Books with author Lynne Rae Perkins

Approx. 3 hours2 cassettesWhen her best friend since the third grade starts acting as though Debbie doesn't exist, Debbie finds out the hard way that life can be a lonesome place. But in the end, the heroine of this wryly funny coming-of-age story -- a girl who lives in a house covered with stuff that is supposed to look like bricks but is just a fake brick pattern -- discovers that even the hourly tragedies of elementary school can have silver linings. And a house covered with Insul-Brick can protect a real home.

Lynne Rae Perkins "finds poetry in the common exchanges between teens" (Booklist). From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Criss Cross comes a tale about a boy whose luck is about to change-and not for the better. Ry is riding a train to summer camp. Too bad he doesn't know that camp has been canceled. And now Ry has been left behind-in the middle of nowhere.

Fourteen year-old Debbie wishes on her necklace that something will happen to her-something exciting, and soon. At the same time, in another area of town, Hector stares at his reflection in the mirror and wonders about his potential. As she waits, Debbie spends her summer helping elderly Mrs. Bruning maintain her house. Hector learns how to play the guitar. And the two, along with their close friends feel the subtle push and pull of blooming love, new opportunities and changes in the order of the universe as the necklace tries to work its magic. Lynne Rae Perkins has earned a Newbery Medal and starred reviews from both School Library Journal and Booklist for this poignant and humorous story about the barely perceptible changes involved in the beginning of young adulthood. Young listeners will feel spellbound by Danielle Ferland's eloquent narration.