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This Junior Library Guild selection by Elise Broach is sure to become a favorite of all young sleuths. Sixth-grader Hero is captivated by the stories about her new home, especially the mystery of the missing million-dollar diamond and a 500-year-old necklace. As she searches for clues to their whereabouts she stumbles upon another perplexing question: Who was the real William Shakespeare?

Ten-year-old Comfort Snowberger has attended 247 funerals. But that's not surprising, considering that her family runs the town funeral home. And even though Great-uncle Edisto keeled over with a heart attack and Great-great-aunt Florentine dropped dead, just like that, six months later, Comfort knows how to deal with loss, or so she thinks.

Without Mom, there are no more bedtime stories, no more answers carried on the wind, and no more magic gardens. Evie doesn't believe in magic now. After all, if magic were real, her mom would still be alive.

Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys challenges the widely-held cultural impression that boys are stubbornly resistant to schooling while providing concrete examples of pedagogy and instructional style that have been proven effective in a variety of school settings. This book offers more than 100 detailed examples of lessons that succeed with male students, grouped thematically. Such themes include: Gaming, Motor Activities, Open Inquiry, Competition, Interactive Technology, and Performance/Role Play.

Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallised in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time runs out.

Princess Emma will do just about anything to get out of marrying the self-centered Prince Jorge. So when she meets a frog named Eadric who claims, of course, to be a prince, she decides to give him a kiss and see what happens. Bad idea. The frog stays a frog, and worse still, Emma turns into a frog herself. It turns out only the person who cast the spell can break it, so Emma and Eadric are soon hopping along trying to find the witch who can make them human again.

Francine needs a new bike, but all her parents can give her is her dad's old one...and it is ancient. When the bike disappears, Francine thinks her problem is solved, but she soon finds herself anything but relieved.

Young Slim has always dreamed of being a cowboy. That's why he quivers with excitement on his first day at the WJ Ranch. The sights, sounds, and smells of cowboy life thrill him so that he stays awake that night, writing beautiful poetry.

Since his childhood in the DeepWoods, young Twig has always longed to soar above the forest canopy and explore the sky. Now a crew member on his father's sky pirate ship, the Stormchaser, his dream seems fulfilled. But a much higher destiny awaits Twig. The lofty city of Sanctaphrax, built on a giant rock, floating high in the sky, is at the point of disaster.

The knitting bug has spread from Scottie Shearer to popular Amanda, free-sprited Bella, and Tay, the anti-girl. The four become an unlikely group of friends with an even more unlikely hobby. But will the pressures of conformity at Stark High keep them from remaining pals?

Muffy is so sure that Francine cannot be nice for an entire week that she bets her Princess Peach watch on it, and now it is up to Francine to keep her temper.

At Prunella's half-birthday party, her sister unveils a fortune-telling cootie catcher that seems to be able to predict the future.

When it comes to square dancing, there's no better pair than Arthur and Francine. But does one of them have a different idea of what it means to be partners?

Cowgirl Kate and her horse, Cocoa, love getting up early and herding cattle on the range. They are the closest pals, even though they don't always see eye to eye.

Here are a baker's dozen of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems brought to life in the medium he always wrote for - the spoken word. As narrated by Bobby Norfolk, these poems evoke the range of moods, from elegy to wonder to celebration, that the poet is remembered for.

In 1952, April is seven years old and adores her big sister, Annabel. But Annabel is failing her math class and desperately needs help with a tough math problem. April decides to write to Albert Einstein, asking him to give a hand.

Their magic tree house takes Jack and Annie deep into the sea, where they meet up with dolphins, sharks, and octopi as they search for the answer to an ancient riddle.

In his first book for young adults, best-selling author Walter Mosley deftly weaves historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of freedom.

Martine's parents are killed in a fire, and she must leave her home in England to live on a wildlife reserve in Africa with a grandmother she never even knew she had. As soon as Martine arrives at the reserve, she hears whisperings of a mythical animal living there, a white giraffe. No one has ever seen the animal, but it leaves footprints behind.

When Brian and Gregory receive an invitation to stay at a distant relative's strange manse...well, they should know better than to go, since this is a middle-grade adventure novel. But they go anyway. Why not? Once there, they stumble upon The Game of Sunken Places, a board game that mirrors a greater game for which they have suddenly become players. Soon the boys are dealing with attitudinal trolls, warring kingdoms, and some very starchy britches.