Books with author Colby F. Rodowsky

"Annie is about to graduate from high school, an event that intensifies all her memories of another graduation two years before, when her sister was murdered...Present-day events intermingle with Annie's recollections of the past. The shock, denial, and numbing grief are all realistically and starkly portrayed...This is an unsettling novel about an emotionally charged subject. It never falters. It will make an outstanding addition to any YA collection."-Starred/School Library Journal

After her free-spirited mother dies, Livvy is uprooted from her New York home and sent to Baltimore to live with her mother's old college friend, a woman Livvy has never heard of. Jessie is nothing like Livvy's mother: She's sensible, likes to weave, and doesn't even have pierced ears. What she does have is The Turnabout Shop, where she and her mother sell antiques, and a family larger than any Livvy has ever known. She also has a bunch of warm, quirky neighbors, including a girl Livvy's age. Set down to live among strangers, Livvy begins again from scratch, discovering that even without her mother, she can still learn and laugh and love, and take root in a whole different world.

Kiara Jones-Birkell knows a lot about the Birkell side of herfamily, and nothing about the Joneses. The one time she triedto ask about her mother’s relatives, her mom turned a spookygreenish-white color and refused to talk to anyone. So it comesas quite a shock when Kiara learns that the grandmother shenever knew she had is expected to die at any moment.Suddenly Kiara finds herself on a train heading for Baltimore– and her mother’s secret past. There she meets Zenobia, theworld’s most stubborn grandmother, who is as eruptive asMount Vesuvius. Kiara can’t understand what Zenobia couldpossibly have against her – is it simply the fact that her skin isdark like mocha latte, while all her cousins are white? Or isthere, as Kiara’s mother keeps hinting, much more to the story?Told from the point of view of a teenager with spot-onobservations and hilarious insights, this is the story of threegenerations of stubborn – and charmingly funny – women.