Book

In 1964, Mississippi civil rights groups banded together to fight Jim Crow laws in a state where only 6.4 percent of eligible black voters were registered. Testing a bold new strategy, they recruited students from across the United States. That summer these young volunteers defied segregation by living with local black hosts, opening Freedom Schools to educate disenfranchised adults and their children, and canvassing door-to-door to register voters.

Cotton fields, dusty roads, and the hot Texas sun. One little girl's world looked the same as it always did when she went to sleep. But she wakes to find that everything is all different now.

Coretta Scott King Award winners Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis tell the story of the first Juneteenth, the day freedom finally came to the last slaves in the South.

Early in the twentieth century, most Asian immigrants bound for America disembarked at a rocky island in San Francisco Bay. At the Angel Island Immigration Station, they were scrutinized, physically examined, interrogated, and confined behind barbed wire in crowded dormitories. Detainees often waited weeks or months to be processed. Those who passed inspection were allowed to enter the country known to many Chinese as Gold Mountain. Others, less fortunate, were sent back home or even died in detention.

"This woman's place is in the house—The House of Representatives!"

That was the slogan of Bella Abzug's successful 1970 election campaign. But from the first Congress, in 1789, until the 65th Congress, in 1917, women served in neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate. It wasn't until a suffragist from Montana named Jeannette Rankin won her state's congressional election that women first came to the House. "I may be the first woman member of Congress," she declared, "but I won't be the last." She wasn't, but it's been slow going.

It befell that on the first day of Lent, Brother Hugo could not return his library book. The Abbot was most displeased. "Our house now lacks the comforting letters of St. Augustine, Brother Hugo. How did this happen?"

The precious book, it turns out, has been devoured by a bear, and so Hugo must replace it. Letter by letter and line by line the hapless monk crafts a new book, all the while being trailed by a hungry new friend who thinks that the words of St. Augustine are truly far sweeter than honey.

It's easy to feel nervous when a new baby is on the way. The little girl in this book is lucky. She will soon have a new sibling, but she also has a very special blue wool bunny that her grandmother Nonni made her when she was born. Bubbit always makes her feel better.

Nonni is coming to stay while they wait for the baby. The girl and her grandmother are planning on doing a lot of sewing together. And every new baby deserves something special...

Lucy's family has just moved to an old house on a New Hampshire lake, and her dad, a famous photographer, is already leaving on another business trip.

Maybe it's because she misses him. Maybe it's because she wants to show him that she's talented too. So when Lucy discovers that her dad is judging a photography contest, she decides to enter. Is her eye for photography really something special? Now, at last, she might find out.

Serafina has a secret dream.

She wants to go to school
and become a doctor
with her best friend, Julie Marie.

But in their rural village
outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti,
many obstacles
stand in Serafina's way—
little money,
never-ending chores,
and Manman's worries.

More powerful even
than all of these
are the heavy rains
and the shaking earth
that test Serafina's resolve
in ways she never dreamed.

When Michael's aunt passes away, she leaves behind a letter entitled "Who I am, what I've done, and who you are."

It reveals a story that will change everything. It starts with Michael's grandfather Leroy, a black officer in World War I who charged into a battle zone not once, but three times, to save wounded men. His fellow soldiers insisted he deserved special commendations for his bravery, but because of their racial barriers, he would go unacknowledged. Now it's up to Michael to change that.

As the First World War rages on, Alfie Summerfield has given up hope of seeing his father again. Though his mother maintains that father is away on a secret mission, Alfie knows he must be dead. But when Alfie learns by chance that his father is in a hospital close by—a hospital treating soldiers with shell shock, whatever that might be—he resolves to rescue his father from this strange unnerving place.

We spend most of our lives in buildings. We make our homes in them, go to school in them, and work in them. We're surrounded by buildings practically every moment of our lives! But why and how did people start making buildings? How did they learn to make them stronger, bigger, and more comfortable? And why did they start to decorate them in different ways?

As any parent, teacher, coach, or caregiver of a learning disabled child knows, every learning disability has a social component. The ADD child constantly interrupts conversations and doesn't follow directions. The child with visual-spatial issues loses his belongings and causes his siblings to be late to school. The child with paralinguistic difficulties appears stiff and wooden because she fails to gesture when she talks. These children are socially out of step with their classmates and peers, and often they are ridiculed or ostracized for their differences.

When Temple Grandin was born, her parents knew that she was different. As a baby, she was silent and unresponsive; as a toddler, she threw violent temper tantrums but never spoke a word. It wasn't until years later that she was diagnosed with autism, a brain disorder that makes communication difficult. Temple's father wanted to put her into a mental institution. But her mother believed in her, and so Temple went to school instead.

Pull it Together provides students with practical information on how to synthesizing data. Readers are encouraged to think critically as they conduct research, collaborate with fellow students and present their findings in new and different ways.