Grades 9-12
Fifteen-year-old Kendra has been seeing a therapist since the ugly memories of being raped at the age of two began to resurface. Try as she may, though, she is unable to remember the most important detail of the abuse: her rapist’s identity. She has the utmost trust in her therapist, but she can’t shake the feeling that someone is following her. To ease her fears, she cuts, but not one person in her life knows about it; not her therapist, her art teacher, or her friend Meghan who she hopes will soon turn into something more. Will Kendra heal before it’s too late?
This is the true story of how four African American women helped achieve some of the greatest of NASA’s moments through their works in mathematics. These four women were Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden. They were a part of a group of people called “computers,” who calculated the math needed with pencils and adding machines. Through their work, they were able to launch rockets and astronauts into space. Don’t miss the movie adaptation of their story, staring Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer.
The Babcock sisters have a close relationship with each other even though all three of them are vastly different. Their family is shaken when they learn the news that their mother has cancer. The girls spend time with her at a Mexican clinic where she is receiving an alternative treatment. While the girls try to balance their lives at school with their mother’s imminent death, they are blindsided with a truth about their mother that they never could have imagined.
