"An afternoon of readings and lively discussion with contemporary authors, including Blue Balliett (Chasing Vermeer), Chris Grabenstein (Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library), Wendy Mass (The Candymakers), and Alexander London (The Wild Ones) who have been inspired by E. L. Konigsburg's Newbery Award-winning classic about a sister and brother who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and find themselves caught up in a mysterious adventure."
"From the Newbery Medal–winning author of the beloved classic From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler comes four jewel-like short stories—one for each of the team members of an Academic Bowl team—that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.
How had Mrs. Olinski chosen her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team?
It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?
It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.
Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen."
"Elizabeth is an only child, new to town, and that can be very lonely. So when she meets Jennifer, a girl from her school - who claims to be a witch no less - she is eager to become her apprentice. Over the course of the next several months, the girls meet on Saturdays for their weekly rituals and read volumes on witchcraft in hopes of developing a flying ointment. But they do not find the best magic in Jennifer's black cauldron."
"E. L. Konigsburg revisits the town of Epiphany to tell the story of Margaret Rose Kane, Connor's older half-sister. It's about the summer when Margaret Rose turned twelve--the same year that Cabbage Patch dolls were popular, that Sally Ride became the first woman to go into space, that El Niño turned the world upside-down. Margaret Rose begins her summer with a miserable experience at camp; from which she's rescued by her beloved, eccentric uncles. Little does she know that her uncles, in turn, need rescuing themselves--from a tyrannical city council determined to tear down her uncles' life work--three spectacularly beautiful towers that her uncles have been building since before Margaret was a baby.
THE OUTCASTS OF 19 SCHUYLER PLACE is a rousing audiobook about intelligence, art, and the fierce preservation of individuality."
