Books
Fiction:
Mending Horses
by M. P. Barker
(Holiday House, 2014; distributed by Penguin Random House)
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0823429486
Paperback ISBN: 978-0823440047
Also available in e-book editions.
Three outcasts – an Irish orphan, a roving peddler, and a child fleeing an abusive father – mend each other’s broken lives as they heal a circus’s mistreated horses.
2015 Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must-Read List”
2014 Kirkus Prize nominee
2015 Booklist Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth
Buy the book here:
Penguin Random House (distribution for Holiday House)
IndieBound
Bookshop.org
Hudson Booksellers
Powell’s Books
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Amazon
A Difficult Boy
by M.P. Barker
(Holiday House, 2008)
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0823420865
Paperback ISBN: 978-0823422449
Their shared love for a horse brings together two indentured servants, who must overcome their differences to outwit their master and win their freedom.
2010-2011 William Allen White Award Master List
2008 International Reading Association Notable Book for a Global Society
2008 Featured in Kirkus First Fiction Special Issue
A Difficult Boy is currently out of print, but I hope to have a new edition available later this year. In the meantime, you can order new and used copies online from many vendors, including:
Alibris Books
AbeBooks.com
Biblio.com
Thriftbooks
Books-A-Million
Amazon
(And don’t forget your local library! You can also contact me directly for copies.)
Nonfiction:
Images of America: Chicopee
by Michele Plourde-Barker
(Arcadia Publishing, 1998)
ISBN: 978-0738590066
A pictorial history of a Western Massachusetts industrial community from its first settlement in the 1660s to the post-World War II era, featuring more than 200 vintage images.
Buy the book here:
Arcadia Publishing
IndieBound
Bookshop.org
Hudson Booksellers
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Amazon
140 Years of Providential Caring: The Sisters of Providence of Holyoke, Massachusetts
by Tom Shea, Suzanne Strempek Shea, and Michele P. Barker
(Sisters of Providence, 2012)
ISBN: 978-0-9672840-1-9
Click here for purchasing information
Co-authored with Tom Shea and Suzanne Strempek Shea. Written in celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Sisters’ arrival in Holyoke and the 120th anniversary of their incorporation as a congregation of the Springfield, Massachusetts, diocese, this book explores the history of a group of extraordinary women, from their roots in Montreal to the present.