Some of his new teammates--including "loud and obnoxious" home-run slugger Jimmie--are mean to him or to each other. His new coach doesn't tell the players everything to do like his old coach did. And some of the Manatees seem more interested in goofing off than in sportsmanship or working hard. Then Luis is surprisingly named captain of his new team, and he finds himself with a whole new set of problems. How will he get this odd-ball group of teammates to work together?
History is full of fascinating stories of colorful characters, but some of the most interesting parts of history are really odd. You have probably seen scenes of government officials with their powdered white wigs, but in 1700s England and high-society in the American colonies, women created towering hairstyles. Decorations such as ships and flowers were sometimes added to their hairdos, especially if attending a big party. Taking hours to create, women used beef tallow and sugar-water to keep their hairdos in place. This fictional account explains a very real fashion trend and the problems it created for women trying to look stylish!
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.
Abandoned by her white father, thirteen-year-old Red Dove faces another lean winter with her Lakota family on the Great Plains. Willful and proud, she is presented with a stark choice: leave her people to live in the white world, or stay and watch them starve. Red Dove begins a journey to find her place in the world and discovers that her greatest power comes from within herself.
