"Hitch a ride with eleven-year-old Hazmat and her dad in their eighteen-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 about “nature’s promise to all women.” Somewhere Mom’s ashes can rest on a mantel and not on a dashboard.
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 and each day different from the last.
Award–winning author Louise Hawes writes with an easy, conversational voice and an “I’ll never grow up” spirit that cheerfully thumbs its nose at traditional coming-of-age narratives. This heart-tugging, laugh-out-loud portrait of a father and daughter is a satisfying journey across modern America you won’t want to miss."
"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 has had her happy ending: she is 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."
