Could you survive in a cave...for a whole year?That's the challenge facing fourteen-year-old Jacob. Set in Ukraine during the final months of World War II, THE HIDDEN ROOM is based on the true story of a Jewish family who escapes from the Nazis by taking refuge in a remote cave. Jacob adjusts to the hardships of living underground and the dangers of night-time adventures outside the cave. Food is scarce. Darkness, bone-chilling cold, and the fear of being captured ...

When 13-year-old Ben Ward left school to work with his Pa in a logging camp, a winter of peeling potatoes and setting tables wasn’t the adventure he had in mind. Still, come spring, he signs up for the log drive with his friend Nevers, wishing the head cook on the wanigan (the floating cook shack) could be someone other than his crabby Pa. Fate, with a wink, complies, and Pa quits—only to be replaced by someone far worse: Pete Sardman, aka Old Sard, a cantankerous character complete with a...

In the 1930s, some 6,000 Finnish Americans traveled to Karelia, a province in Northwestern Russia, hoping to leave the Depression behind and to establish a workers’ paradise. Based on these true events, The Darkest Evening chronicles the story of Jake Maki, whose father, caught up in the socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota, moves their family to the Soviet Union.Instead of finding the utopia they were promised, Jake and his family enco...

Thirteen-year-old Ben works at Blackwater Logging Camp as cook’s helper to his Pa. Long days of flipping pancakes and peeling potatoes with his ornery Pa make Ben long to be out in the woods with the lumberjacks. Felling logs, sawing trees, driving a team through the snowy woods . . . that’s what Ben wants to be doing.But the long cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters teaches Ben a lot about himself. Especially when an orphan boy called Nevers arrives in camp. Whe...

When the Soviet Union invades its tiny neighbor Finland in November 1939, Marko volunteers to help the war effort. Even though his leg was weakened by polio, he can ski well, and he becomes a messenger on the front line, skiing in white camouflage through the forests at night. The dark forest is terrifying, and so are the odds against the Finns: the Russians have 4 times as many soldiers and 30 times as many planes. They have 3000 tanks, while the Finns have 30. But a tank is no help in th...

According to thirteen-year-old Ben Ward’s father, lumberjacks look forward to two things: mealtime and springtime. In the winter of 1898, Ben leaves school for a job as a cook’s assistant to his father at the Blackwater Logging Camp. As Ben spends long hours peeling potatoes and frying flapjacks, he dreams of working in the woods with the other men, felling trees, driving a team, and skidding timber.While enduring a long, cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters, as ...

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, Chickadee is the first novel of a new arc in the critically acclaimed Birchbark House series by New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich.Twin brothers Chickadee and Makoons have done everything together since they were born—until the unthinkable happens and the brothers are separated.Desperate to reunite, both Chickadee and his family must travel across new territories, forge...

The beloved classic about friendship—a Newbery Honor Book!Frog and Toad are best friends—they do everything together. When Toad admires the flowers in Frog's garden, Frog gives him seeds to grow a garden of his own. When Toad bakes cookies, Frog helps him eat them. And when both Frog and Toad are scared, they are brave together. School Library Journal called this story collection from Arnold Lobel "a masterpiece of child-styled humor and sensitivity."Winner of the Newbery H...

When twelve-year-old Jake Forrest's mother gets a job in a new city, everything changes. He has to move away from the Iroquois reservation he's lived on his entire life—away from his aunt and uncle, and away from the friends he plays lacrosse with. The lacrosse coach and players at his new school in Washington, D.C., believe that winning is everything, and they don't know anything about the ways of his people. As Jake struggles to find a place where he truly belongs, tragedy strikes and he...

Justin McCallister loves life on his aunt and uncle's Montana sheep ranch...until a grizzly bear begins terrorizing the livestock, injuring Justin's collie, Radar, and killing his pet lamb, Blue. Justin decides to take matters into his own hands and sets out to track down the bear. But things become more dangerous than Justin ever could have imagined when he comes face-to-face with the grizzly.

In this award-winning sequel to Chickadee, acclaimed author Louise Erdrich continues her celebrated Birchbark House series with the story of an Ojibwe family in nineteenth-century America.Named for the Ojibwe word for little bear, Makoons and his twin, Chickadee, have traveled with their family to the Great Plains of Dakota Territory.There they must learn to become buffalo hunters and once again help their people make a home in a new land. But Mako...

Jake, Tommy and Lexie are on a ski trip. In an attempt to squeeze one last run in for the day, the kids head out on their own to ski down Easy Street. But Lexie and Jake convince Tommy to try Wildcat Run instead. Wildcat Run presents the young skiers with more than they expect, including a cougar sighting. When Lexie has a bad fall, the kids are left stranded on the hill in the fading daylight. Will they be rescued or will they have to spend the night alone on the mountain with a cougar?