In this memoir, Ruby Bridges recalls her experiences as the first African-American student at a newly desegregated elementary school in New Orleans.

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While trying to track down her missing mother, thirteen-year-old Salamanca entertains her grandparents with strange stories about a girl named Phoebe Winterbottom.

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When something is grating, it's extremely harsh and irritating, like the grating sound of your alarm clock early on a Monday morning.

Nathan, an eleven-year-old Navajo boy, sets out on a journey to find a cure for a sick water monster that he discovers in a desert.

As an adjective, grating is particularly good for describing unpleasant sounds, like the grating voice of someone who's nagging you. As a noun, a grating is an object in the shape of a grid, with parallel bars forming regular squares or rectangles. This kind of grating is often used as a cover for an opening, like the grating that covers a storm drain in the gutter or an exhaust fan in the ceiling.