Ben Franklin loved to swim and, at the age of eleven, he was determined to swim like a fish - fins and all! This fascinating and lively account of young Ben's earliest invention follows the budding scientist's journey as he tests and retests his swim fins. That first big splash led Ben to even more innovations and inventions.
Starred Review. "...The alliterative, sibilant text is a rollicking read to share aloud with young students... The watercolor and ink artwork conveys joy and motion, with young Ben splashing into the water, gleefully trying out his fins... This is a fun introduction to one of the nation's founding fathers and a solid addition to collections needing a different perspective on this American icon." - School Library Journal
When the Depression strikes America, throwing millions out of work, Petey Williamson’s family seems safe. Hadn’t the boss promised Petey’s father that he’d always have a job? But during the Depression, promises cannot always be kept, and Petey finds his family sliding rapidly into poverty. And when Petey’s much-admired cousin Steve starts working as a union organizer in the battle to improve conditions for workers, poverty turns into tragedy.
“Collier tugs at readers’ heartstrings.”—School Library Journal
From Newbery Medalist Avi comes the thrilling and suspenseful story of an ordinary American family who fall under suspicion. It's 1951, and twelve-year-old Pete Collison is a regular kid in Brooklyn, New York, who loves Sam Spade detective books and radio crime dramas. But when an FBI agent shows up at Pete's doorstep, accusing Pete's father of being a Communist, Pete is caught in a real-life mystery. Could there really be Commies in Pete's family? As Pete follows the quickly accumulating clues, he begins to wonder if the truth could put his family's livelihood--and even their freedom--at risk. In the tradition of "Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?, Don't You Know There's a War On?, "and "Nothing But the Truth, Catch You Later, Traitor" tells a funny, insightful story packed with realistic period detail of a boy in mid-twentieth-century America whose family is caught in the wide net of America's Red Scare.
On the 16th of December, 1944, in the frozen forests of the Ardennes, the German army attacked American Allied forces, making one last attempt to turn the tide of World War II. Thus began the long, hard slog of a battle that was nicknamed by the media as the Battle of the Bulge. Lasting more than a month, it led to tens of thousands of casualties. Sir Winston Churchill called it "the greatest American battle of the war and . . . an ever-famous American victory." Atkinson skillfully guides his audience through the attacks and counterattacks, the advances and retreats of this terrible bloodbath. Whether history buffs or newcomers to the topic, listeners of all ages will appreciate the author's clear and accessible prose, as well as the many fascinating facts and statistics.
France is aflame with rumors of witchcraft and treachery. Who will be burn for their transgressions? Find out in this haunting original novel based on the hit CW television show, Reign.
Something sinister has been sweeping the villages surrounding the French court. Rumors of Satan's horsemen traveling the countryside and claiming the souls of villagers have sent the people reeling into a religious frenzy and soon fear and suspicion lead them to accuse a young girl of witchcraft. After the prisoner is brought to the palace for questioning, Mary, Greer, Kenna, and Lola work to prove her innocence. But there are others who will stop at nothing to see the girl and her secrets silenced forever...
The stars of the Big Dipper have led a runaway slave family to Deacon Fuller's house, a stop on the underground railroad. Will Tommy Fuller be able to hide the runaways from a search party -- or will the secret passengers be discovered and their hope for freedom destroyed?
When her spendthrift father goes into debt after buying a sheep and the inner workings of a clock, fifteen-year-old Annie Steele is sent to work in the town's new wool mill to help support her family. Her job is full of risk—especially after she and her friend Robert discover that the mill's cruel overseer is stealing bags of wool and decide to do something about it. Annie longs for the chance to continue her schooling and become a teacher. Will she ever be able to leave the mill?
Inspired by Victor Hugo's classic, "Les Miserables," "A Little in Love" beautifully conveys the heartbreaking story of street girl Eponine.
Paris, 1832-A girl lies alone in the darkness, clutching a letter to her heart.
Eponine remembers being a child: her swing and the peach tree, and the baby brother she loved. But mostly she remembers being miserable. Taught to lie and cheat, and to hate the one girl, Cosette, who might have been her friend.
Now, at sixteen, the two girls meet again, and Eponine has one more chance. But what is the price of friendship--the love of a boy?
The eagerly-awaited sequel to the best-selling The Glass Sentence -- a historical, fantastical adventure perfect for fans of Philip Pullman!
It is the summer of 1892, one year since Sophia Tims and her friend Theo embarked upon the dangerous adventure that rewrote the map of the world. Since their return home to Boston, she has continued searching for clues to her parents' disappearance, combing archives and libraries, grasping at even the most slender leads. Theo has apprenticed himself to an explorer in order to follow those leads across the country, but one after another proves to be a dead end.
Then Sophia discovers that a crucial piece of the puzzle exists in a foreign Age. At the same time, Theo discovers that his old life outside the law threatens to destroy the new one he has built with Sophia and her uncle Shadrack. What he and Sophia do not know is that their separate discoveries are intertwined, and that one remarkable person is part of both.
There is a city that holds all of the answers, but it cannot be found on any map. Surrounded by plague, it can only be reached by a journey through darkness and chaos, which is at the same time the plague's cure: The Golden Specific.
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. In award-winning author Gail Langer Karwoski’s stirring fictional account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, young listeners will relive the drama of the actual event and its devastating aftermath through the courageous survival of a young boy.
“Karwoski’s novel conveys very capably the fear, disorientation, and shock of living through a major disaster and coping with the aftermath…The protagonist is appealingly unvarnished, alternately sweet and angry, open-eyed both to the destruction at large and the smaller scale unhappiness at home since his mother’s death…Quake! combines disaster and family longing for a sturdily constructed and affecting look at the past.”--School Library Journal
In Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, it is one little girl's 10th birthday. Excited about Youth Day at the 16th Street Baptist Church, she puts on her patent leather shoes and practices her choir solo. But her birthday will include no cake and no candles this year. A group of men have tucked a bundle of dynamite under the church's steps, and when it goes off, four girls are dead: AddieMae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair. Smoke clogs the throats of worshippers as they search for sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers in the crumbled plaster and broken glass. Author Carole Boston Weatherford, an award-winning poet and children's author, shares this story in poignant free verse poetry from the viewpoint of a fictional child eyewitness. Listeners will be transported back to this dark period in American history by Lizzie Cooper Davis' moving narration. "These children-unoffending; innocent and beautiful-were the victims of one of the most vicious, heinous crimes ever perpetrated against humanity ... in spite of the darkness of this hour we must not despair. We must not become bitter ..."-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eulogy for victims of the 16th Street Church bombing "To all who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. The struggle continues." -author's dedication
Iain Lawrence is the best-selling author of such heralded books for young readers as Lord of the Nutcracker Men, which broached the complicated subject of human experience in war. His novels have been chosen as Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal on more than one occasion. Lawrence again contemplates war in this novel set in 1943 England. Sixteen-year-old Kak escaped his abusive family in Canada to join the Canadian Air Force. Now a crewman aboard a night-flying bomber bound for Germany, Kak learns of the terror and violence of war firsthand.
