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Gr 1-4 Williams's heartwarming story takes readers on the emotional roller-coaster ride that is Amber and Essie's life. Times are hard for their family-their mother works long hours, leaving them with sitters or cousins or often on their own. Worse yet, their father is in jail. While the girls share their heartache, they also share their special talents-Essie teaches Amber to write her name in script, and Amber convinces t...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

For sisters Essie and Amber, a "Best Sandwich" means snuggling together with their teddy bear between them, breathing "each other's breath / in and out and in and out / till they heard at last their mother's key in the big front door." Vera B. Williams has put together a different kind of "Best Sandwich"—a series of interconnected poems flanked by colored-pencil portraits in the beginning and the end-to tenderly convey the girls' resilience and vulnerability in the face of parental absence. The story emerges bit by bit through sometimes heartbreaking vignettes. We learn in the poem "Essie Shook A...Log In or Sign Up to Read More