Books by Beth Kephart

A picture book about the places we go to create, inspired by Virginia Woolf and her noted essaySometimes Virginia Woolf wrote her stories in a garden shed. Sometimes she wrote them among stacks of books in a cool basement. And you? Where do you go to think, to dream, to be? The shade beneath a tall tree? The brick step on a city stoop? The cozy spot beneath the kitchen table? Or inside the nightΓÇÖs deep dark? Not all rooms require four walls and a roof. Inspired by the writer Virginia Woolf and her celebrated essay, ΓÇ£A Room of OneΓÇÖs Own,ΓÇ¥ A Room of Your Own is about the importance of claiming a space for oneself.

From acclaimed writer Beth Kephart, author of A Slant of Sun, comes a short, imaginative telling of the life of the Schuylkill River, which has served as the source of Philadelphia's water, power, industry, and beauty for the city's entire life. Before that, it fed the indigenous people who preceded William Penn, and has since time immemorial shape our region.

Like a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Elisa ghostwrites love notes for the boys in her school. But when Elisa falls for Theo Moses, things change fast. Theo asks for verses to court the lovely Lila?a girl known for her beauty, her popularity, and a cutting ability to remind Elisa that she has none of these. At home, Elisa's father, the one person she feels understands her, has left on an extended business trip. As the days grow shorter, Elisa worries that the increasingly urgent letters she sends her father won't bring him home. Like the undercover agent she feels she has become, Elisa retreats to a pond in the woods, where her talent for ice-skating gives her the confidence to come out from under cover and take center stage. But when Lila becomes jealous of Theo's friendship with Elisa, her revenge nearly destroys Elisa's ice-skating dreams and her plan to reunite her family.National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart's first young adult novel is a stunning debut.

A love story and a journey across the continents of marriage.

Captures the rhythms and smells of an extraordinary era