Octavia Spencer
Author
Series
Pub. Date
[2013]
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 6
Formats
Description
Twelve-year-old Randi, unhappy about moving from Brooklyn to Deer Creek, Tennessee, after her mother's death, soon finds new friends and a case to solve surrounding a stolen time capsule and rumors of a centuries-old treasure.
Author
Series
Randi Rhodes ninja detective volume 2
Pub. Date
2015
Accelerated Reader
IL: LG - BL: 4.8 - AR Pts: 6
Description
On a trip to New York City to visit Randi's aunt, the ninja detective trio explores Randi's old neighborhood in Brooklyn, where they uncover an art heist involving Fabergé eggs. Except no one will believe them. So they'll just have to catch the criminals in the act...
3) The help
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.4 - AR Pts: 23
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Skeeter returns home to Mississippi from college in 1962 and begins to write stories about the African-American women that are found working in white households, which includes Aibileen, who grieves for the loss of her son while caring for her seventeenth white child, and Minny, Aibileen's sassy friend, the hired cook for a secretive woman who is new to town.
Pub. Date
2017
Formats
Description
As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson crossed all gender, race, and professional lines while their brilliance and desire to dream big, beyond anything ever accomplished before by the human race, firmly cemented...
Pub. Date
[2019]
Formats
Description
After adopting three children, a couple finds themselves in over their heads.
When Pete and Ellie choose to start a family, they stumble headfirst into the world of foster care adoption. After they learn their perfect foster child comes with two other siblings, Pete and Ellie find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight and must hilariously learn the ropes of instant parenthood if they hope to become a real family.
Pub. Date
[2017]
Appears on list
Description
As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson crossed all gender, race, and professional lines while their brilliance and desire to dream big, beyond anything ever accomplished before by the human race, firmly cemented...
7) Gifted
Pub. Date
[2017].
Formats
Description
Frank Adler is a single man raising a child prodigy, his spirited young niece Mary, in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's formidable mother Evelyn, whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary.
8) The Shack
Formats
Description
After suffering a family tragedy, Mack Phillips spirals into a deep depression causing him to question his innermost beliefs. Facing a crisis of faith, he receives a mysterious letter urging him to an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness.
9) The help
Formats
Description
Mississippi during the 1960s: Skeeter, a southern society girl, returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends' lives, and a small Mississippi town, upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. Aibileen, Skeeter's best friend's housekeeper, is the first to open up, to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community.
Series
Divergent trilogy volume 2
Pub. Date
[2015]
Description
Tris and Four are now fugitives on the run, hunted by Jeanine, the leader of the power-hungry Erudite elite. Racing against time, they must find out what Tris's family sacrificed their lives to protect, and why the Erudite leaders will do anything to stop them. Haunted by her past choices but desperate to protect the ones she loves, Tris, with Four at her side, faces one impossible challenge after another as they unlock the truth about the past and...
11) Zootopia
Pub. Date
2016.
Description
Zootopia is a city like no other that is comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it's a melting pot where animals from every environment live together. But when optimistic Officer Judy Hopps arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn't so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking,...
12) Paradise
Description
After a nearly fatal accident, 21-year-old Lamb Mannerheim is beginning to realize that the world is much bigger than her small, God-fearing Montana town. Armed with a big, fat insurance payout and a checklist of untried sins, Las Vegas is the only place for her first taste of temptation. And, with the help of a few new friends, Lamb embarks on an oddball odyssey of lost souls, broken faith, and cheap cocktails.
13) Ma
Formats
Description
Sue Ann, a loner in her quiet Ohio town, is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends. Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting younger friends. She offers the kids the chance to avoid drinking and driving by hanging out in the basement of her home as long as they abide by the house rules. Her hospitality starts to curdle into obsession, and what began as a teenage dream turns into a terrorizing nightmare....
14) Onward
Pub. Date
[2020]
Description
When Ian Lightfoot comes of age, his mother gives him the magical staff of his late father, which will let him cast a spell to spend one more day with his dad. But the spell goes awry and he has only 24 hours to set it right, so he and his older brother embark on an epic quest, with their mother trailing after, trying to protect them from a dangerous curse.
15) Black or White
Description
The story of a grandfather who is suddenly left to care for his beloved granddaughter, but when her paternal grandmother seeks custody with the help of her brother, the little girl is torn between two families who love her deeply. With the best intentions at heart, both families fight for what they feel is right and are soon forced to confront their true feelings about race, forgiveness, and understanding.
Series
Academy Award Best Picture volume 2018
Pub. Date
[2018]
Description
"An otherworldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War-era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment"--Container.
17) Snowpiercer
Pub. Date
2014
Formats
Description
An ice age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. Its inhabitants are divided by class; the lower-class passengers in one of the last cars stage an uprising, moving car by car up to the front of the train, where the oppressive rich and powerful ride.
18) Snowpiercer
Formats
Description
The film is set in the future (AD 2031) where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an ice age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. Its inhabitants are divided by class; the lower-class passengers in one of the last cars stage an uprising, moving car by car up to the front of the train, where the oppressive...
19) Small town crime
Pub. Date
2018
Description
An alcoholic ex-cop seeks justice for the murder of a teen prostitute.
20) Black Or White
Pub. Date
2015
Description
The story of a grandfather who is suddenly left to care for his beloved granddaughter, but when her paternal grandmother seeks custody with the help of her brother, the little girl is torn between two families who love her deeply. With the best intentions at heart, both families fight for what they feel is right and are soon forced to confront their true feelings about race, forgiveness, and understanding.
"The filmmaker and his on-screen proxies...