Into the Wind is a middle-grade novel about the unlikely friendship between a boy and an elderly woman. Both moving and joyful, this is a poignant story about loss and love, and the surprising and sustaining bonds that can grow between the old and young.
Thirteen-year-old Satoshi Matsumoto spent the last three years living in Atlanta where he was the star of his middle-school baseball team—a slugger with pro potential, according to his coach. Now that his father’s work in the US has come to an end, he’s moved back to his hometown in rural Japan. Living abroad has changed him, and now his old friends in Japan are suspicious of his new foreign ways. Even worse, his childhood foe Shintaro, whose dad has ties to gangsters, is in his homeroom. After he joins his new school’s baseball team, Satoshi has a chance to be a hero until he makes a major-league error.
Langston Hughes is often thought of as one of the greatest and most influential African American authors. This fascinating and inspiring biography will have readers enthralled by the life of Hughes as they learn how he became known as the voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Featuring lively images, photos, and captivating facts, this book allows readers to gain insight into how the Civil Rights Movement had an effect on Hughes' life and writing as well as important movements in the Harlem Renaissance like jazz, poetry, music, and clubs. The easy-to-read, supportive text works in conjunction with the accessible glossary and index to give readers the tools they may need to better understand the content and vocabulary.
Explore all the aspects of your favorite food: pancakes! From the first known plating, to the creative and wacky flavors across cultures and history, this book traces the transformations of the pancakes we have today. Also includes a recipe, so readers can create their own, unique riff on a pancake. Whether you call them flapjacks or crepes, there's no denying that pancakes are great! Aligned to curriculum standards, text highlights key 21st Century content including Global Awareness and Economics. Books in this series include table of contents, glossary of key words, index, author biography, and sidebars.
Ella could be a great goalie--if she could get past her fear of being different. With help from an alien friend, will Ella embrace her deafness and gain the confidence to stop her opponents in their tracks? This graphic novel includes educational sidebars such as a quick history of soccer, a social emotional tie-in, and a pro athlete biography. Backmatter includes an activity page and character information.
Offers readers an inside look into the life of Eleanor Roosevelt and how she influenced the nation as First Lady. Learn all about how she supported the country when it was at war and continued to make a difference long after she left the White House. Additional features include a Fast Facts spread, critical thinking questions, primary source quotes and accompanying source notes, a phonetic glossary, an index, an author introduction, and sources for further research.
Ten boldly illustrated stories tell classic tales from different cultures of battles between heroes and powerful opponents. Tales include: Theseus versus the Minotaur, and Perseus versus Medusa, from Greek mythology; Beowulf versus monsters and dragons from Anglo-Saxon mythology; and the Mayan twins versus the lords of the Underworld. Other well-known stories feature Sinbad the Sailor from Arabic literature, and the Swiss hero William Tell. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Ten boldly illustrated stories tell folktales and legends from different cultures about characters with magical powers. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Ten beautifully illustrated stories tell classic fairy tales from different cultures of princes and princesses. Familiar fairy tales include Snow White, Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, and The Princess and the Pea from Germany and Scandinavia. Tales from other cultures include: Rhodopis, from Egypt; The Lake Princess, from China; and Princess of the Mist, a Native legend from Canada. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Ten boldly illustrated stories tell tales from different cultures of legendary creatures, both good and bad. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Ten beautifully illustrated stories tell fables and folktales from different cultures featuring animal characters that often speak and act like humans in order to teach a lesson. Tales include: Anansi the Spider and Mainu the Frog, from African folktales; Brer Rabbit, an African American folktale; Wenebojo and the Buffalo, a Native American legend; the Hare and the Tortoise, a Greek fable; and Androcles and the Lion, a Roman fable. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Ana and Andrew are excited when Grandma comes to stay. During her visit, the family tours the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture and learns about important African American achievements. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Calico Kid is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.
Middle graders will laugh and cry with thirteen-year-old Vanessa Martin as she tries to be like Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. In this semi-autobiographical debut novel set in 1983, Vanessa Martin's real-life reality of living with family in public housing in Newark, New Jersey is a far cry from the glamorous Miss America stage. She struggles with a mother she barely remembers, a grandfather dealing with addiction and her own battle with self-confidence. But when a new teacher at school coordinates a beauty pageant and convinces Vanessa to enter, Vanessa's view of her own world begins to change. Vanessa discovers that her own self-worth is more than the scores of her talent performance and her interview answers, and that she doesn't need a crown to be comfortable in her own skin and see her own true beauty.
Naima is a talented painter of traditional alpana patterns, which Bangladeshi women and girls paint on their houses for special celebrations. But Naima is not satisfied just painting alpana. She wants to help earn money for her family, like her best friend, Saleem, does for his family. When Naima's rash effort to help puts her family deeper in debt, she draws on her resourceful nature and her talents to bravely save the day. Includes a glossary of Bangla words and an author's note about a changing Bangladesh and microfinance.
Race in America has been avoided in children's education for too long. How Can I Be an Ally? explores the idea of how people can use their privilege to advance the culture of inclusion in a comprehensive, honest, and age-appropriate way. Developed in conjunction with educator, advocate, and author Kelisa Wing to reach children of all races and encourage them to approach race issues with open eyes and minds. Includes 21st Century Skills and content, as well as a PBL activity across the Racial Justice in America series. Also includes a table of contents, glossary, index, author biography, sidebars, educational matter, and activities.
A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers. If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents—professors at the local college—are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he's actually met, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been convicted of being communist spies, and they're slated to be executed in two months. Marty just wants everything to go back to normal, but that's impossible thanks to the rumors that his parents are traitors. As his friends and teammates turn on him and federal agents track his every move, Marty isn't sure what to believe. Is his family really part of a Red Menace working against the United States? And even if they're simply patriotic Americans who refuse to be bullied by the government, what will it cost them?
For thousands of years, women in many cultures were excluded from or limited in education. This meant that others told their stories for them. This fascinating book shines a light on women writers who broke that mold. These women wrote some of the most intriguing stories ever written, such as Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote the world’s first novel, and Olympe de Gouges, whose political essays helped spark the French Revolution.
On her seventh birthday, Pauline rode across the lawns on her street followed by her best friend Henry, he on the blue wooden horse, she on the red. On the seventh lawn at the top of the street, she collapsed, becoming a sudden victim of the polio outbreak of the summer of 1954. Five years later, when In the Clear begins, she has survived, but paid a heavy price. A brace on her left leg allows her to walk, but she confines herself to her house, humiliated at the notion of being seen. Terrified by what Pauline has already suffered, her mother watches over her, forbidding her to play hockey on the ice rink her father has created in the backyard. In the Clear alternates, chapter by chapter, between Pauline's horror-filled year in the hospital five years earlier and her struggles to adapt in the present of 1959 and 1960. At the end of the book, her triumphs in past and present come together and she is able to move forward with new friendships, a renewed bond with her mother and, most important, a new faith in herself.
Offers young readers a look at the powers of fate and how they effect human lives as seen in a Greek myth and in stories by Saki, Frank R. Stockton, Anton Chekhov, and Guy de Maupassant.
Extend cultural boundaries with this collection of fantastic folktales and legends from Latin America.
Includes The First Country Wolf, The Rainmakers, The Cricket, The Girl in Green, The Hardwork Mountains, and The Divided Daughter.
Ten boldly illustrated stories tell classic tales from different cultures of giants, who were usually villains being outwitted and defeated by mythological heroes. Myths include: the hero Heracles versus the hated giant Geryon, and Odysseus versus the giant Cyclops Polyphemus, from Greek mythology; the good-natured giant Finn McCool from Celtic mythology; the Mayan twins versus the destructive mountain giant Cabracan, from Mayan mythology; Sedna, the giant goddess of the sea, from Inuit mythology; and the giant Goliath who was slain by David, from the Bible. Feature boxes add additional details to help readers better understand concepts in the story as well as the time period in which the story was written.
Scaly dragons! A Chinese folktale tells about a grateful dragon who gives a girl an impossible gift. Lily brings Dragon in to school. A little girl follows a treasure map past a dragon! Tex and Indi go to a festival in Chinatown to see a parade and a dancing dragon. What would you do if you met a dragon? Would you try to make friends? Stories by Camille S. Phillips, Lissa Rovetch, Marilyn Kratz, and Eileen Spinelli.
While spending the summer on his grandparents' Texas cotton farm, Michael sees a teenage boy on the other side of the Rio Grande in Mexico. He starts to write letters to Javier, and then helps him cross the river to come into the United States.
"I walked across the room and opened the small door. The sound stopped as I peered in. All I could see were some old magazines and a book. As I watched, the book moved! I was scared and wanted to run, but my feet seemed nailed to the floor. I finally reached out and picked up the book and blew dust from it. I felt someone or something next to me once more."