Books with author Barbara Porter

"Bill Traylor was born into slavery and worked as a farmer most of his life; in the years between 1939 and 1942, the elderly, untutored black artist made over 1200 paintings on scraps of paper and cardboard. Porte has taken 10 pieces of art, reproduced here in full-color, and has told an imaginative tale for each one....Porte's writings, which are light and folksy in tone, explore a world of possibilities."--School Library Journal.

When a young boy disobeys his mother, he breaks the cookie jar - and it can't be fixed. In this thought-provoking picture book, children are introduced to the process of repentance, and how it takes more than saying I'm sorry to fix a problem. Told in rhyme, this reassuring story that helps children learn to choose the right is ideal for every LDS child's library.

BALANCING ACT: memoir of a Teenage BreakdownIn the 1970s, outside the town of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, Barbara Ann is thirteen, going into grade seven and starting a new school. She wants what most other teenage girls want: the right hair, the right clothes, the right friends, the right boyfriend, and everything else that leads to love and happiness. Innocence allows her to believe it’s all easily within her grasp, with the only obstacle being her over-controlling mother. She fights and pushes against boundaries to gain the freedom she wants.Each step a power struggle between mother and daughter.When Barbara Ann finally meets a boy and believes all her dreams are coming true, her life shatters in ways she never saw coming.In desperation she tries escaping her pain, but instead her anxiety and depression increase and she spirals into a “nervous breakdown”.It is in the midst of all of this that Barbara Ann learns the depths of her mother’s betrayal and the realization of just how much she’s lost, and the need to find inner strength.Readers will be torn between understanding a mother's interference in her daughter’s life and her daughter's emotional stress caused by the mother’s interference.Readers will enter the world of a teenage girl and experience what life’s like from her point of view… experiencing anxiety, loss, grief and depression.