New Release Books by Louise Hawes

Hitch a ride with 11-year-old Hazmat and her Dad in their 18-wheeler, Leonardo, for a feel-good road trip across America that keeps on trucking! Life on the road with Daddy is as good as gets for Hazmat. Together, they've been taking jobs and crisscrossing the US for years. Now Daddy's talking about putting down roots—somewhere Hazmat can go to a real school and make friends. Somewhere Daddy doesn't have to mail-order textbooks that talk about "nature's promise to all women." And while everything just keeps changing, sometimes in ways she can't control, Hazmat isn't ready to give up the freedom of long-distance hauling. Sure the road is filled with surprises, from plane crashes and robo trucks to runaway hitchhikers and abandoned babies, but that all makes for great stories! So Hazmat hatches a plan to make sure Daddy's dream never becomes a reality. Because there's only one place Hazmat belongs: in the navigator's seat, right next to Daddy, with the whole country flying by like a crazy quilt and each day different from the last.

Sarah is forced to take a summer poetry class as penance for trashing the home of a famous poet in this fresh novel about finding your own voice. Sarah’s had her happy ending: she’s at the party of the year with the most popular boy in school. But when that boy turns out to be a troublemaker who decided to throw a party at a cottage museum dedicated to renowned poet Rufus Baylor, everything changes. By the end of the party, the whole cottage is trashed—curtains up in flames, walls damaged, mementos smashed—and when the partygoers are caught, they’re all sentenced to take a summer class studying Rufus Baylor’s poetry…with Baylor as their teacher. For Sarah, Baylor is a revelation. Unlike her mother, who is obsessed with keeping up appearances, and her estranged father, for whom she can’t do anything right, Rufus Baylor listens to what she has to say, and appreciates her ear for language. Through his classes, Sarah starts to see her relationships and the world in a new light—and finds that maybe her happy ending is really only part of a much more interesting beginning. The Language of Stars is a gorgeous celebration of poetry, language, and love from celebrated author Louise Hawes.

"Hawes has a way of highlighting the intricacies of human emotions and relationships, making Black Pearls a bold, brilliant read." --The Compulsive Reader "Twisted, clever and artfully written, these stories are a high-quality addition to the fractured fairy tale genre." --Booklist "A beautiful book." --Holly Black, author of The Darkest part of the Forest - Austin American-Statesmen Best Books of the Year - Gold Award, Hall of Fame TeensReadToo.com

In lush, glowing prose, Louise Hawes’s historical novel draws readers into the life and art of sixteenth-century Bologna with a compelling account of Lavinia Fontana, arguably the most famous female painter of the Italian Renaissance. Here readers will find a coming-of-age story filled with quest, complication, and catastrophe as well as miracles and hope. Although the novel is set four hundred years ago, the hard choices it involves speak to all times, all places, and are sure to tap into readers’ own conflicts between head and heart, real life and dreams.

Shortly after moving with her mother to Florida, a lonely, fourteen-year-old bibliophile is reminded of her infant brother who died and decides to care for an abused, abandoned child with help from a new friend.

“ . . . and they lived happily ever after.” Remember the fairy tales you put away after you found that no princess is as beautiful as common sense and happy endings are just the beginning? Well, the old tales are back, and they’ve grown up! Black Pearls brings you the stories of your childhood, told in a way you’ve never heard before. Instead of lulling you to sleep, they’ll wake you up—to the haunting sadness that waits just inside the windows of a gingerbread cottage, the passion that fuels a witch’s flight, and the heartache that comes, again and again, at the stroke of midnight. Make no mistake: these stories are as dark as human nature itself. But they shine, too, lit with the fire of our dreams and our hunger for magic.

An Egyptian girl places the value of her own family over the Pharaoh's advances and promises of wealth in this picture book. Full color.

Befriending the ghosts of Quick Fox and Prudence, whose graves were disrupted by the building of the new school cafeteria, Allie, Dina, Quinton, and Bradley must help the wandering spirit of a Native American baby. Original.

Fifth grader Nelson Malone borrows

Nelson Malone is a normal sixth grader, but the things that happen to him are out of this world. Ghosts, rock stars, dinosaur eggs and a solo airplane flight highlight these humorous adventures in which a boy's best daydreams come true.

Discusses the private and professional life of the twentieth-century American painter who was part of the Abstract Expressionism movement of art.