This book describes the cooperative effort by scientists in the Soviet Union and the United States to save the Siberian crane, with the support and aid of conservationists from other nations.
Intermediate (ages 9-14)
Material appropriate for intermediate age groups
Wildflower Girl
Thirteen-year-old Peggy O’Driscoll, left orphaned and homeless by the Great Famine of the 1840s, leaves Ireland to seek her fortune in America.
One More Elephant: The Fight to Save Wildlife in Uganda
Two brothers, Peter and William Moeller save the rapidly diminishing herds of elephants and other wildlife living in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.
The Travel Game
Tad and his aunt Hattie take an imaginary trip to Hong Kong. Armed with a globe, an illustrated almanac, and their imaginations, Tad and Aunt Hattie play the travel game. They ride elephants in India, escape deadly piranhas in the Amazon River, and hail a water taxi to visit the beautiful boat city of Hong Kong—all without leaving the apartment above the family tailor shop in Buffalo, New York. This funny, affectionate story is based on author John Grandits’s own childhood experiences. The charming and highly detailed illustrations will encourage children to play their own version of the travel game.
Misery Guts
High-spirited Keith Shipley tries to cheer up his gloomy parents, nicknamed the “”misery guts,”” using such ploys as painting their favorite restaurant a Tropical Mango Hi-Gloss color.
Stopping for a Spell
In three magical stories, Chair Person finds being a chair easier than being a person, Angus Flint is a visitor who refuses to leave, and four grannies come to care for Emily and Erg.
Wicked Will: A Mystery of Young William Shakespeare
To the outside world, Tom Pryne is an orphan traveling Elizabethan England with his uncle-s theater troupe. In actuality, -Tom- is Viola, in disguise because her parents- Catholic sympathies have put them at odds with the law and forced them into hiding. When the troupe arrives in the sleepy little town of Stratford-on-Avon, Viola-s uncle is arrested for murder, and she joins forces with young Will Shakespeare, a local boy with a penchant for trouble and a smart turn of phrase, to uncover the real culprit.
Dear Sylvia
Owen Skye can’t forget about his true love Sylvia, even though she’s moved away. He still has the stationary set she gave him for his birthday, and so he decides to use it to write her. Owen is a true writer in his head but getting the right words onto the page is another story. As he nervously begins to write, young readers easily identify with his struggles against spelling, his writer’s insecurity, and his deep desire to tell Sylvia the truth about what’s going on in his life — and in his heart. Owen manages to write about how his little brother got his head stuck in the banister, the disastrous camping trip with his irritating cousins, and how his new baby cousin will only stop crying if he holds her. . . but writing the letters is only the first step. Will Owen have the courage to send them? Will he ever see Sylvia again? Alan Cumyn has given his well-loved series a new and original twist in this irresistible epistolary novel.
Name Me Nobody
Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.
The War Within
Holly Springs, Mississippi, 1862: The Green family owns a general store in this small Southern town where they have lived for many years. But ever since the Union army occupied her beloved town, Hannah Green has been furious. Her sister, Joanna, has fallen in love with Captain Mazer of the Union — the same Union that has been fighting against her brothers in the Confederate army to destroy the Southern way of life. Now General Grant has issued General Order #11, which commands all Jews to evacuate the territory under his command. The Greens are forced to follow the Union army to Memphis. For the first time Hannah and her family face discrimination simply because of their religion. She begins to realize that not everyone believes the basic truths she has always accepted. While the battles rage around her, Hannah begins to fight another war — the war within — which could destroy everything she has ever believed. With the historical accuracy for which she is known, best-selling author Carol Matas turns her attention to an unexamined chapter of the Civil War and creates a thought-provoking and heart-racing masterpiece.