Greg “Slam” Harris can play basketball, period. On the court, he’s almost unstoppable. As he says, “I can hoop. Case closed.” But off the court, it’s a different story. Every day is a struggle to keep things together. Leaving his best friend Ice behind, Slam transfers to a top-notch academic school and is easily the best player on the basketball team. But his grades are slipping, and the coach doesn’t appreciate Slam’s attitude. On top of that, Slam suspects that Ice has started selling drugs, just as their opposing teams prepare for a showdown on the court. If Slam wants to hold everything together, he’ll have to apply his passion for basketball to everything else in his life. With an urban, teenage voice, Walter Dean Myers earnestly reflects the hopes and desires shared by many budding hoop dreamers. Narrator Thomas Penny vividly captures both the internal and external challenges Slam faces while chasing his dream from the streets, to the classrooms, to the hardwood floors.
Jamie Reardon has always heard that bad things come in threes. So after his cat, Mister, dies, his father leaves, and his aunt Sapphy has an accident that causes her memory to develop a skip, Jamie hopes his life will go back to being as normal as cornflakes. But unfortunately there's one more bad thing in store for Jamie -- something he'd give anything to be able to forget -- and this one leaves him feeling like a stranger to himself. Jamie tries in vain to find the magic trigger that will help Sapphy's memory jump the scratch, like the needle on her favorite Frank Sinatra record, but in the end it's Aunt Sapphy who, along with a curious girl named Audrey Krouch, helps Jamie unravel the mysteries of memory and jump the scratch in his own life.
Sarah Weeks's poignant characters and powerful prose come together in a story that is both heart wrenching and inspiring -- another gem from the award-winning author of So B. It.
National Book Award Finalist M. T. Anderson is acclaimed for his thought-provoking children's books. This captivating Junior Library Guild Selection is a rhyming dramatization based on 19th-century accounts of a mysterious sea creature swimming the coastal waters of Massachusetts. As startling news sweeps the summer streets, a curious lad races toward the harbor in disbelief. And yet it's true! There, frolicking in the water is an enormous sea serpent. The wide-eyed boy can plainly see it. And so can the crowd gathering on Cape Ann's sandy shores. For weeks, the youth watches the majestic monster-until, suddenly, it disappears.
These are the stories of Horrid Henry, the child that every teacher has nightmares about. This download inlcudes four unabridged stories with really horrid music and effects:-
Horrid Henry and the Comfy Black Chair
Horrid Henry's Haunted House
Horrid Henry's New Teacher
Horrid Henry Minds his Manners
Read by Miranda Richardson
(P)2004 Orion Publishing Group.Ltd
"How about a story? Spin us a yarn."
Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind.
"I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned. "Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!"
And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.
In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
'The heart of the magic was sealed with Firefrost, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen … should Nastrond destroy the stone, then the magic will die away.' When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, the Wizard - Cadellin Silverbrow - takes them to safety deep in the caves of Fundindelve. Here he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights, awaiting the fated hour when they must rise and fight. But the Weirdstone of Brisingamen is lost and the forces of evil are closing in. The children realise that they are the key to its return, but how can they defeat the powerful magic of the Morrigan and her deadly brood? First published in 1960, four decades before Harry Potter, Alan Garner's novel of magic and wizards has endured and become a modern classic of children's literature.
Ponder, if you will ...
What is the difference between a kit and a caboodle?
Why don't people get goose bumps on their faces?
Where do houseflies go in the winter?
What causes that ringing sound in your ears?
Pop-culture guru David Feldman demystifies these topics and so much more in Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? -- the unchallenged source of answers to civilization's most nagging questions. Part of the Imponderables series and charmingly illustrated by Kassie Schwan, Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? challenges readers with the knowledge about everyday life that encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs just don't have. And think about it, where else are you going to get to the bottom of why hot dogs come ten to a package while hot dog buns
come in eights?
Author Coleen Murtagh Paratore brings fairytale love stories into modern fashion through the eyes of 12-year-old cherry-cordial eater and classic-literature reader Willafred Haversham. What Willa wishes for most in the world is a father, but so far no luck. When she and her wedding planner mother, Stella, move back home to Cape Cod, Willa's luck begins to change. With help from her best friend Tina and candymaking Nana, Willa decides wishing for a father isn't enough-it's time to take action.
Katy was the sort of girl who might do anything next, so long as it was something exciting! At twenty-one she was as eager for adventure as ever, and what greater adventure could there be for an American girl than a trip to Europe?
Since starting an informal school at Plumfield, Jo and Professor Bhaer provide a haven for poor orphaned boys who thrive on warmth, goodness, and the affectionate interest of the March and Bhaer families. Sometimes it's difficult to tame the wild manners and spirits of boys who have had no nurturing. But the Bhaers have time for all and are rewarded with the trust of the boys, who confide all their hopes, plans, ambitions, and misfortunes.
Here is a wonderfully timeless collection from the best sources of fairy tales: Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Antoine Galland (translator of The Thousand and One Nights), and others.
The kids in class call Natalie "Bluish" because her skin in tinted blue from chemotherapy. Though weak, she also wants to be independent. Dreenie is fascinated by Bluish and wants to be her friend.
