Jamie Sumner

From the author of the acclaimed Roll with It comes a moving novel about a girl with a sensory processing disorder who has to find her own voice after her whole world turns upside down. Lou Montgomery has the voice of an angel, or so her mother tells her and anyone else who will listen. But Lou can only hear the fear in her own voice. She’s never liked crowds or loud noises or even high fives; in fact, she’s terrified of them, which makes her pretty sure there’s something wrong with her. When Lou crashes their pickup on a dark and snowy road, child services separate the mother-daughter duo. Now she has to start all over again at a fancy private school far away from anything she’s ever known. With help from an outgoing new friend, her aunt and uncle, and the school counselor, she begins to see things differently. A sensory processing disorder isn’t something to be ashamed of, and music might just be the thing that saves Lou—and maybe her mom, too.

Tune It Out

A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 “A big-hearted story that’s as sweet as it is awesome.” —R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder In the tradition of Wonder and Out of My Mind, this big-hearted middle grade debut tells the story of an irrepressible girl with cerebral palsy whose life takes an unexpected turn when she moves to a new town. Ellie’s a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she’s going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams: She might be eating Stouffer’s for dinner, but one day she’s going to be a professional baker. If she’s not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she’s practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother. But when Ellie and her mom move so they can help take care of her ailing grandpa, Ellie has to start all over again in a new town at a new school. Except she’s not just the new kid—she’s the new kid in the wheelchair who lives in the trailer park on the wrong side of town. It all feels like one challenge too many, until Ellie starts to make her first-ever friends. Now she just has to convince her mom that this town might just be the best thing that ever happened to them!

Roll with It

From the acclaimed author of Tune It Out and Roll with It comes an inspirational and engaging middle grade book about a young girl who sets out to overcome her anxiety over the course of one life-changing summer. Twelve-year-old June Delancey is kicking summer off with a bang. She shaves her head and sets two goals: she will beat her anxiety and be the lion she knows she can be, instead of the mouse everyone sees. And she and her single mama will own their power as fierce, independent females. With the help of Homer Juarez, the poetry-citing soccer star who believes in June even when she doesn’t believe in herself, she starts a secret library garden and hatches a plan to make her dreams come true. But when her anxiety becomes too much, everything begins to fall apart. It’s going to take more than a haircut and some flowers to set things right. It’s going to take courage and friends and watermelon pie. Forget second chances. This is the summer of new beginnings.

The Summer of June

When his father moves them halfway across Colorado, eleven-year-old Hugo O'Donnell is surprised that his remarkable talent for garbology makes him popular for the first time in his life.

One Kid's Trash

Time to Roll

"Jamie Sumner's book is wonderful. The story she tells is so honest and encouraging and her writing is terrific. I love it and I am happy for her and the release of such a wonderful book. I know God's going to do great things with it, and with her." ---Rory Feek, singer/songwriter In UNBOUND, JAMIE SUMNER helps women who are struggling with the pressures of motherhood find comfort, hope and companionship by detailing her own difficult journey and highlighting women of the Bible who triumphed in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Women, especially Christian women, do not talk enough about the reality of motherhood: the enormous struggles it takes to get there, the loneliness of it, the unspoken or unmet expectations. We are often too afraid, ashamed, or unwilling to share our stories of disillusionment or pain. We quietly absorb the posts of sonograms and happily messy houses on Facebook as we inwardly wonder what's the matter with us. We listen to friends coo about their child's latest success as we watch our own terrorize their sibling or scream for an hour. We struggle to raise kids with special needs, physical disabilities, and social challenges, caught by surprise that this is what motherhood looks like. With honesty and vulnerability, JAMIE SUMNER walks readers through each chapter of her own journey to motherhood through infertility and special needs parenting and pairs it with that of a woman in the Bible so that readers can find comfort, hope, companionship and honesty rooted in biblical truths. The book is broken into four parts: The Wanting, The Waiting, The Getting and The Appreciating. UNBOUND will share the heartbreak of infertility and offer encouragement from someone who has had to wait for the fulfillment of motherhood; detail the specifics of infertility treatments, miscarriage, and raising special needs children through a Christian lens; honestly discuss the expectations versus the reality of being a mother; and highlight specific biblical women in each chapter who did not fit the expectations of their times through verses, scriptural anecdotes and guiding questions. UNBOUND shows you through Scripture how to be thankful for each step wherever it leads. Happiness is found as we release into His hands our own well-laid plans for His better, and more beautiful one, no matter how different it may look from what we first imagined.

Finding Freedom from Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood

Unbound

Laurie Keller

James Ponti

Mitali Perkins

Nick Caruso

Sonia Sotomayor

Rob Sanders

Candace Fleming

Linda Sue Park

Ibtihaj Muhammad

Gennifer Choldenko

Adam Gidwitz

Jasmine Warga

Cynthia Lord

Zanib Mian

Matthew A. Cherry

Oge Mora

Derrick Barnes

Traci Sorell

Kevin Noble Maillard

Graham Annable

Karen Levine

Jess French

Jamie L. B. Deenihan

Karina Yan Glaser

Remy Lai

Ross Burach

Sharon Mills Draper

Rebecca Gomez

Caron Levis

Monica Clark-Robinson

Kara West

Tom Greenwald

Rita L. Hubbard

Emily Chenoweth

David Biedrzycki

Guido Daniele

A selection of nominees and winners of the Monarch and Bluestem children's book awards on a full-color Kindle Fire.

Children's Monarch and Bluestem Books

Kindle Fire

From the acclaimed author of Roll with It and Tune It Out comes a funny and moving middle grade novel about a boy who uses his unusual talent for decoding people’s trash to try to fit in at his new school. Hugo is not happy about being dragged halfway across the state of Colorado just because his dad had a midlife crisis and decided to become a ski instructor. It’d be different if Hugo weren’t so tiny, if girls didn’t think he was adorable like a puppy in a purse and guys didn’t call him “leprechaun” and rub his head for luck. But here he is, the tiny new kid on his first day of middle school. When his fellow students discover his remarkable talent for garbology, the science of studying trash to tell you anything you could ever want to know about a person, Hugo becomes the cool kid for the first time in his life. But what happens when it all goes to his head?

Jamie Sumner

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