From minor league teams such as the Iowa Cubs and Las Vegas 51s to the major league ball clubs including the Cincinnati Reds and New York Yankees, these fun, engaging books tell the stories of young local boys who dream of stepping to the plate for their favorite baseball franchises. Filled with relatable stories away from the baseball field as well, these coming-of-age tales show the importance of never giving up hope and always believing in dreams.
Michael Fuji” Powers always dreamed of joining the Cincinnati Reds on the field at Great American Ball Park, and now he stands at the plate ready to live his fantasy of hitting a home run. Filled with fun and engaging stories, this relatable coming-of-age story will show children the importance of believing in their dreams and never giving up hope.
Twelve-year-old Fiona finds an unopened love letter containing mysterious symbols when she and her parents clean out her recently deceased grandmother�s house. She soon realizes the symbols contain clues to a long-hidden treasure. Solving the mystery requires Fiona to learn more about astronomy and mythology as she discovers evidence of two murders and a kidnapping, encounters a ghost, and eventually finds treasure.
In the Serpent's Coils marks the debut of Hallowmere, a dark, edgy historical fantasy series that teens won't be able to put down!
Ever since her parents died in the Civil War, Corrine's dreams have been filled with fairies warning her of impending peril. When she's sent to live at Falston Manor, she thinks she's escaped the danger stalking her. Instead the dreams grow stronger, just as girls begin disappearing from school.
Naomi and Ely are best friends. Naomi loves and is in love with Ely, and Ely loves Naomi, but prefers to be in love with boys. So they create their "No Kiss List" of people neither of them is allowed to kiss. And this works fine…until Bruce.
Bruce is Naomi's boyfriend, so there's no reason to put him on the List. But when Ely kisses Bruce, the result is a rift of universal proportions. Can these best friends come back together again? Or will this be the end of Naomi and Ely: the institution?
Told in alternating voices using an array of emoticons and symbols by co-authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, co-author of WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON with John Green (THE FAULT IN OUR STARS), NAOMI AND ELY’S NO KISS LIST is the ultimate offbeat love—and in love—story.
Gemma Stone is convinced that it's always unseemly to chuck a birkett and that it's actually insane to chuck one in front of a complete stranger. But that was before she fell for a boy who barely knows she exists, before she auditioned for the school play, before she met the family of freaks her sister Debbie is marrying into, before the unpredictable Raven De Head took an interest in her, and before she realized that at the right time and for the right reason, a birkett could be a beautiful thing.
He has a life filled with art, music, and long summer nights on the Cape. He has hours and days and months of baseball. But, more than anything in this world, Jake knows he has Edward. From the moment he was born, Jake knew Edward was destined for something. Edward could make anyone laugh and everyone think. During one special year, he became the only one in the neighborhood who could throw a perfect knuckleball. It was a pitch you could not hit. That same year, Jake learned there are also some things you cannot hold.
Patricia MacLachlan, one of the most beloved children's book authors writing today, has painted a deeply stirring, delicately lyrical portrait of a child, a son, a family, and a brother. Through Edward's eyes, we see what gifts all of these things truly are to those around them, and how those gifts live on and grow.
The exchange of daughters that began in SOPHIE-PITT TURNBULL DISCOVERS AMERICA continues! Excited (not to say desperate) as Cherokee Salamanca is to get out of Brooklyn, she starts having doubts about her summer in London even before she leaves Heathrow Airport. To start with, the Pitt- Turnbulls speak a language only vaguely like the one Cherokee knows as English. And then Putney reminds her of New Jersey — an oddly polite Jersey where people eat pizza with a fork. But Cherokee is a girl who likes a challenge, and there’s no way she’s going to let the British defeat her. The question is: will she conquer the British?
On his birthday, Don Schmidt spends the day waiting patiently for his big surprise―a cake, presents, maybe a Chinese clown . . . . But instead, his batty parents get into their monthly argument. This time it's because his mother has to feed the chickens. It ends with her shouting the same thing as always about their Louisiana chicken farm: "I hate it here!"
What follows is Don's journey from obscurity to fame and back again, when he becomes the youngest kid to ever win the Horse Island Dairy Festival chicken-judging contest. Gradually, his mom notices that something strange is going on―everyone knows her son!―but once she realizes that Don has become the town celebrity, she sees that there may be benefits to living on a chicken farm. What she doesn't seem to see are the benefits of having a son like Don.
For Don, the contest is the beginning of a big, big adventure. It involves trips to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, fair weather friends, a missing sister, and one big secret. Readers will cheer for Don, who goes out of his way to see the good in everything.
This stunning novel, written in spare, elegant prose and told from multiple points of view, explores the lives of three generations of women in one family, revealing what happens when you don't have the courage to follow your own heart, and what can happen when you do.
Senior year is flying by, the prom is approaching, and Dana, her best friend, Avra, and Avra's boyfriend, Emil, are about to encounter the pains and pleasures of that intricate beehive called adult life. While Dana plans on college, Avra plots escape once school is over―and plans to take Emil along for the ride. What does Emil want? He's not saying. Dana studies bees for a biology project, fascinated by their habits and their mythological imagery – but in real life, emotions can sting, and while two's company, these three may just become a crowd. As Dana reminds us, in every hive there is only one queen bee.
With remarkably textured language and a distinctive heroine, Kissing the Bee is a novel of rare depth and stark honesty that will draw readers in from the very first page.
Kissing the Bee is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
