What is life like when you are a seventh-grader who gets picked up from school every day in the family taco truck, lovingly named Tía Perla? Well, what was fun and exciting in elementary school – “corn chips and cold sodas for all my friends” – is now just humiliating. Tía Perla, huffing and wheezing … Read more
“Can’t keep up. Can’t keep up.” Jessie Treski wants to keep up with her older brother. She’s really good with numbers, math, and, as it turns out, business. But she’s less sure of the social sense that allows her to understand how others react to her intelligence and her drive, including her classmates and her older … Read more
E.B. White wrote three novels for children. You probably know Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. Now is the time to discover or re-visit the equally special The Trumpet of the Swan. The book starts with the young Sam Beaver, a budding naturalist who witnesses a pair of Trumpeter Swans, nesting by a little pond in … Read more
“Rufus’s idea wasn’t to become a millionaire. Just to make toothpaste…” Rufus Mayflower is a can-do kid. He is a sunny problem-solver who charms and inspires the students and friends and even adults around him. When Rufus balks at paying too much for toothpaste, he decides to make his own. When he discovers how easy … Read more
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a Newbery Award winner that teachers and parents (and even grandparents!) may remember from their childhoods. Claudia and Jamie Kincaid run away from their safe suburban Connecticut home and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Can they remain undiscovered? … Read more
“You can do anything you want with your name. It’s yours.” Cleo Edison Oliver is confident, independent, and enterprising. She is ready to take on the world– and she is open for business. She’s also just a kid, a young African-American girl navigating elementary school. Amid her various enterprising business schemes this novel is also … Read more
Dog Days brings together a new kid story, a dog story, a bullying story, and a dose of financial literacy – all in 122 illustrated pages. Gavin is a third grader adjusting to a new town and new school while trying to make new friends. His attempt to impress a potential new friend leads to … Read more
Like the Andrew Clements’ classic Frindle, Lunch Money is a school story. Students love being placed in their own world – the world of peers and teachers and parents. And kids believe it when those students are not always nice to each other. A little bickering realism makes kids trust the author and become more … Read more
“I knew what it felt like to want to be the best at something.” J. Dillard’s debut book will have readers laughing, learning, fist-pumping, and page-flipping as they get to know young J.D. He wears his hair in cornrows. Now it’s time for his first real haircut… J.D. doesn’t have a cool dad to cut … Read more
