families

A New York Harbor tugboat captain and his family take the tug up the Hudson River to pick up and tow the barge carrying the enormous Christmas tree that will be displayed at Rockefeller Center.

Penny instantly loves the doll her grandmother sends her, but finding the perfect name for her is a challenge.

Upset that her family is so focused on the screens on their various electronic devices that they no longer talk, laugh, and play games together, Ella takes all of their chargers and small devices.

Map on endpapers.

Cinderella thinks it would be vexylent if she did well (better than not-so-nice Rosemary) in the school spelling bee. Then she could plan a funderful class party!.

Seventh-grader Georges adjusts to moving from a house to an apartment, his father's efforts to start a new business, his mother's extra shifts as a nurse, being picked on at school, and Safer, a boy who wants his help spying on another resident of their building.

First-grader Monty Morris includes his new baby sister in a school project, gives his mother a surprising gift, gets a little more than he can handle with his friend Joey's dogs, and learns that sometimes a day filled with excitement is not the best thing.

Each day Chrislove asks his friend Josias when he will "hold the book," or join them at school, but Josias can only think of tending the bean garden so that his family will have enough food.

In Communist China in 1966, eight-year-old Leap Forward learns about freedom while flying kites with his best friend, by trying to get a caged wild bird to sing, and through the music he is learning to play on a bamboo flute. Includes author's notes on his childhood in Beijing, life under Mao Zedong, and the Cultural Revolution.

When Terry wakes up in the middle of the night to horrible screeching, he thinks the Banshee has come to pay his family a visit.