
Finding Hope: Contemporary Middle Grade Novels
On opposite sides of the world, two twelve-year-old girls find kindness and hope in trying times, and learn the meaning of family. In Karen Rivers’ A Possibility of Whales, Nat’s questions about her mother, who left when she was a baby, lead her on a journey of self-discovery thanks to her friends, family, and a chance encounter with a whale. Nadia and her family search for safety after they are forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria at the beginning of the Arab Spring in N. H. Senzai’s Escape from Aleppo. Moderated by Jennifer Studebaker of Multnomah County Library.