Say Goodnight, Gracie

"Julie Reece Deaver's classic novel of loss and gradual acceptance has touched the hearts of readers for more than twenty years."

--Harper Teen Books

Jacket art for Say Goodnight, Gracie by Michael J. Deas

friendship. So how could life be so right and then so wrong? After a terrible accident, Morgan suddenly has to face life alone. Without Jimmy around, though, it's like the best part of her has died. How could he do this to her? As she begins a downward spiral into depression, she wonders how she will ever cope without the one person in the world who understands her.

ALA Best Books for Young Adults
Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award (Winner)
Virginia State Young Readers Award (Winner)
Washington State Evergreen Young Adult Award (Winner)

Say Goodnight, Gracie was recently reprinted in a 20th Anniversary edition and is also available as an e-book.

Chicago Blues

"I have just kidnapped my little sister, although she doesn't know it yet."

Morgan and Jimmy's friendship was born when they were--seventeen years ago. Neither can remember a time when they weren't best friends, laughing, teasing, caring and having fun. Now, as young actors trying to break into the Chicago theater scene, they're discovering they may be on the brink of something more than just

Seventeen-year-old Lissa Hastings has a big problem. Her mother, who used to be a semi-well-known cabaret singer, has become a very well-known alcoholic who realizes she can't take care of Lissa's eleven-year-old sister Marnie any more. She tells Lissa that if she can't trick Marnie into leaving home and going to live with her, she's going to turn Marnie over to Social Services.

Lissa doesn't know how she's going to handle becoming a parent overnight. She's the youngest student at a prestigious art school in Chicago, and if it weren't for the miniature rooms that she's been lucky enough to sell to collectors, she'd have practically no money at all. What she doesn't know yet is that having her high-spirited younger sister come and live with her is going to be one of the richest experiences of her life.

A 1996 ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults

A 1998 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award nominee

The voices are authentic; the characters deal with powerful emotions that are never overstated, and are balanced with a healthy dose of humor. A tightly written novel about give and take, and knowing when to let go. --Publishers Weekly

The Night I Disappeared

Something scary is happening to seventeen-year-old Jamie Tessman. Ever since she and her mother arrived in Chicago, she's been plagued by freaky mind-slips and vivid daydreams about her sort-of boyfriend Webb. When Jamie's inner world starts holding her hostage and keeping her imprisoned for longer periods of time,she becomes terrified that she is slowly losing her mind.

Jamie's mom doesn't seem to notice anything is wrong. No one does -- until Jamie meets Morgan, a new friend who's had her own "brush with nuttiness." When Jamie disappears into her inner world one night and can't find her way out, Morgan sees to it that Jamie finally gets help. Morgan's aunt, a psychiatrist, breaks through Jamie's paralyzing fear and helps her unravel a tangle of long-forgotten, horrifying secrets in her past....

The Night I Disappeared is the companion book to Say Goodnight, Gracie and has been translated into Italian and Japanese. It was an ALA Popular Books for Young Adults 2003.

First Wedding, Once Removed

It's elementary: 1+1=2, but a brother with a girlfriend plus a sister equals a big fat zero. That's what Pokie feels like now that Gib has someone else to tell his secrets to. Once, she and Gib were inseparable, watching airplanes and dreaming of becoming pilots together. Then Gib leaves for college and meets Nell. And Pokie, who's trying to figure out life in high school, feels like a third wheel at a time when she could use a big brother more than ever.

You Bet Your Life

Seventeen-year-old Bess Millligan is convinced she inherited her love of comedy from her mom, who never missed a chance to make people laugh. When Bess lands an internship on one of TV's biggest comedy hits, her mom, who died sixth months earlier, isn't there to share her excitement. So,impulsively, after her first day at the TV

studio, Bess begins to write letters to her mom--letters about Georgia and Nate, the gifted comedy writers who hired her, letters about Elliot, the teenage elevator operator who insists he and Bess form a comedy team of their own; and letters about what Bess remembers best: the funny things her mom used to say, and the wonderful times they shared. But writing letters to someone who will never read them isn't really living a life, and a real life is what Bess desperately needs to find again.

"An unusually subtle and likable portrait of a talented, thoughtful young woman weathering with distinction the aftershocks of a trauma." --Kirkus Reviews

Pokie's best friend, Junior Hollinger, is no help at all--he's still in middle school. He also thinks

Pokie's jealous of Nell. Only one thing's for sure: There's no room for a brother, sister, and a

girlfriend in this family. Three's a crowd...isn't it?

And now, in breaking cat news, a visitor stops by to say hello my felines.