It's 2-books-in-1! Start with a factual fiction story about a friendly rocket named Phoenix who becomes best friends with Pyxi, a space rover. Then, listen for a nonfiction exploration of real-life rockets! The Rocket and Rover characters make special appearances throughout the nonfiction side to tie the two books together.
In 1881, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski wishes she didn't have to board the orphan train in Chicago. But she has no home, no family, and no choice. Rodzina doesn't believe the orphans are on their way out West to be adopted by good families. She's sure they will become slaves to strangers. Anyway, who would ever adopt a large, tough, stubborn girl of Polish origin? As the train heads west, all Rodzina has is a small suitcase and her family memories from the past. Will Rodzina ever step off the train to find the family that deep in her heart she's searching for?
"A big-hearted story that's as sweet as it is awesome." —R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder
In the tradition of Wonder and Out of My Mind, this big-hearted middle grade debut tells the story of an irrepressible girl with cerebral palsy whose life takes an unexpected turn when she moves to a new town.
Ellie's a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she's going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams: She might be eating Stouffer's for dinner, but one day she's going to be a professional baker. If she's not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she's practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother.
But when Ellie and her mom move so they can help take care of her ailing grandpa, Ellie has to start all over again in a new town at a new school. Except she's not just the new kid—she's the new kid in the wheelchair who lives in the trailer park on the wrong side of town. It all feels like one challenge too many, until Ellie starts to make her first-ever friends. Now she just has to convince her mom that this town might just be the best thing that ever happened to them!
As featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp, and for readers of I Am Malala, one of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her story of fighting to belong.
"If I didn't fight, who would?"
Judy Heumann was only 5 years old when she was first denied her right to attend school. Paralyzed from polio and raised by her Holocaust-surviving parents in New York City, Judy had a drive for equality that was instilled early in life.
In this young readers' edition of her acclaimed memoir, Being Heumann, Judy shares her journey of battling for equal access in an unequal world-from fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" because of her wheelchair, to suing the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her disability. Judy went on to lead 150 disabled people in the longest sit-in protest in US history at the San Francisco Federal Building. Cut off from the outside world, the group slept on office floors, faced down bomb threats, and risked their lives to win the world's attention and the first civil rights legislation for disabled people.
Judy's bravery, persistence, and signature rebellious streak will speak to every person fighting to belong and fighting for social justice.
It's springtime at South Orange Middle School. Pete Saltz is in love with Anabelle, a girl in his eighth grade class, and she likes him, too. But they're both so shy, they won't even look at each other, much less show their feelings. It will take more than chance to get them together. Fortunately, Ed Sitrow, another eighth grader, has a master plan. He'll cast Pete and Anabelle in the lead roles of a school production of Romeo and Juliet. Then they will have to kiss each other in the last act. Soon the whole school is looking forward to the play-and the big scene. Avi has delighted countless young readers with his tales of high-spirited adventure. A former librarian, he has won a Newbery Honor Award, an O'Dell Award, a Christopher Award, and honors from the ALA for his works. Romeo and Juliet . is full of slapstick and excitement, and narrator Jeff Woodman's lighthearted performance heightens the fun.
My mother is still alive, and she is going to come for me one day.
Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other recorded female survivors from the shipwreck which left baby Sophie floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost impossible that her mother is still alive, but that means still possible. You should never ignore a possible.
So when the Welfare Agency writes to her guardian threatening to send Sophie to an orphanage, she takes matters into her own hands and flees to Paris to look for her mother, starting with the only clue she has - the address of the cello maker.
Evading the French authorities, she meets Matteo and his network of rooftoppers - urchins who live in the hidden spaces above the city. Together they scour the city for Sophie's mother before she is caught and sent back to London, and most importantly before she loses hope.
Daisy has more toys than she knows what to do with. In this story, inspired by an Eastern European folktale about a house that's too small, Daisy thinks she needs a bigger bedroom for all the gifts on her birthday list.
Her clever mom helps her realize less is more, and Daisy decides to donate many of her things to a Mitzvah Day rummage sale. In the process, Daisy learns about sharing and the satisfaction that comes from choosing what's important.
Ted Hammond loves a good mystery, andin the spring of his fifth-grade year, he's working on a big one. How can his school in the little town of Plattsford stay open next year if there are going to be only five students? Out here on the Great Plains in western Nebraska, everyone understands that if you lose the school, you lose the town.
But the mystery that has Ted's full attention at the moment is about that face, the face he sees in the upper window of the Andersons' house as he rides past on his paper route. The Andersons moved away two years ago, and their old farmhouse is empty, boarded up tight. At least it's supposed to be.
A shrinking school in a dying town. A face in the window of an empty house. At first these facts don't seem to be related. But Ted Hammond learns that in a very small town, there's no such thing as an isolated event. And the solution of one mystery is often the beginning of another.
The countdown to college has begun.
When Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment at the beginning of summer, she shoots off an email to coordinate the basics: TV, microwave, mini-fridge. She can't wait to escape her New Jersey beach town, and her mom, and start life over in California.
The first note to Lauren in San Francisco comes as a surprise; she had requested a single. But if Lauren's learned anything from being the oldest of six, it's that you can't always get what you want, especially when what you want is privacy.
Soon the girls are emailing back and forth, sharing secrets even though they've never met. With family relationships and childhood friendships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on are the complicated new boys in their lives...and each other.
With humor and heart, Sara Zarr, National Book Award finalist for Story of a Girl, and Tara Altebrando, acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Happiness, join forces for a novel about that time after high school, when everything feels like it's ending just as it's beginning.
With a new sister on the way, Roosevelt Banks has to give up his bedroom and move into the attic, which must be haunted because of the all the squeaks and groans coming from the spooky place at the top of the stairs. After his plan to move into a fort in the woods fails, and a ghost-busting exercise goes terribly wrong, Roosevelt—with the help of Tommy, Josh, and Eddie Spaghetti—has to find the courage to defeat the biggest, spookiest ghouls ever and turn the Attic of Doom into a Room with a View. A sequel to award-winning Roosevelt Banks, Good-Kid-in-Training.
When ten-year-old Roosevelt Banks discovers that his two best friends are planning a bike & camping trip, he wants more than anything to go along. There’s just one problem—he doesn’t have a bike. Roosevelt’s parents agree to buy him a new bike if he can manage to be good for two whole weeks. Roosevelt struggles with how to be good and be the same fun guy his friends want on the camping trip. Trying to be good leads to more trouble than expected and to the discovery that being a good friend is more important than a bicycle.
