Fern and Roy must leave their mother in Denver to spend the summer with their Gran and Paw in the Rocky Mountains.
T.J. can't believe it when he wins a trip to New York to be a contestant on Whiz Kid. Will he make his family proud?
Tall-Shadow, a young Navajo boy, faces adverse dangers when he confronts the Big Cat, a lion who is feared by the tribe. Tall Shadow also struggles with his desire to adopt the white man's ways and his father's wish to maintain their culture.
As Three Willows spoke, she rose. She brought a bundle to the tiny fire. She untied the straps that held it. Then she unrolled the buffalo robe. It was large, soft and carefully tanned. Red Fox peered through the dim light of the tipi. He could see colorful drawings painted on the smooth side of the robe. Red Fox reached out to touch one scene. It was a man on horseback. He was racing across the prairie. Red Fox could almost feel the movement of the horse under the rider as they raced. That's your father, whispered Three Willows.
The Great Depression forces a brother and sister to live with their hated cousins on a farm in North Dakota when their father loses his job.
Eleven-year-old Elinore Frey and her older sister, Phoebe, share their experiences in letters as they both adjust to new lives in the West, Elinore in California, and Phoebe on the plains of the Nebraska Territory.
After his dad leaves, Matt Delaney rebels and his erratic behavior lands him in the vice-principal's office. He is assigned a new class schedule which includes a cooking class. Matt is a rebel, not a joiner, and this could be a recipe for disaster.
Paul, a young immigrant, has traveled to the prairie to work for his uncle but instead finds a family with Fern and Roy.
After the death of his mother, Miguel is sent to live with his Uncle Small Bear on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Max is bored with his grandfather's tales of Norway's Resistance movement against the Nazis in World War II, until he travels back in time and finds himself participating in a raid to free captured Resistance fighters.
After his father dies in a Civil War battle, twelve-year-old Jacob runs away from home to join his father's old regiment as a drummer boy.
Rachel recounts how she and her family left Illinois to move to Nebraska, where they built and lived in a sod house on the prairie.
Tells the story of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Stuart as he helps his father on his milk delivery route.
Gerald braves the blizzard of 1888 to find a drugstore to get medicine for his little sister.
A young girl and her father, prospering in their new life in Texas, join the volunteers at the Alamo to fight against the forces of Mexican General Santa Anna.
After his father dies, John Alexander and his mother are forced to become indentured servants to pay off debts, but find their luck changes after Mrs. Alexander invents a new method for grinding corn.
Young Kentuckian Sam Jones leaves the farm he works with the help of slaves to fight for the Confederacy, while his older brother, Ned, who helps the Underground Railroad, joins the Union Army.
After Daniel Purcell's mother dies in childbirth, his father soon brings home a young woman, named Katherine, as his new wife.
Cammy's dad retells the story of his experiences in the Vietnam War and the fate of a baby girl he found alive under a mat in a ransacked village.
Does your family have a favorite holiday meal? What are your birthday traditions? Do the older people in your family tell stories about their childhood and what life was like when they were young? All these are parts of family folklore. Tell Me a Story will help you better understand: what family is; the ways the generations are linked together; how families relate to each other; and how families pass along a heritage for the future. We get strength from our family's past, and this sort of folklore also gives us hope for the future.
Children's author and illustrator Etienne Delessert tells the story of Eglantine Besson, the woman who became his mother, and of the glass that came to represent their relationship.
Inspired by memories of fantastic family birthday parties, mother-and-daughter team Nikki Tate and Dani Tate-Stratton researched the history of birthdays in order to answer such questions as, How much does where you grow up influence the way you celebrate getting a year older? Have people always celebrated birthdays? The more they investigated, the more they realized that there's a lot more to birthdays than cake, presents, a few games and perhaps a goody bag. They discovered there are as many ways to observe birthdays as there are places in which to do it.
Callie's mother has chained herself to the neighbor's tree and is living inside the treehouse. She refuses to come down until the neighbor, Mr. Wilson, agrees to leave the tree standing. Soon reporters arrive to interview Callie about her mother's protest. Callie doesn't want to talk to anyone. More chaos ensues when Callie's grandmother invites the "singing grannies" to help save the tree, the neighbor's biker friends come to her aid, and Callie's friends show up to try to get themselves on TV. Callie needs to figure out how to get her mother to come down from the tree so that her life can return to normal.
When Charlie Sykes wakes up in hospital in St. John's, he learns that he and his father have been in a car accident and that his father is dying. Charlie inherits little more than the brass key that his father pressed into his hand before he passed away. As far as Charlie knows, he has no family in Newfoundland. But then Uncle Nick shows up and is keen to meet his nephew-not because of who Charlie is, but rather because of what Charlie has: the key. That key will unlock a treasure Uncle Nick began searching for more than thirty years earlier. And he would have found it all those years ago if he hadn't been arrested and sent away for murder. But Charlie isn't convinced he should give up the key. He leads Uncle Nick on a wild chase through old St. John's, across Signal Hill and out to the coast. There, high above the rugged Atlantic, Charlie finally comes face-to-face with Uncle Nick, the treasure, and a family history that will leave him with a new understanding of where he comes from and where he's going.
Resentment and compassion link these two reader's theater-style plays that help teach young people how to deal with real situations. Both deal with traumatic changes within a familya separation between the two most important people in a childs life and the loss of a home and a beloved furry family member.
