?