Patricia McCormick Books In Order

Cut

When she arrives at Sea Pines, Callie is self destructive, unresponsive, and withdrawn. Her parents and doctor have placed her in the ‘residential treatment facility’ after discovering that she cuts herself. Callie refuses to talk to anyone, including her psychiatrist. But slowly, through compelling first person narrative, the event that traumatized her comes to light. Callie reveals that her brother Ben nearly died from liver failure while in her care. Her mother was unavailable and her father was at a bar. Although their absence is evidence of a deep family dysfunction, Callie blames herself for the crisis. When the threat of expulsion from Sea Pines precipitates a cutting incident that frightens her, Callie finally begins her healing process. She opens up to the girls around her and surrenders to her therapist the compass she’s been using to cut herself. Through Callie’s frank and realistic voice, first time novelist Patty McCormick illuminates a subject that is rarely discussed. Her story of Callie’s recovery will speak to the more than 1 million people mainly girls and young women who engage in acts of self inflicted violence every year.

My Brother’s Keeper

Toby Malone looks up to his brother Jake. Everyone does. He is the cool one, the one who is good at baseball. Even Mr. Furry, the unfortunately named family cat, seems to prefer him to everyone else. Toby and Jake and their little brother have always had an easy, jostling friendship, in which it is them against the rest of the world.

But ever since Toby’s father left, things have been off balance. Toby’s mother seems deflated and resigned. And his little brother is exhibiting odd signs of stress. Toby struggles to keep his family together even as things are falling apart. Despite his efforts, though, Jake is drifting farther and farther away, and Toby knows it is because he is becoming increasingly dependent on drugs. Toby tries to cover up for Jake, to spare his mother yet another disappointment. But his attempts to protect Jake and his mother backfire, only adding to the growing tension between the brothersaeuntil Jake finally goes much too far.

With great warmth and wry humor, Patricia McCormick draws a portrait of a typical family that is struggling to reconnect after a crisis.

Sold

Lakshmi is a thirteen year old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at Happiness House full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family s debt then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother s words Simply to endure is to triumph and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

Purple Heart

When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he’s honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn’t feel like a hero. There’s a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt can’t shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can’t quite put all the pieces together. Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad Justin, Wolf, and Charlene the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He just wants to go back to being the soldier he once was. But he sees potential threats everywhere and lives in fear of not being able to pull the trigger when the time comes. In combat there is no black and white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed. National Book Award Finalist Patricia McCormick has written a visceral and compelling portrait of life in a war zone, where loyalty is valued above all, and death is terrifyingly commonplace.

Up All Night

A brush with the supernatural? A rock concert? A reunion? A poolside revelation? The need to know what’s up? The confessions of a friend? The dream of escape? A sick pet? An English assignment? The rear window view of a murder next door? The search for the mother you never met? What keeps you Up All Night? This remarkable collection of award winning and bestselling authors is thought provoking, insightful, heartfelt, and powerful.

Free?

This is a celebration of human rights. To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Walker Books and Amnesty International have joined together to create a short story collection for young adults, celebrating what it means to be Free?. Hosting a variety of talented children’s authors from all around the globe, the anthology embraces such themes as asylum, law, education and faith in a way that will both inspire and entertain.