Book

For Elise, nothing has seemed right since middle school started. She gets tortured by her locker partner and can't get her homework done. A new baby moves into her house, interrupting her wonderful life with Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie. Worst of all, things with her best friend, Franklin, are just not the same as they used to be.

A year after Stephie Steiner and her younger sister, Nellie, left Nazi-occupied Vienna, Stephie has finally adapted to life on the rugged Swedish island where she now lives. But more change awaits Stephie: her foster parents have allowed her to enroll in school on the mainland, in Goteberg. Stephie is eager to go. Not only will she be pursuing her studies, she'll be living in a cultured city again—under the same roof as Sven, the son of the lodgers who rented her foster parents' cottage for the summer.

Hiding is Roo Fanshaw’s special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment’s notice. When her parents are murdered, it’s her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life.

When Pa brings a turkey poult home to fatten for Christmas dinner, he assures Ma that it will be no trouble since it can live in a box by the stove and eat table scraps--and just think of the money we'll save! But it's not quite so simple to raise a turkey in a tiny flat in a nineteenth-century New York City tenement. Can Pa and the children manage the willful and growing Alfred and keep the neighbors happy until Christmas? Pa finds a solution for every difficulty--until he encounters one that threatens to ruin Christmas completely.

What’s a California miner to do when gold dust sifts right out of his holey pockets? With such a raggedy wardrobe, he may as well be mining in the vanilla (that is, his birthday suit)! Good thing Levi Strauss is out west, ready with his needle and a head full of bright ideas. With some quick thinking, quicker stitching, and handy arithmetic, Levi keeps all the gold rushers clothed—and becomes a modern American hero. A Wild West tall tale, Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea celebrates creativity, innovation, and the ubiquitous item that fills the closets of grateful jeans wearers worldwide.

From the moment Spot answered Henry's ad in the newspaper, the two have been inseparable. But then on Henry's birthday, he gets a dog--the pet he's always wanted! Feeling left out, Spot leaves for his old home, and gets caught in a terrible storm. Henry is devastated when he finds Spot missing and is quickly hot on his trail. With the help of his new dog, Henry saves him and Spot finds out that even with a new pet in his life, Henry would never let his best friend go.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. That’s what all the other numbers think of Zero. He doesn’t add anything in addition. He’s of no use in division. And don’t even ask what he does in multiplication. (Hint: Poof!) But Zero knows he’s worth a lot, and when the other numbers get into trouble, he swoops in to prove that his talents are innumerable.

In Caddy's world, things are always changing. People vanish for days, come to live in your bedroom, hide under tables for hours and hours, count pennies in jam jars until they have enough to buy bread, and then the next day gild halos for the school play with real gold leaf. Caddy's home is a turmoil of piled possessions, lost belongings, and unexpected adventures. Her one constant is her three best friends, a charmed circle that she never wants to leave.

Living with his little brother, Fudge, makes Peter Hatcher feel like a fourth grade nothing.

Whether he's throwing a temper tantrum in a shoe store, smearing mashed potatoes on the walls at Hamburger Heaven, or scribbling all over Peter's homework, Fudge is never far from trouble. He's a two-year-old terror who gets away with everything - and Peter's had enough.

When "Fudge" walks off with Dribble, Peter's pet turtle, it's the last straw. Peter's put up with Fudge too long. How can he get his parents to pay attention to him for a change?

The saga of Frightful, the falcon made legendary in the classic "My Side of the Mountain," continues in this breathtaking picture book. Frightful has hatched three babies, one of them a female named Oksi. Oksi does things her own way, which means she is forever getting into trouble. As she grows from fuzzy hatchling to young adult, she faces the challenges of survival in the wild. But when Frightful is not there to help her, Sam Gribley is.

Maftu was afraid of the sea. It had taken his mother when he was a baby, and it seemed to him that the sea gods sought vengeance at having been cheated of Mafatu. So, though he was the son of the Great Chief of Hikueru, a race of Polynesians who worshipped courage, and he was named Stout Heart, he feared and avoided the sea, till everyone branded him a coward. When he could no longer bear their taunts and jibes, he determined to conquer that fear or be conquered-- so he went off in his canoe, alone except for his little dog and pet albatross. A storm gave him his first challenge.

A year they'll never forget...

Ten-year-old Frederika (Fred for short) doesn't have much faith that the new teacher in town will last very long. After all, they never do. Most teachers who come to their one-room schoolhouse in remote, Alaska leave at the first smell of fish, claiming that life there is just too hard.

A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better - playing the piano - is impossible with her wounded hands.

To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While other flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma - and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died, his life changed and so did his name.

And Maniac Magee became a legend.

Even today kids talk about how fast he could run, about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog" homer, and about how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it.

"Did Mama sing every day?" Caleb asks his sister Anna.
"Every-single-day," she answers. "Papa sang, too." Their mother died the day after Caleb was born. Their house on the prairie is quiet now, and Papa doesn't sing anymore.

Then Papa puts an ad in the paper, asking for a wife, and he receives a letter from on Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, of Maine. Papa, Anna, and Caleb write back. Caleb asks if she sings.