ELA

Amanda Freebold doesn't know what to do. Her father left three years ago for the new colony of Jamestown, in America, thousands of miles away. All Amanda has to remember him by is a little brass lion's head he gave his family to guard them while he is gone. Now her mother has just died, leaving Amanda to take care of her younger brother and sister.

Do you ever wonder where inventors get their ideas? Benjamin Franklin was one of the most famous inventors in American history, and according to this book he got most of his ideas—the good ones at any rate—from a mouse!

Funny and Wise, Ben and Me is a classic American story that celebrates its sixtieth anniversary in 1999. It has amused generations of young people, and once you've read it and met Amos, the mouse who tells the story, you will never think of Benjamin Franklin, or American history, quite the same way again.

In the 1820s, twelve-year-old Kanah and ten-year-old Patty journey with their family from Vermont, over the Mohawk Turnpike and Ridge Road, to a new farm in western New York State.

Destination Unknown...

Pedro de Salcedo could not have known what adventures lay ahead! His incredible voyage as ship's boy aboard Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria would bring both danger and excitement. Pedro captured his experience between the pages of a journal. If he did not return alive perhaps someone, someday would find it and learn of his incredible journey to the new world.

Chizuko came to visit her friend Sadako in the hospital. She had a piece of gold paper that she had cut into a large square. "Watch!" she said, and she folded the paper over and over, and it turned into a beautiful crane.

"If a sick person folds one thousand paper cranes," Chizuko said, "the gods will grant her wish and make her well again." The girl handed the crane to Sadako. "Here's your first one."

Buildings were weaving in and out. The street pitched like a stormy sea. Bricks were raining down all around him. The ground shook with such violence that Jacob thought the world had come to an end.

The Erie Canal comes to life in this classic children's book, illustrated by award winning artist Peter Spier, to the words of the familiar folk song, "Low Bridge, Everybody down." Enjoy reading and singing this song with your children. Teachers use this book to introduce curriculum subjects and to tell stories about what is happening in the paintings of canal town life. Every child, library and school should have this book.