Homeless immigrant Mia goes with her Mom and Dad to run the Calivista, a low-budget motel in southern California. Although they now have a roof over their heads, it takes “all hands on deck” to run the motel, and ten-year-old Mia becomes the front-desk manager. Mr. Yao, the owner, is a cruel skin-flint making the family’s life miserable, and Mia cannot escape him even at school because his s ...

Time travel enables an intergenerational friendship (and interesting family relationship) that will ultimately change both boys beyond their on-stage experiences. A beautiful story that celebrates family and grit! Note: “fart|farting” is used in describing a dog

Chattana is a fantasy city entirely sustained by the Governor who brought peace long ago. But the price was crippling loss of personal freedoms. Three unlikely preteens begin to question his “law and order” message. Pong is an observant boy who escapes from Namwon prison where he was born and hides in a Buddhist monastery where he learns patience and compassion. Perfectionist Nok is the warden ...

Told in free verse, this is a tale of survival and the human spirit. The African land of Darfur is the home of Amira, a young girl with hopes and dreams of going to school. But her village is very poor, and her mother believes she must forgo learning and focus on her family. When neighboring Sudanese tribes attack and her father is killed, Amira, her mother, and sister must leave and make the peri ...

Bell Kirby is an expert at systems, whether he’s designing the world’s most elaborate habitat for his pet chinchilla, re-creating Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest inventions in his garage, or avoiding Parker Hellickson, the most diabolical bully Village Green Elementary has ever seen. Since third grade, Parker has tormented Bell, who’s spent two long years devising a finely tuned system that k ...

After eleven-year-old June Ball’s dad disappears without so much as a goodbye note, June’s mother sends him on the road with his adult cousins, mechanics Thomas and Cornell Ball. The Balls are “Ford Men”; their calling in life is to restore old Ford cars?and only Ford cars?that no longer run. And so begins a summer traveling the highways and byways of America, encountering busted-up Fairla ...

On August 6 each year the people of Hiroshima, Japan, set paper lanterns afloat in the river as a remembrance to those killed by the bomb dropped there in 1945. Three school children, Kozo, Shun, and Nozomi are budding artists challenged by their teachers to create a display the children choose to call Hiroshima: Then and Now for their families and classmates. Over the summer they ask friends and ...

In 1910 West Texas, the last camel of the US Army roams the desert. Zada has lived a long and adventurous life from Turkey to America. She’s made friends with fellow camel racers for the Pasha and with many more camels on a rocky sailing ship. She has lately befriended two kestrels and their hatchlings. But the real adventure begins with a huge sandstorm when the parent birds are blown away. Zad ...

What is Marvel to do? She fears literally everything: school, classmates, being out alone, teachers, global warming, earthquakes, and even that pile of refuse plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean! And now her overwhelming anxieties and accompanying absences are causing her to fail 7th grade. Enter a precious, little fainting goat being abused by a group of jr. high boys. Without hesitation Marvel ...

Two young girls, Lulu and Serena, find themselves alone parked in Dad’s SUV at a campground in Montana. Their mother has recently died of cancer, and their dad is now missing. Lulu is twelve with a strong sense of “stepping up” to problems, but the problem to care for herself and her sister is enormous. Money is limited to $67 and winter is coming. Being new to the area, they don’t have an ...

Snow Hill, Alabama 1937 sets the stage for conveying important complexities Brother, a privileged white boy experiences when befriending Champion Always Luckey, a black boy from Detroit. While the plot isn't necessarily compelling, the power of healing a racial divide is as portrayed here. An excellent springboard for timelining events of that period.

Fantasy, yes. But somehow this imaginative novel has feet firmly planted on a solid foundation of Truth. A follower of Christ, L'Engle saw no divide but only connection between the earthly and heavenly realm and was able to articulate biblical truths with complete relevance. Wrinkle in Time readers become fully immersed in fantastical travel, characters who appear to shift based on the demand of t ...

The author of the critically acclaimed SO FAR FROM THE BAMBOO GROVE continues her autobiography, describing the hardships, poverty, tragedies, and struggles of life for her and her two older siblings, living as refugees in post-World War II Japan.

Left winger Nolan Andrews thinks it's great that he can play hockey in Calgary, where his older brother, Nathan, is a star center for the Hitmen. When Nolan finds out that a lot of things about Nate's new life in Calgary don't make sense--or might not even be legal--Nolan has to make some difficult choices that will affect him and his brother for the rest of their lives.

Running, computer hackers, illegal immigrants

Call Across the Sea tells of Henny Sinding, a Danish girl who grew up piloting her father’s delivery boat across the inlet to the Baltic Sea. During the increasing NAZI occupation of 1943, she evades soldiers and distributes forbidden news while fearing for her Jewish neighbors. All of her skills and her courage will be needed to spirit Jewish families safely across the sea to Sweden. Her ingenu ...

Ruby Lavender has fun with her grandmother Miss Eula as they rescue chickens, paint a house pink and run their own secret post office. But what can Ruby dowhen Eula goes away?

The prequel to the Newbery Honor-winning Dragonwings. In rural China in 1865, 14-year-old Otter begins his journey to America to meet his father and legendary uncle on the transcontinental railroad. In the freezing mountains of the Sierras, Otter begins to discover himself and what he's made of.