About the Book: A few things to know about Dylan: He is the only boy in his entire town—so forget about playing soccer. His best friends are two pet chickens. His family owns the world’s only gas station/coffee house—their pies are to die for, but profits are in the hole. Criminal instincts run in his family—his […]
Art Activity: Yarn-Wrapped Frames by Erin Shakespear
About the Book: An epic adventure that brings together ancient history and modern adolescent angst – as it pits a pampered, pizza-eating, 21st century Boston teenager against the Death Lords of the Maya Underworld. In Book One: “Middleworld,” 14-year-old Max Murphy is trying to survive in the perilous rainforest. But poisonous snakes and man-eating jaguars are […]
Science Connection: Make a Sundial by Laura Cotts
About the Book: Called one of America’s favorite Christmas stories, and now a classic television movie, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” has been a favorite of young readers the world over since 1972. Funny, memorable, and outrageous, it is the story of a family of incorrigible children who discover the Christmas story for the first time […]
Science Connection: Tasty Chemical Reactions
About the Book: Liam is too big for his boots. And his football strip. And his school blazer. But being super-sized height-wise has its advantages: he’s the only eleven-year-old to ever ride the G-force defying Cosmic rollercoaster – or be offered the chance to drive a Porsche. Long-legged Liam makes a giant leap for boy-kind by […]
Science Connection: Balloon Rocket Launch
About the Book: When eleven-year-old Ella’s mother has to be hospitalized to undergo a dangerous cancer treatment, Ella spends the summer at “Broken Family Camp” with her eccentric grandmother, whom she’s never met. The situation is hardly ideal for either of them. Ella is scared her mother may die, but her grandmother seems to care more […]
Science Connection: North-South and Local Noon (Sundials, Part 2) by Laura Cotts
About the Book: The Valorim are about to fall to a dark lord when they send a necklace containing their planet across the cosmos, hurtling past a trillion stars all the way into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Mass. Mourning his late mother, Tommy doesn’t notice much about the chain he found, […]
Related Activity: The Not-So-Alien Language by Rosalyn Eves
About the Book: Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. They had been best friends since they were six, spending hot Minneapolis summers and cold Minneapolis winters together, dreaming of Hogwarts and Oz, superheroes and baseball. Now that they were eleven, it was weird for a boy and a girl to be best […]
Science Connection: The Six-wise Symmetry of Snowflakes
About the Book: Jacob Wonderbar is used to detentions, but when a spaceship crashes near his house, he finds himself in a whole new level of trouble. After swapping a corn dog for the ship, he and his two best friends, Sarah Daisy and Dexter, take off on a madcap adventure. They accidentally cause an epic […]
Science Connection: Galaxy Art
About the Book: Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven’s world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with […]
Related Activity: Drum Talking by Chelsea Gardner
About the Book: In the bleak winter of 1940, Nazi troops parachuted into Peter Lindstrom’s tiny Norwegian village and held it captive. Nobody thought the Nazis could be defeated–until Uncle Victor told Peter how the children could fool the enemy. It was a dangerous plan. They had to slip past Nazi guards with nine million dollars […]
Science connection: Another Snow Treasure: Ice Cream by Chelsea Gambles