Cardboardia 1: The Other Side of the Box


Book Description

A group of friends must use their ingenuity to save a parallel world that can only be accessed through cardboard boxes in this series starter from Black Sand Beach author Richard Fairgray and Lucy Campagnolo. Perfect for readers ready to step up from Jelly. When Mac, Masie, and Bird find mysterious tokens in their cereal boxes, they're transported to Cardboardia, a magical landmade of paper and cardboard. In this parallel universe to ours, creativity thrives: Every time a box of anything is created in our world, a replica appears there, bringing residents art supplies, food, books, and more. But an evil presence is slowly moving in, threatening to wipe all art and beauty from this paper paradise. It's no mistake that the three friends have been transported through their cardboard portals. Each has a special talent they never knew existed. And only when they figure out to harness them together will they be able to stop the destruction.




Move, Play, and Learn with Smart Steps


Book Description

Build the body-brain connection with step-by-step activities that help children develop physical, cognitive, social, and emotional foundations for early learning and school readiness. Early childhood educators will find clear information on creating the move-to learn environment, managing safety, and optimizing the connections between language development, movement, and readiness for formal learning. An observational tool lets teachers pinpoint children’s specific developmental stages and assess progress. The easy-to-follow, full-color format includes diagrams and photos along with teaching tips to advance and automate children’s foundational physical capabilities while providing incremental challenge. Grounded in best practices and current research, Move, Play, and Learn with Smart Steps is both a hands-on resource for any classroom teacher, care provider, or parent and an ideal tool for coaches, mentors, and professional development trainers. Digital content includes customizable forms from the book.




African Icons


Book Description

Every year, American schoolchildren celebrate Black History Month. They study almost exclusively American stories, which are not only rooted in struggle over enslavement or oppression, but also take in only four hundred years of a rich and thrilling history that goes back many millennia across the African continent. Through portraits of ten historical figures - from Menes, the first ruler to be called Pharaoh, to Queen Idia, a sixteenth-century power broker, visionary, and diplomat - African Iconstakes readers on a journey across Africa to meet some of the great leaders and thinkers whose ideas built a continent and shaped our world.




Colorblind


Book Description

The time is 1968. The place is Montgomery, Alabama. The story is one of resilience in the face of discrimination and bullying. Using the racially repugnant word “nigger,” two Caucasian boys repeatedly bully Miss Annie Loomis--the first African-American teacher at the all-white Wyatt Elementary School. At the same time, using the hateful word “harelip,” the boys repeatedly bully Miss Loomis’s eleven-year-old Caucasian student, Lisa Parker, who was born with cleft palate and cleft lip. Who will best the bullies? Only Lisa’s mood ring knows for sure.




Cardboardia 2: This Side Up


Book Description

A war for the very fate of the cardboard kingdom smolders and could ignite at any moment in the second book in the Cardboardia graphic novel series, perfect for fans of Furthermore and Nightlights. Pokey is lost in Cardboardia, and her older brother, Mac, and friends, Maisey and Bird, are desperately trying to find her. Taken in by a band of wild witch girls—friends or foes?—Mac, Maisey, and Bird learn more about how the world off Cardboarida works. What’s in all the boxes? What are the rules of travel? They also learn that there are a few humans in Cardboardia, like an old man named Warwick, who teaches Bird how to manipulate paper pulp who also tells them the rulers of Cardboardia want to end it. Then a posse is sent for the kids by the Gray King, and a full-on battle ensues: Maisey, Mac, Bird, Warwick, and the witches vs: the Gray King’s coal monsters, who threaten to burn down everything. The stakes just got a whole lot higher. . . .




Treasure in the Lake


Book Description

Grand adventures stories often begin where you least expect them… Iris knows this because she’s read them all. However, as a thirteen-year-old stuck in the tiny town of Bugden, real adventure seems like a distant dream. But when Iris and her best friend, Sam, stumble upon an unusually dry river on the outskirts of town, they’re led to a discovery beyond anything Iris has ever read about: a hidden city and a forgotten tale of friendship. In Jason Pamment's middle grade graphic novel debut, perfect for fans of Hilda and This Was Our Pact, can Iris and Sam uncover the truth in time to keep their own friendship afloat, or will history repeat itself and pull them apart forever? An ALSC Graphic Novel Reading List Title




iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us


Book Description

iDisorder: changes to your brain's ability to process information and your ability to relate to the world due to your daily use of media and technology resulting in signs and symptoms of psychological disorders - such as stress, sleeplessness, and a compulsive need to check in with all of your technology. Based on decades of research and expertise in the "psychology of technology," Dr. Larry Rosen offers clear, down-to-earth explanations for why many of us are suffering from an "iDisorder." Rosen offers solid, proven strategies to help us overcome the iDisorder we all feel in our lives while still making use of all that technology offers. Our world is not going to change, and technology will continue to penetrate society even deeper leaving us little chance to react to the seemingly daily additions to our lives. Rosen teaches us how to stay human in an increasingly technological world.




Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far)


Book Description

Pearl Littlefield's first assignment in fifth grade is complicated: She has to write an essay about her summer. Where does she begin? Her dad lost his job, she had to go to a different camp—one where her older sister Lexie was a counselor-in-training (ugh!)—and she and her good friend James Brubaker III had a huge fight, which made them both wonder if the other kids were right that girls and boys can't be good friends and which landed one of them in the hospital. And there's much, much more on the list of good and bad things, as Ann Martin takes this appealing character into new adventures through which young readers will see that good or bad, life is what happens when you're making other plans.




Everything for a Dog


Book Description

In this companion to her acclaimed 2005 novel, A Dog's Life, Ann M. Martin tells the parallel stories of a stray dog (the brother of the dog featured in A Dog's Life), a boy dealing with unspeakable loss, and a boy whose most ardent wish is to own a dog—and everything for a dog. Bone and his sister, Squirrel, are stray dogs born in a shed. Left motherless as puppies, the two dogs survive together for a while, but are soon wrenched apart. Bone doesn't know if his sister is still alive, and must now go on, alone. Charlie is a boy who has suffered a terrible loss. And, as he's healing with the help of his dog, another tragedy occurs. Henry's best friend has moved away. All Henry has wanted is a dog of his own. But his parents won't let him. Bone, Charlie, and Henry live very different lives, but they are fated to intersect in surprising ways. Award-winning author Ann M. Martin has written a powerful, heartfelt novel that's perfect for anyone who has ever longed for a dog, or loved one.




Ten Rules for Living with My Sister


Book Description

Pearl's older sister Lexie is in eighth grade and has a boyfriend. Pearl's only boyfriend is the family's crabby cat, Bitey. Lexie is popular. Pearl is not, mostly because of the embarrassing Three Bad Things that happened in school and which no one has forgotten. Everything Pearl does seems to drive Lexie crazy. On top of that, their grandfather is moving into their family's apartment and taking over Pearl's room. How will these sisters share without driving one another crazy? Pearl is good at making lists of rules, but sometimes, life doesn't play by the rules!