Books with author Richard Reid

NEW EDITION - OCTOBER 2019. THE ALPHABET CAPER is a novel for nine to twelve-year-olds, but also suitable for younger children, with assistance from parents. BLAKE EDUN-ESPINOZA is puzzled when muddled letters suddenly appear, then disappear, on an outside school blackboard. Are the letters a message written in code, and if so, what do they mean? When he discovers a second secret memo, he believes a group of students are up to mischief at Blue Hills Primary. Can BLAKE crack the coded capitals? With Elvis Parsley’s help, can he devise a plan to round up a bunch of baddies? Join BLAKE, with his wacky classmates and strange parents, for more mystery and mayhem, all in fifteen chapters.THE ALPHABET CAPER is the second in a series of three BLAKE Ǝ MYSTERIES.

Just hours after the perfect night with his high school sweetheart, Xavier Valentine is killed in a violent car accident. Stuck in the spiritual realm, Xavier looks on as his family and girlfriend mourn his passing. It isn't until Xavier finds that he is not alone in the spiritual realm that he realizes there is much more surrounding his death than he realizes.Xavier Valentine is the first novel in a trilogy written by Richard Thomas Reilly.

The Go Between would appeal to teens between thirteen and sixteen. In the story, the protagonist is fifteen, almost sixteen, his girl friend is fourteen, and his sister who plays a major role in the story is thirteen. Parents may also find this book helpful as a springboard for discussion with teen children on risky sexual behavior encountered in the early teen years.Bill McCoy believes that his major winter challenge will be surviving two weeks of being the wrestling "dummy" for Blake Proper. Bill, a sophomore at Lionwood High, is committed to helping prepare his senior teammate for making a run at the state wrestling championship. On a daily basis, Bill knows he will be pummeled and pinned when the two boys work together after school on the school's wrestling mats. However, a bigger challenge for Bill arises when his thirteen-year-old sister, Diana, is accused of coercing younger brother, Jack, into an inappropriate sexual act. Bill's overbearing dictatorial father reacts to the news about his son and daughter in a characteristically irrational fashion. He refuses to allow Diana to reside any longer in the McCoy home and blocks Mrs. McCoy's desire to visit Diana when Diana is temporarily assigned by the juvenile court system to a juvenile detention center. When Diana disavows her involvement with her younger brother to Diana's court appointed therapist, Carrie Thompson, Bill becomes the go-between. He seeks help in his role of diplomatic liaison between his parents and Carrie and his sister from Susan Myers with whom he has developed a tentative, budding romance. Susan's and Bill's relationship, rapidly strengthening by their respect and concern for each other, is juxtaposed with the debilitating and gradually disintegrating relationship of Bill's father and mother. Bill's maturation is evident as he struggles to assist in the healing of his sister, to deal with his difficult father, and to manage his own romance. The Go Between also reveals both a family whose unstable relationships are exposed and shattered by the ill conceived behavior of daughter with son and the processes followed by social services in their attempts to remedy the emotional damage that results from the family's incest. The story also tactfully illuminates a current trend in the sexual experimentation of high school students.

This about Thomas the small kid in class. He is tired of getting put in headlocks and head rubs from Bobby, the class bully. Bobby doesn’t have anyone his own size to pick on because he is bigger than everyone in class. Well Thomas and his friends are fed up with Bobby and his bullying. They come up with a plan to get back at the bully…..by getting even!!

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Quail lives in a Philadelphia neighborhood with his parents, a younger sister, and a baby brother until the night that his father is killed when he leaves the city bus that he drives to protect a woman from an abusive man. Jonathan's mother is unable to cope both financially and emotionally with the loss of her husband and the responsibilities of raising her three children. Jonathan and his sister and brother are placed in a foster home by the child protection agency. Readers will be able to relate to the challenges that Jonathan faces as he journeys from his biological home to foster home and then, due to conflict with another student at his new school, to a group home run by the juvenile probation service. Jonathan finds both resistance and assistance from new schools and classmates, and from new surrogate parents and siblings. His self-confidence and coping skills are strengthened through his encounters with peers and from the encouragement and guidance provided by his various caretakers. As he matures, he also finds solace and excitement from building relationships with girls his age. Climbing The Ropes was written to provide insight and hope to a young boy who was encountering similar experiences to Jonathan's. Consequently, young people who are involved with the various child protection and probation agencies as well as children who reside with their biological parents will find from reading Climbing The Ropes valuable understanding about improving their interpersonal relationships, and an appreciation for the frustration and satisfaction experienced by the youth workers who daily strive to provide love, structure, and guidance to children in their care. Youth counselors would also find the book helpful with clients from this point of view.

The “Great Recession” of 2008 has struck the United States. Calista Snipe’s family is adversely affected by the recession. Her father loses his job as a college professor and although Calista’s mother continues to work part time, the family’s income has been greatly reduced. Now her father is faced with the probability that his unemployment checks will cease if Congress does not vote to extend them. When a very rare monkey, a gibbon, escapes from the local zoo, Calista decides she will catch the gibbon and give the reward money to her father. In her search for the escaped gibbon, Calista enlists the help of her best friend, Skyler McCray. Skyler and Calista joined forces when they were in fourth grade to solve the mystery of the lost purse. Now, two years older, they believe they are up to the task of finding and capturing Papillon, the missing gibbon. However, the challenge of catching the little monkey soon becomes more difficult than they had anticipated as Papillon continually travels from one city park to another, and Cali and Sky discover that they do not have the best of equipment to capture a gibbon. To complicate their task, they discover that other parties are interested in capturing the monkey, and these parties are not happy to find that Cali and Sky are in the competition to win the reward money. To Catch A Monkey explores the impact of the 2008 recession on a middle class family, peer bullying, beginning awareness of puberty for later elementary grade children, and the strengthening friendship between a sixth grade boy and girl.

Lamar takes the "late bus" home from school after practice each day. After the bus's beloved driver passes away, Lamar begins to see strange things―demonic figures, preparing to attack the bus. Soon he learns the demons are after Mr. Rumble, the freaky new bus driver. Can Lamar rescue his fellow passengers, or will Rumble's past come back to destroy them all?

Carlos "Trip" Costas is a fiery shortstop with many talents and passions. His father is Julio Costas―yes, the Julio Costas, the famous singer. Unfortunately, Julio is also famous for being loud, controlling, and sometimes violent with Trip. He dreams of seeing his son play in the majors, but that's not what Trip wants. When Trip decides to take a break from baseball to focus on his own music, his father loses his temper. He threatens to stop donating money to the team. Will the Roadrunners survive losing their biggest financial backer and their star shortstop? Will Trip have the courage to follow his dreams, and not his father's?