Eight-year-old EllRay Jakes's attempts to defend himself against the class bully always end up getting him in trouble, but he promises to do his best when his dad offers to take him to Disneyland if he can be good for an entire week--which may be a few days too long.
Eleven-year-old Verbena Polter gets through a difficult summer of turbulent emotions and the revelation of a disturbing family secret with an odd new friend who believes she is the ghost of a girl who drowned many years before.
With the help of his popular Uncle Chester, a young Chinese American boy tries hard to fulfill a promise to have firecrackers for everyone on the Chinese New Year in 1954. Includes an afterword with information about the Chinese customs portrayed in the story.
Olivia, upset to learn there will be no band at the evening's fireworks display, decides to form one of her own with herself as the only musician and some rather unusual instruments. Includes a CD.
During the 1950s, young Maggie struggles to will her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers to a victory in the World Series and wishes that her friend Jim, a soldier in Korea, would answer her letters.
Comfort Snowberger is well acquainted with death since her family runs the funeral parlor in their small southern town, but even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series of heart-wrenching events that begins on the first day of Easter vacation with the sudden death of her beloved great-uncle Edisto.
Simple text and photographs explain how families are similar to communities, describing the characteristics they have in common, and discussing ways members of a family communicate, help, and teach one another.
