It is the first day of school in Chad, Africa. Children are filling the road."Will they give us a notebook?" Thomas asks. "Will they give us a pencil? Will I learn to read?"But when he and the other children arrive at the schoolyard, they find no classroom, no desks. Just a teacher. "We will build our school," she says. "This is our first lesson."James Rumford, who lived in Chad as a Peace Corps volunteer, fills these pages with vibrant ink-and-past...

A Little Princess is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A Little Princess opens with seven-year-old Sara Crewe and her father, Captain Crewe, arriving at Miss Minchin's boarding school for girls in London. Captain Crewe is very wealthy and states that Sara is destined for a lavish, comfortable future. Despite being pampered all her life in India, Sara herself is very intelligent, polite, and creative. Headmistress Miss Minchin is secretly jealous and dislikes Sara for her cleve...

In this 50th anniversary edition, join Flat Stanley and the rest of the Lambchop family on the adventure that started it all!Kids love Flat Stanley—even reluctant readers. And for parents and teachers, each Flat Stanley book delivers multicultural adventure, plot and character development story elements, and compare and contrast.When Stanley Lambchop wakes up one morning, his brother, Arthur, is yelling. A bulletin board fell on Stanley during the night, and now he is only ...

Shauzia is Parvana's friend from The Breadwinner. Now Shauzia has fled from Afghanistan, to a refugee camp in Pakistan. But Shauzia has a dream. She dreams of getting away from the refugee camp and travelling to France. There she knows she would find a better life, away from the war in her home country of Afghanistan. But escape is not so easy. Once she leaves the camp, she has no money, no food - and only her dog Jasper for company. But Shauzia is determined to find a new future for herse...

An Old-Fashioned Girl tells the story of Polly. She is Fanny, Maudie and Tom's poor "cousin" (actually no real relation) who stays with them during the summer as kids. They have a close relationship and good natured Polly teaches the other naughty children the right and wrong way to behave.Eight years later, she returns to their town as a teacher, working to support her family. She realises she is in love with Tom, but while she was away, he gets engaged to Trixie,...

Mermaids have been sinking ships and drowning humans for centuries, and now the government is determined to put an end to the mermaid problem—by slaughtering all of them. Luce, a mermaid with exceptionally threatening abilities, becomes their number-one target, hunted as she flees down the coast toward San Francisco.There she finds hundreds of mermaids living in exile under the docks of the bay. These are the Twice Lost: once-human girls lost first when a trauma turned them into me...

**'**A brilliant first novel' GuardianIn the moving and compelling debut novel from Benjamin Zephaniah, a young man's life is completely changed when his face is badly scarred in a car accident.Martin seems to have it all. He's cool, funny, and he's the undisputed leader of the Gang of Three, who roam their East London estate during the holidays looking for fun. But one night after the Gang leave a late night rap club, Martin accep...

Do you have to lose everything to see what truly matters? Find out in the seventh and final installment of Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman cycle.Dicey Tillerman has big dreams. She’s started a boatbuilding business, and she’s determined to prove she can succeed on her own. That’s why she resists the offer of help from Cisco, the mysterious stranger who turns up one day at her shop.But running a business doesn’t leave much time for the people Dicey treasures—her g...

A high school girl can read minds—and doesn't like what she hears—in this novel that "will have you laughing out loud" (Barry Lyga, author of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl).Nothing is beyond Kristi Carmichael's disdain—her hippie high school, her friend Jacob, her workaholic mom. Yet for all her attitude, Kristi has a vulnerable side. She can hear the thoughts of her fellow students—a power that's not as cool as it sounds, since she ca...

A month before eighth grade begins, Alice realizes she is going to have to face something she's been afraid of forever. Everybody, she knows, is afraid of something: elevators, dogs, planes, spiders . . . but her fear is worse. It's going to bring absolute disaster to the rest of her summer, maybe to the rest of her life. The truth is she's afraid of deep water!It's a hot August, and everyone in Alice's gang goes to Mark Stedmeister's swimming pool almost every day. Alice sits at t...

**“Harrowing but ultimately redemptive…the murder of Tanzania's albinos is a real and horrific phenomenon of the past 15 years, a cold fact that makes the fictional events in ‘Golden Boy’ more moving and consequential than those in any dystopian young-adult chase-drama.”—The Wall Street Journal*"A riveting snapshot of one Tanzanian boy who makes himself matter."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review*“Readers will be haunted by Habo’s voice as he seeks a place of dign...

This enchanting Newbery Honor Book is a “magical find” (School Library Journal).Half moorfolk and half human, and unable to shape-shift or disappear at will, Moql threatens the safety of the Band. So the Folk banish her and send her to live among humans as a changeling. Named Saaski by the couple for whose real baby she was swapped, she grows up taunted and feared by the villagers for being different, and is comfortable only on the moor, playing strange mu...