Welcome to works in progress...
of
Faith R. Connors
Recent Works
A Trumpet by Tuesday
Joshua wants to learn to play the trumpet, but he doesn’t have one. He likes to listen to music. He would most like to learn to play the trumpet. In order to take music lessons at school and be in the school band, he needs a trumpet by Tuesday. A new trumpet is too expensive he finds out. Glumly, he goes along with Mom and his little brother to a Saturday morning yard sale. At the first house, he finds a clarinet and buys it for five dollars. At Mom’s second stop, the entire house is piled high with yard sale items, inside and out. When Joshua finds a tarnished trumpet and buys it for fifteen dollars, it turns out that he gets much more than a brass trumpet in the bargain.
Grub: The Mystery of the Night Critter
Cody wants to help Grandpa find out what critter is digging up the backyard every night. Each morning, Grandpa is distressed to see another part of the backyard has been dug up. He tells Cody that pretty soon the entire yard will look like someone has taken a shovel to it. What can Cody do to help Grandpa save the backyard? Is it a Florida panther? Could it possibly be a small black bear? (Grandpa says, “That’s bearly possible.) Is it an armadillo? Could it be a raccoon? What do you do, Cody wants to know, when an unknown critter is tearing up the backyard night after night? In Florida, it could be anything from an alligator to a monster snake. Cody decides that he will solve the mystery of the night critter and save Grandpa’s backyard from any further destruction. Cody’s quest turns out to be more of an adventure than he had ever imagined.
Half-Uncle Harvey: How Harvey Half Pint became Half-Uncle Harvey
When ten year old Harvey became a half-uncle, he began to feel a bit like a fraction himself. Because he was on the small side, he had been called Harvey Half Pint and that was understandable. But when his grandfather got married again and a new baby, Hannah, arrived, Harvey became a fractional relative: he was the new baby’s half uncle. That was when Half-Uncle Harvey began to explore the fractional pieces of his life. He soon realized that being a fifty percent relative to his half-niece, Hannah, was only a fraction of the total pieces of his life that were divided up in fractions.
After Half-Uncle Harvey’s father died, his mother married Will, a plumber from Connecticut. Now he is a step-son and must move with his mother, Lucy, from Kings County, New York where all of his family has lived since before the Civil War.
The truth is that Half-Uncle Harvey became a half brother when Lucy gave birth to a twelve pound baby named William, Jr.
Sandy O
Sandy thought that she and her brother would always live in their new house in Binghamton, New York, but on a crisp September day in 1949, a sudden tragedy changes everything: driving with the family on the way from New York to Connecticut to spend the Jewish holidays with relatives, Sandy’s dad stops to get gas. Moments later, Sandy witnesses the tragic death of her mother by a hit and run driver. How could everything go from perfect to terrible and totally change Sandy’s life in one moment? Events unfold quickly as Sandy’s dad must make decisions for Sandy and her brother. A new life begins for Sandy in the home of her Russian immigrant grandmother, Grammy, and with it come challenges - at home, at school and in the neighborhood. She misses her best friend back in Binghamton, and her dog, Butchie.
The Costume Maker’s Secret
After Mama dies, Midgie and Henry miss her terribly and worry that Daddy, too, will take sick and die. Daddy is sad and tired because he works long hours at the railroad yard. Worse yet, he no longer wants to live in the house he bought for the family when Mama came home from the hospital months ago. When Daddy decides to move the three of them across town to an apartment, for a new start, Midgie and Henry wonder what to expect. They hope there will be children their age living beneath them in their new apartment on Spruce Street. At first, they are disappointed to learn that a costume maker lives in the first floor apartment. But then some curious events take place involving a car chase, a fire, danger at a mob scene and enough strange characters coming and going that Midgie and Henry begin to think they are living in a haunted house. They have even seen a baby bat hanging upside down by the front door - leaving bat dung on the shingles! They decide to investigate thoroughly. Who is the costume maker and what is he involved in that has the mayor paying regular visits to the downstairs apartment?
POP Goes the Palindrome!
Palindromes should be fun, because they POP up everywhere. However, palindromes are becoming a challenge for Hannah and her brother, Bob. Hannah and Bob have learned that their family is being called The Palindrome Family. Living in a palindrome world eventually becomes fun for Hannah and Bob, but only after a move to a new home on a lake where Hannah and Bob make new friends, learn to hunt for frogs, and their Dad opens a pizza company. Hannah and Bob have adventures with their new friends as they join The Star Rats Club.
Field Trip with Trouble
Joshua’s first day of school turns out to be exciting for more people than just Joshua himself. Just how much trouble can one small boy get into on his first day in Kindergarten? Joshua is about to find out. He is sure he knows all about Kindergarten because his best friend, Cody, who is in First Grade, told him what to expect. It is super fun for Joshua all day long until the teacher scolds him for “talking out.” Only that wasn’t the worst of it: an unplanned field trip on the yellow school bus changed everything for Joshua on his very first day at school. Somehow, he gets off the school bus at the wrong stop. Where is he? What should he do? Will someone come looking for Joshua? Will everyone get busy trying to find him? Joshua decides to take action…
The Stars of Mill Street
In a book filled with warmth and humor, two spirited sisters, Ellie (age 10) and Petie (age 8), face challenges together as they find themselves in embarrassing situations relating to their family members. Mama is from Norway and has trouble speaking English. Worse yet, she doesn’t read the English language at all.
Ellie and Petie go to auctions with Mama as well as to Suffrage meetings. Mama is forever buying old things at auctions and she is determined to gain the right to vote. It may sound silly but the girls are so embarrassed to be seen on a Norwegian sled that doesn’t look like the sleds the neighborhood children are riding. They wear long coats so when they sit on their sled they can pull their coats down over the sides and cover it.
Their new school is not only in the worst possible place for a school – at the edge of a cliff above ocean waves crashing against the rocks – their much older relative, Cousin Ethel, is the head mistress. Petie gets into trouble with penmanship right away because there is only one word she likes to write, so she writes that word over and over. EGYPT.
There is more embarrassment on the Lily Pond where Papa takes them ice skating. The other children think that Papa is Ellie and Petie’s grandfather. How come Papa is so old? Why is he so much older than other children’s fathers?
Mama’s younger sister arrives from Norway and the girls begin to understand more about Mama’s family in Norway. They learn about Papa’s family and his Irish roots. The story takes place in the City by the Sea, Newport, Rhode Island as more and more relatives arrive to stay with the family in the brick house on Mill Street. Soon the house is bursting at the seams. Then Margaret Harrington, age eighteen, arrives from what Papa calls the Old Sod, Ireland, to serve as the family’s cook and more adventures begin.