In Jennifer L. Holm's New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor winning middle grade historical fiction novel, life isn't like the movies. But then again, 11-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple
She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935 and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida to live with relatives she's never met. Florida's like nothing Turtle's ever seen before though. It's hot and strange, full of rag tag boy cousins, family secrets, scams, and even buried pirate treasure! Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she's spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways. Filled with adventure, humor and heart, Turtle in Paradise is an instant classic both boys and girls with love.
Includes an Author's Note with photographs and further background on the Great Depression, as well as additional resources and websites.
Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews:
'Sweet, funny and superb.'
Starred Review, Booklist:
'Just the right mixture of knowingness and hope . . . a hilarious blend of family drama seasoned with a dollop of adventure.'From the Hardcover edition.
Daniel barely remembers leading a normal life before the Nazis came to power in 1933. He can still picture once being happy and safe, but memories of those days are fading as he and his family face the dangers threatening Jews in Hitler’s Germany in the late 1930s. No longer able to practice their religion, vote, own property, or even work, Daniel’s family is forced from their home in Frankfurt and sent on a long and dangerous journey, first to the Lodz ghetto in Poland and then to Auschwitz—the Nazi death camp.Though many around him lose hope in the face of such terror, Daniel, supported by his courageous family, struggles for survival. He finds hope, life, and even love in the midst of despair. Although Daniel is a fictitious character, his story was inspired by the real experiences of many of the more than one million children who died in the Holocaust.
"[Matas] creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors’ accounts…An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out.”--Kirkus Reviews
It's Christmas in 1914 in the trenches of the Western Front. And something wonderful has just happened...A forgotten letter in a secret drawer brings one night in the Great War vividly back to life. Writing home from the front, a soldier has an incredible story to tell.
"The time has come, I think, not to lie any more."This beautiful recording features solo performances by various classical musicians.When cub reporter Lesley is sent to Venice to interview a world-renowned violinist, the journalist is told she can ask Paolo Levi anything about his life and career as a musician, but on no account must she ask him the Mozart question; never the Mozart question.Paolo, however, has realised he must finally reveal the truth.
The classic story of one family torn apart by the Revolutionary War. All his life, Tim Meeker has looked up to his brother Sam. Sam is smart and brave, and is now a part of the American Revolution. Not everyone in town wants to be a part of the rebellion. Most are supporters of the British, including Tim and Sam’s father. With the war soon raging, Tim knows he will have to make a choice between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats, and between his brother and his father.
“This stirring and authoritative novel earns a place beside our best historical fiction…A memorable piece of writing.”—Horn Book
'As I see it,' said Max, 'all that stands between humankind and the end of the world is two talking monkeys, a crazy archaeologist covered in red paint, and a couple of kids with blowguns. Am I right?'
Fourteen-year-old Max Murphy, video-gamer extraordinaire, is furious when his archaeologist parents cancel the family vacation to go on a dig in Central America. But things go from bad to worse when Max is summoned to join them, only to discover that his parents have vanished. With the help of Lola, a fast-talking, quick-thinking Maya girl, Max embarks on a quest to find out just what's going on. Soon Max and Lola are running for their lives in the perilous rainforest, as they unlock ancient secrets, meet mysterious strangers, and begin to understand that, in San Xavier, nothing is ever as it seems.
Fate has delivered a challenge of epic proportions to Max Murphy. But can a teen whose biggest talent is for video games rescue his parents from the Maya Underworld and save himself from the villainous Lords of Death?
Fans of Karen Cushman's witty, satisfying novels will welcome Meggy Swann, newly come to London with her only friend, a goose named Louise. Meggy's mother was glad to be rid of her; her father, who sent for her, doesn't want her after all. Meggy is appalled by London,dirty and noisy, full of rogues and thieves, and difficult to get around in - not that getting around is ever easy for someone who walks with the help of two sticks.Just as her alchemist father pursues his Great Work of transforming base metal into gold, Meggy finds herself pursuing her own transformation. Earthy and colorful, Elizabethan London has its dark side, but it also has gifts in store for Meggy Swann.From the Compact Disc edition.
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson received the Coretta Scott King Award for her children's book Almost to Freedom. Here she relays the extraordinary story of Bass Reeves, a lawman in the Old West who escaped slavery to become one of the most successful U.S. Marshals in history.
'Here, children can saddle up with a genuine Western hero in a narrative that hits the bull's-eye.''Kirkus Reviews
Sixteen voices are skillfully woven together here-not the heroes, not those who would become eulogized in history books and synonymous with the glory of war. No, these are the voices of the common soldiers and their leaders, their families, their comrades. North/south, white/black, adult/child-a disparate and compelling choir of voices. Newbery Medal-winner Paul Fleischman has written a tour de force that lends itself perfectly to multivoiced narration. From eager eleven-year-old Toby Boyce to Colonel Oliver Brattle, they've seen it all and know the true face of war-creating an intimate tapestry of naiveté, broken dreams and carnage that transports the listener to the front lines of the Battle of Bull Run. Paul Fleischman makes an appearance as the voice of James Dacy and concludes this unique production with a personal author's note-allowing us to glimpse into his beginnings as a writer, as well as how Bull Run came to be written. Recommended for Grades 5 and up.
On March 12, 1888, hurricane-force winds and unrelenting snow began to bring the region of Virginia to Maine to its knees. During the next three days, the Great Blizzard raged out of control, devastating every community in its path. Through the eyes and words of survivors and victims alike, as well as the careful research for which Newbery Honor author Jim Murphy is known, listeners will experience one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history and understand why, from that day on, life in the United States was forever changed. Recommended for Grades 5 and up.
In an isolated cabin in an Arctic wilderness, 14-year-old Sig is alone with a corpse: his father, who has fallen through the ice on the lake outside and frozen to death only hours earlier. Then, out of the Arctic darkness, comes a stranger: a terrifying giant of a man claiming that Sig's father owes him a share of a horde of stolen gold - and threatening awful violence if Sig doesn't reveal the gold's whereabouts. Sig knows nothing about the gold, but he does know that there's a loaded Colt revolver hidden in the cabin's storeroom - a gun that his father had said would protect him, but which his mother had abhorred. Revolver alternates between the lonely cabin and events during the Alaska Gold Rush ten years earlier, gradually unspooling the mystery of the stolen gold and the terrifying stranger, and building to a climax that turns on whether and why Sig will use the hidden gun. Revolver is a compelling frontier survival story, crafted with the intensity and precision of a one-act play.
Author Irene Hunt, who won the Newbery Medal for her novel Up a Road Slowly, went to live at her grandfather’s farm in Illinois after her father’s death in 1914. Her grandfather’s stories of his boyhood during the Civil War became the basis for this compelling novel, Across Five Aprils. Although young Jethro Creighton never witnessed a battle, his life on the family farm in southern Illinois was shattered by the Civil War. He was nine years old in 1861 and over the next five years, he would learn that war deeply affects lives well beyond its gruesome battlefields. Join with narrator Terry Bregy as he brings to life one boy’s story—how Jethro grows from a sensitive, carefree child to a man before his time, learning to face each day with courage and finally, hope.
“Outstanding”--AudioFile
