Dying to Meet You
Klise, Kate
Children’s book author I.B. Grumply has a bad case of writer’s block. To find the peace and quiet he needs, he moves into a supposedly vacant Victorian mansion. However, the house is not empty. In residence are 11-year-old Seymour and his cat Shadow, and a cranky ghost named Olive who has vowed to haunt her old home until she gets what she never got in her lifetime—a book published. The story is told using letters and memos between the characters whose names represent clever puns and wordplay.
Everything for a Dog
Martin, Ann M.
Dogs can bring so much to our lives – joy, excitement, companionship, grief, sorrow. Experience all of that and more in this well-told tale of three separate characters: Bone, a stray dog who just needs somewhere to call home; Charlie, a boy who has suffered great tragedy; and Henry, who desperately wants a dog to call his own.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Kelly, Jacqueline
In 1899, girls were supposed to want to learn to cook, sew, dance, keep house. Eleven-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate, the only girl in a family with six boys, is the exception to the rule. Her biscuits turn out like stones, and her seams look like rickrack. She’s more comfortable with her eccentric grandfather, a scientist and naturalist, who studies everything from pecan distillation to microscopic river bugs. Callie decides she wants to become a scientist—The Origin of the Species is a lot more interesting than The Science of Housewifery.
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (but She Does Love Being in Recitals)
Gifford, Peggy
Moxy is busy preparing for her piano recital—there’s so much to do with costume fittings, trying on her crown, warming up her voice, practicing her bow, and makeup. There’s no time to practice her duet with her sister Pansy. They are to play “Heart and Soul,” and Moxy has added a part of her own—a musical pounding heart, which sounds like pounding on the piano to the untrained ear. Her piano teacher is a concerned because Moxy has a habit of playing past the end of a song—til she feels like she’s played long enough. Moxy is so sure of her performance she sees no need to actually practice the song. . . until she gets to the stage.
Out of My Mind
Draper, Sharon M.
Fifth grader Melody has never spoken a word. She’s a brilliant child trapped in an uncontrollable body. Born with cerebral palsy, she is unable to walk, talk, feed or care for herself, but she can read, think and feel. She has a photographic memory, and is the smartest kid in the whole school—except no one knows it. Most people (doctors & teachers included) don’t think she’s capable of learning anything, so she spends endless hours learning the same preschool alphabet and counting lessons over and over. Being stuck inside her head is about to drive her crazy, until she receives a talking computer, allowing her to communicate with the outside world.
Time of the Witches
Myers, Anna
Orphaned Drucilla finds a home with the Putnam family of Salem, Massachusetts. Though her adoptive mother is haunted by a troubled past, she feels drawn to Mistress Putnam as the mother she never had, and Ann the sister she always wanted to have. Drucilla’s life changed drastically when the new preacher, Reverend Parris, his family and servant Tituba came to Salem, finding herself in the middle of hysterical accusations of witchcraft and trials resulting from Tituba’s Jamaican stories and games. In the ensuing madness, Drucilla must learn to tell facts from lies, and right wrongs she helped perpetuate before more of her neighbors are accused of witchcraft.
We the Children
Clements, Andrew
You will certainly enjoy this first book in a planned six-volume series from Andrew Clements entitled Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School. Here we meet Ben, who through a turn of events, has been entrusted with the defense of his school, which is scheduled to be torn down to make way for an amusement park. Join him as he begins to unravel the mystery of what to do.
Faith, Hope, and Ivy June
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
A few miles can make a big difference, or maybe not so big…Ivey June Mosley of backwoods Thunder Creek and Catherine Combs of affluent Lexington are chosen for a Kentucky exchange program where each girl is able to spend two weeks in the other’s home and school to see “life on the other side” of the mountain’s. While both girls face their own personal dramas and family problems, Catherine and Ivy June are able to learn that while lifestyles may differ, humans face the same problems everywhere you go.
The Night Fairy
Schlitz, Laura Amy
Flory, a young night fairy is certainly not your garden variety fairy. After losing her wings in a run-in with a bat, she must learn to survive among the hungry daylight creatures of the Giantess’s garden. Between pesky squirrels, cagey spiders, and stubborn hummingbirds, Flory’s got her work cut out for herself. But, this fearless fairy quickly learns how skills like quick thinking, diplomacy, compassion, and acts of bravery can take her farther than her lost wings ever could.
Boys without Names
Sheth, Kashmira
For eleven year old Gopal and his family, life in their rural Indian village is over. Indebted to ruthless money lenders, Gopal and his family must flee to Mumbai, where they hope to find work. On the way, Gopal’s father goes missing and he must lead his mother and siblings to an uncle’s house where they wait and worry for the father to find them. Eager to help his family earn money, Gopal follows a local boy to what he thinks will be a day’s work at a factory. Instead, he is pulled into a sweat shop-a single room where five boys are held against their will and forced to produce decorative items with toxic materials.
