ELA

"Dear Levi,
I surely hated leaving you behind in Pennsylvania, but you know I couldn't pass up the chance to go out to Oregon to see about Pa's claim.... Once you're old enough, Levi, you can come too. Till then, mind Miss Amelia, and don't go chasing after her chickens too much...."

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.

April 3, 1778
Jonathan, 13, knows he's ready to fight the British. He can handle a gun. And he yearns to don a uniform and battle for glory, just like his brother and cousin.
So on this day when the tavern bell tolls, calling men to arms, Jonathan doesn't ask his father's permission. He simply goes. And to his joy, he's accepted.
In the next twenty-four hours, Jonathan learns what it means to fight, and to be a soldier. He also learns what it's like to meet death face to face.
It's a lesson he will never forget....

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.

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.

It's 1816, and Remembrance Nye and her family are enduring a cold, hard summer in their new home in western New York. There's barely any food, since Papa's crops were destroyed by the late frosts. Mem's mama has never gotten used to their new home and finds it even harder to cope after she gives birth to baby Lily. Papa puts Mem in charge of caring for the baby, her younger brother, and their sick mother. Though Mem tries her best, it's hard to do the chores and watch them every moment. Then the worst happens: One stormy night Mama and Lily disappear.

In this sequel to the Newbery Honor Book Our Only May Amelia, May Amelia Jackson is living with her seven brothers on a muddy farm on the banks of the Nasel River in Washington State — and she still can't act the part of a Proper Young Lady. So when her father proclaims that "girls are useless," May Amelia is determined to prove him wrong!

After the death of their beloved mentor, Bear, Crispin and Troth are more desperate than ever, wandering the desolate French countryside, where they don't speak the language and know no one. The only hope they cling to is that somehow they can reach Iceland, where Bear had said there were no kings or lords, and where they can live in freedom. Crispin is determined to fulfill this dream, both for himself and to honor Bear's memory. But the road to liberty is filled with danger, betrayal, and loss.