Juanita and Miguel’s great aunt, Tía Lola, comes from the Dominican Republic to help take care of them after their parents divorce, and soon she is so involved in their small Vermont community that when her visa expires, the whole town turns out to support her.
Seventeen-year-old Kidd Ellison runs away to work for the summer at a beach campsite in California where his hard work and good looks lead to friendship and love but painful past memories surface in menacing ways.
The author describes Christmas at his grandmother’s apartment in Spanish Harlem the year she introduced him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Diego Velazquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, which has had a profound and lasting effect on him.
When someone takes a pet goldfish, then other items from Ms. Blackwell’s classroom, each time leaving a clue in the form of a poem, student Edgar Allan competes with a classmate to be first to solve the mystery.
We the Children asks: Can a kid change the course of history?
At Spiro Agnew Elementary, the fifth graders rule the school. And class clown Justin Fisher rules them all. Or, at least, he did. Justin has always been the funniest kid in school. But this year, his new teacher isn’t amused. And when Justin gets in trouble with Mr. Tripp over and over, the other kids turn on him, too. No one wants to be friends with the class troublemaker. But Justin Fisher isn’t going down without a fight.
A best friend. A lost tooth. A first day of school. In engaging photos and text, this book highlights the milestones shared by every child on the planet. In addition to original writings from some of today’s best-known children’s authors and illustrators, this paperback edition comes packaged with a growth chart uniquely designed to track a child’s physical growth as well as their development into an ethical human being. Stickers included with the book can be placed on the chart to encourage children toward their goals.”I told the truth.” “I kept a promise.” “I shared my toys.” Includes growth chart to track ethical milestones. Includes essays by J.K. Rowling, Cynthia Rylant, Eric Carle, and more. 2005 CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People.
For thirteen years, Ben Tomlin was an only child. But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan — an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize. It isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. To him, Zan is only a specimen, no more, no less. And this is going to have consequences. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true — between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate. Half Brother isn’t just a story about a boy and a chimp. It’s about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can’t always do right by the people and animals you love. In the hands of master storyteller Kenneth Oppel, it’s a novel you won’t soon forget.
Ivy loves to give gifts, even though she doesn’t always give the right present to the right person. (The dog doesn’t need glasses! The cat doesn’t need a pacifier!) And Ivy finds that sometimes it’s hard to give BACK something you’ve borrowed and fallen in love with. But in the end, everyone is matched up with the right present, Ivy gets to keep the thing she likes best, and gives her sister the best gift of all: a big, warm hug!
Meet Rossamünda foundling, a boy with a girls name who is about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor of the Half-Continent. What starts as a simple journey becomes a dangerous and complicated set of battles and decisions. Humans, monsters, unearthly creatures . . . who among these can Rossamünd trust? D. M. Cornish has created an entirely original world, grounded in his own deft, classically influenced illustrations. Foundling is a magic-laced, Dickensian adventure that will transport the reader.