This historical middle grade novel written in free verse, set against the backdrop of the desegregation battles that took place in Houston, Texas, in 1972, is about a young boy and his family dealing with loss and the revelation of dark family secrets. Ten-year-old Paulie Sanders hates his name because it also belonged to his daddy—his daddy who killed a fellow white man and then crashed his car. With his mama unable to cope, Paulie and his sister, Charlie, move in with their Aunt Bee and attend a new elementary school. But it’s 1972, and this new school puts them right in the middle of the Houston School District’s war on desegregation. Paulie soon begins to question everything. He hears his daddy’s crime was a race-related one; he killed a white man defending a black man, and when Paulie starts picking fights with a black boy at school, he must face his reasons for doing so. When dark family secrets are revealed, the way forward for everyone will change the way Paulie thinks about family forever. The Colors of the Rain is an authentic, heartbreaking portrait of loss and human connection during an era fraught with racial tension set in verse from debut author R. L. Toalson.

"The instant Adam Dearborn met Rebecca Grayson, he knew he would love her for all time. Best friends since their awkward teens, Adam and Rebecca share an unwavering love, but Adam's education and apprenticeship has delayed their union for six lonely years. Now, Adam is finally home and ready to become a partner at the Grayson Sawmill and marry the woman he loves. But a tragic accident steals Rebecca's memory on the eve of their wedding and leaves her broken. Suddenly, Adam is a stranger to her. Devastated that his beautiful fiancée and best friend can't remember their tender past or passionate plans for the future, Adam sets out to help Rebecca heal and to win her love all over again. But can they leave their pain to the rain and find their way back to each other's hearts when the past seems lost forever?" --

Vols. for 1911-13 contain the Proceedings of the Helminothological Society of Washington, ISSN 0018-0120, 1st-15th meeting.

This memoir of “a happy childhood in rural Missouri just before the digital revolution [is] a sweet record of a time and a place that was not Always On.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch Spanning one year of the author’s life—1984—I Will Not Leave You Comfortless is the intimate memoir of a young boy coming to consciousness in small-town Missouri. The year will bring ten-year-old Jeremy first loves, first losses, and a break from the innocence of boyhood that will never be fully repaired. For Jeremy, the seeming security of his life on the family farm is forever shaken by the life-altering events of that pivotal year. Throughout, he recalls the deeply sensual wonders of his rural Midwestern childhood—bicycle rides in September sunlight; the horizon vanishing behind tall grasses—while stories both heart-wrenching and humorous, tragic and triumphant, Jackson weaves past, present, and future into the rich Missouri landscape. “I could smell the mulberries crushed underfoot and the sweet steam of the cinnamon roll Grandma heated in the toaster oven just for Jeremy, hear the ever-increasing volume of an approaching late-spring storm . . . The year of Jeremy Jackson’s life on which he meditates in I Will Not Leave You Comfortless marked his transition from the perfect happiness of childhood to the much more complex reality of adulthood. It records, as well, the abiding comfort that remains—family, home and love.” —Wichita Eagle “Jackson writes about Missouri as the young Hemingway wrote about Michigan: with a clear eye; with hard-edged nostalgia; and (here’s the thing) with brilliance.” —Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life