Book

Mina loves the night. While everyone else is in a deep slumber, she gazes out the window, witness to the moon's silvery light. In the stillness, she can even hear her own heart beating. This is when Mina feels that anything is possible, that her imagination is set free.

Around The World Through Holidays: Cross Curricular Readers Theatre includes scripts for twelve plays adaptable for any of the reading or performance methods of Readers Theatre presentation. Each play introduces students to a specific world culture by looking at holidays celebrated in that culture. The structure of the book introduces holidays chronologically throughout a calendar year—one play per month. The focus is on literacy and social studies, so the book is not tied to the traditional nine-month school calendar.

Were the green, glowing crystals the little man gave James really magic? Maybe, but it was magic lost to James when he tripped and spilled the crystals by the old peach tree. Now it looked like he'd never escape his hideous aunts. But what was happening to that peach at the tip of the tree? It was growing bigger and bigger... it was as big as a house! And when James crawled inside, he met a houseful of friends: giant Grasshopper, Ladybug, Centipede, and more. Then with one snip of the stem, the peach was rolling away—and marvelous things started happening...

Captured by a giant! The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants—rather than the BFG—she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

I, Catherine Cabot Hall, aged 13 years, 6 months, 29 days... do begin this book.

So begins the journal of a girl coming of age in nineteenth-century New Hampshire.

Catherine records both the hardships of pioneer life and its many joys. Even as she struggles with her mother's death and father's eventual remarriage, Catherine's indomitable spirit makes this saga an often-times uplifting and joyous one.

Quiet yet powerful, this award-winning book is sure to touch all who read it.

Winner of the Newbery Medal

Michael's great-great-aunt Dew was a hundred years old, and she kept an old box filled with pennies, one for each birthday. Michael loved to sit at her feet and count out the pennies while Aunt Dew told the story behind each one. Michael's mother wanted to throw out the old box and buy a new one. But Aunt Dew said, "Anybody takes my hundred penny box, takes me." And for his love for Aunt Dew, Michael knew he had to try to save the hundred penny box that contained all the stories of her life.

A Newbery Honor Book

"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...."

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....

William's new dog, Riley, is in trouble. He chased a neighbor's horse, and local law punishes any animal that chases livestock. William will do anything to save his dog's life. Riley has become the friend he's needed after his grandfather's sudden death and his parents' separation.

Will William and his friend Grace be able to save Riley—even if several citizens and the bully Ellis Porter think Riley deserves the most severe punishment possible?

This summer will be different. That's for sure. When an eleven-year-old city boy is dropped off to stay on a farm with relatives, he doesn't know what to expect. His cousin Harris soon takes care of that. Harris is rude and crude and finds trouble at every turn. He leads his city cousin into everything from wrestling slippery pigs to catching mice to a daredevil jump out of a barn loft. And that's not all. There are swimming and cowboy movies and enough good food to fill the boys up for days.

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."

When Steve brings home a time machine he bought for $2.50 at a garage sale, Max is suspicious. "There's no such thing as time travel. Or time machines." Then they both end up in the year 1250 in medieval England—Steve as Sir Robert Marshall and Max as his horse!—and Max must admit the machine works.

Sir Robert soon finds himself in the midst of a duel to the death with the Hampshire mauler, defending not only his honor, but his life. Can Max rescue him? Will the machine return him in time to spare his life? The 20th century never looked so good.

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.

Fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is heading west on the Oregon Trail with his family by wagon train. When he receives a rifle for his birthday, he is thrilled that he is being treated like an adult. But Francis lags behind to practice shooting and is captured by Pawnees. It will take wild horses, hostile tribes, and a mysterious one-armed mountain man named Mr. Grimes to help Francis become the man who will be called Mr. Tucket.

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.