Bear Hill Books VT
Please Sample our 100% Handmade, All-Natural Vermont Stories.
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Betts' Best
Betts Best introduces us to Betts, a quiet and curious seven year old already bruised and battered by the chaos in her life. After a short life of abuse and neglect, including a whirlwind of failed foster homes and a locked psychiatric unit, Betts finds herself in a kinship placement with her shy uncle Ames. Ames is wounded vet who has retreated to a tiny cabin on Bear Hill, trying to keep his own demons from the Sand Wars at bay. Zoey is the young and hopeful social worker who believed in this placement, and who falls in love, first with Betts, then with Ames. Family, school, and friendship are all hard, as Betts slowly learns to trust those around her, and the magic of the Vermont woods.
Betts' Becoming
Betts Becoming finds eleven year old Betts living with, and fighting with her best friend, Cara. Their teacher might be a witch, the therapist has a talking cat, and Betts’ anger spills over at school, bloodying a bully and threatening Betts place in the community. Cara’s mother is missing, then horribly found, and Cara has to fight to stay in the cabin on Bear Hill. Families are lost and rebuilt, and love finds a way to heal and hold the people in Betts life.
Betts' Belonging
Betts Belonging shows a teen-aged Betts finding her strength, her art and finally, her own romantic love. Betts finds new dangers in the world around her, and tries to save the next girl. Betts works to build a new life, trying to find a balance between safety and connection.
The Buckman Kids
Toby is an eleven-year-old boy, familiar with his small world of church, farm and family, a life set in the early sixties on a small dairy farm in rural Vermont. His days are made of school, chores, homework, a bath, and then bed. Toby finds this world rocked when the Buckmans, a famously troubled family, move into the old single wide trailer just down the road. Roy Buckman is Toby’s age, but tough as nails, and his kid sister, Trish, is even more powerful for Toby.
Road Trip
Two girls on the run, from Chelsea, Vermont, all the way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Stella, 13, a hardened foster kid, sees herself as an expert on running away. Brandy, 15, has always tried to do the right thing, but finds she can no longer stay with her mother. Breaking and entering, car theft, and assault and murder are worse than anything Brandy has ever thought to do, but she finds herself happier than she has ever been. Stella, the little warrior, finally discovers something worth fighting for.
The Fosters of Camp Algonquin
Six hard-scrabble foster kids are sent to wealthy Camp Algonquin for five whole weeks, under the distracted eye of Sierra, a soon-to-turn-18 foster child who is aging out of the system. The Fosters, as they are called by the rest of the camp, are there as an experiment by the well meaning board of Camp Algonquin, who wanted to do something kind for children in need. Strangers become family up in Cabin 17, and Camp Algonquin gets more than they bargained for.
Page of Swords
Best friends forever? Regina lives with her no-nonsense mom and her awful little brothers. Evie's life is dominated by her scary stepfather, and things at her home are only getting worse. Telling the truth might set her free, or it might bring her world falling down on her head. Things are not as they might seem in the complex world of middle school and suburban families. This is a world of missing fathers, and of mothers, good, and bad. Faith battles with religion as Regina and Evie struggle to keep their friendship as they began to understand who they really are.
Alicia and the Queen of the Forest
Foster care has not been kind to Alicia. When she runs into the forest, fleeing a monster - her older cousin Mark - she finds herself down the rabbit hole, and in the company of Edward, her once-lost stuffed bunny. The barrier between what is real and what is needed is blurred. Searching the woods for Edward’s front door leads Alicia to Juniper, the tiny unschooled wild-child of May and Joe. Juniper is more dangerous than she appears, and has her own secret past. All Alicia wants her mom out of jail, and her baby brothers found, and her family put back together. None of this seems likely, or even possible. And how can you know if you’re crazy when you live in a crazy world?
Kenny and Stan
Kenny is an eleven-year-old boy with Asperger’s, the youngest in a wealthy evangelical family. Kenny’s father, Rodger, is a deacon at Prosperity Baptist, a mega church that provides a fraternity of sorts for the wealthy men of Harrison, under the corrupt authority of the Reverend Melvin Mann. When Kenny finds a homeless man living on the street, in a pile of blankets, Kenny decides to secretly move the alcoholic vet into his basement, hoping that somehow Stan will help heal the unhappiness in Kenny’s family. Tracy, a hyperactive girl in Kenny’s Emotional Literacy Class, and Kenny’s only friend, is the only one in on the secret. But Stan has his own agenda, and his own strange powers.
The Keeper: Cora and Jenny
The Keeper is a magical being, filled with light, one of only a few. She was made back before the moon, and set over time into the bodies of mortals, to watch and keep the balance of creation. While the Keeper’s story is never ending, these two joined stories tell of her time with two young girls who start as best friends, and then grow to become something more. Cora, born with the Keeper already inside, feels the Keeper is something like the best big sister ever, even when she shines forth with her odd, yellow eyes. When Cora finds herself unable to protect the one she loves, she must give up the best thing, to make the best gift she could possible give. The Keeper comes to live inside nine-year-old Jenny, who struggles with suddenly finding the voice of love and compassion deep inside her, where she had always thought herself to be hard and safe and alone. Darkness is loose in the world, the boundaries have been broken, and Light needs all the courage and magic that Cora, Jenny and the Keeper have.
Anna
Anna is a revenge tale, set in the crossroads of comfortable, tidy suburbs and the darkest secrets of current American culture and politics. Eleven year old Anna is unlike any child Bonnie and David have ever known, appearing suddenly in a wreck of diesel flames and smoke, so strong and so vulnerable, and so desperately in need of a mother. Anna and her new parents are hunted by Speetzy, pure evil in an Armani suit, threatening the lives of the elderly couple and their new daughter. Bonnie and David must forget everything they once believed about their country and themselves if they hope to save their scary new daughter. Never underestimate the power of a young Ukrainian gymnast with a 12-gauge shotgun, or the retired Girl Scout leader who has decided to become her mother.
Jessica Jett Takes Off!
Jessica Jett is only fifteen when her mother dies. She is known as The Jet on her high school Varsity soccer team, The Bossy Sister to her eight-year-old brother, and The Beast to those who stand in her way.She has a Vanson jacket, Doc Martin boots, and a record of two soccer team “kills” her freshman year. As a nurse’s child, she knows something about being strong but she finds she needs more than her own strength to face the drastic changes in her life that arise after her mother’s death.Thank goodness for The Lady Wolves - her soccer team friends - and her extended family to back her up.
Flossie Underoak
Flossie Underoak is a Marmot, or what some folks might call a woodchuck. Flossie wakes up in the spring to three new kits, mewing and needing her care but Flossie is old and tired. She knows that this will be her last litter. Flossie has lived a long and full Marmot life but as she goes through this last summer, she begins to question everything she took as truth before. While understandably proud of her accomplishments and her lovely burrow, Flossie begins to question the decisions she has made, the life she has lived and even the nature of the stories that all Marmots are raised by. Flossie knows her mother would never approve yet there is something about her smallest daughter that shakes Flossie’s easy faith. When Chris, a human child, and Daisy, the old blind dog are in trouble, Flossie and her youngest rise to the challenge. Flossie’s last summer is not what she expected.