Scott Schroeder dreams of a day when he and his father can have a home of their own. Following an accident that took his mother’s life eight years before, doctors discovered Scott was suddenly deaf. Blessed with being an accomplished gymnast, and even though he signs and reads lips, Scott’s biggest challenge is convincing others he is just as able in doing all things as those in the hearing world. Picking up on conversations he observes along the way, Scott figures out a big family secret concerning his father and uncle and makes his mind up to play a part in their reconciliation.
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.
In the 1770s before the United States was a nation, most people lived on farms. But Williamsburg in Virginia Colony was a busy town with wide streets, grand public buildings, bustling shops, and a large Market Square. Home to 2,000 people from wealthy gentry and middle class shopkeepers to poor slaves. Find out how Williamsburg today gives us a fascinating window into America’s past.
Thirteen-year-old Hannah Higgins is convinced her summer is ruined when she is forced to travel to Africa and work in a remote village in Kenya with her mom and uncle. Never having been to a developing country, she finds the food challenging and the community filthy. She has to live without electricity or running water. Then she is told she must attend school. Just when she thinks nothing could make this trip any worse, she learns people there are dying of hunger and preventable disease. Hannah becomes frustrated and wants to help, but when poverty threatens the lives of people she loves, all she wants to do is go home.
