Product Description
It's the middle of summer in Mirabeau, Texas, but already Garnet Hubbard looks forward to fall -- to entering seventh grade and becoming a teenager at last. With Opal, her beautiful and popular fourteen-year-old sister, as her guide, Garnet is sure to have a great year. But everything changes when their mother, Melanie, packs them up and heads for Nashville, determined to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a country singer. Almost before they know it, Melanie drops the girls at her sister's house in Oklahoma, assuring them she'll be back just as soon as she's settled in Tennessee. But when a few days turn into a few weeks and beyond, with no Melanie in sight, the girls begin to realize what has happened.

While Opal soon becomes one of the most popular girls in school, her younger sister struggles. For Garnet, getting used to her new life means trying to figure out how to have pride in herself when it seems she has little to offer the world and the odds are stacked against her. With only each other to lean on, Melanie's "precious gems" must learn to live with the hand they've been dealt and to accept the changing face of their family.

Set in the early 1960s and beautifully told by D. Anne Love, Semiprecious is a powerful, poignant, and often funny coming-of-age novel that will stay with readers long after the turn of the final page. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Semiprecious
If you've ever had a bad day, you would have an idea of what Garnet was going through. In this book, Garnet has bad days for a whole year.With few simple mercies, Garnet manages to survive.Garnet learns that, when the going gets tough, the tough can get going.
Garnet is a twelve-year-old girl who has lived in Texas all her life.Until one muggy August day in the early 1960's, her mother decides to pick up and move to Nashville.Garnet and her older sister, Opal, are dropped off at their aunt's house in Willow Flats, Oklahoma. Meanwhile their mother settles into Nashville, promising to come back before the beginning of the school year.I'll let you read the book to figure out what happens.
I enjoyed this book very much.Like most books, Semiprecious has parts that readers like and parts that readers don't like. What this reader liked about this book is that Garnet persevered through being lonely, and being unpopular.If you have ever been new somewhere, you would know that it is not always pleasant to be new.Yet even though Garnet was new, and had a tendency to run off, she kept going.What I did not like about this book is that it was monotonous. Basically, it is the same thing every day with a few twists and turns.Garnet ran into troubles, she had a bad day, repeat day.But these monotonous things also made it more interesting when the exciting things happened.
Semiprecious is a good example of what some girls are going through in their lives.Garnet is a good girl with a relatively, bad life.But Garnet learned that she could get through it by willing herself to hold on just long enough for her dad to bring her and Opal home.I would tell anybody, to read Semiprecious. It is a great book and I think all tween-age girls would enjoy it.
Over all, Semiprecious is a good book and I enjoyed it.There were some parts that I didn't like but there were plenty that I did like.Garnet has learned an important lesson that this reviewer thinks everybody should learn: That when the going gets tough, the tough can get going.

Semiprecious
I picked up "Semiprecious" at my local library without reading the back cover.
I thought it would be terrible, but to my surpise, Semiprecious is one of my favorite books.
All the recent books I've read, have been the same old same old.
But with the 1960 as the setting, it brings a completly new setting, and loveable characters that you can't help thinking about even after you closed the book at the last page.
And don't let the recomended ages fool you--- Semiprecious is a great read for anyone. ... Read more

Product Description

Learn how cowboys first appeared in the 1500s and then became famous in Texas and the “Wild West” from 1840 to 1890. Discover what it was like to live and work on a ranch and then ride horseback, moving cattle on the trail. See how cattle drives affected t

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