Orbiting Jupiter


Book Description

The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets twelve-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.




Game Changer


Book Description

A mysterious football accident sends a high school reeling in this award-winning multimedia-format novel from Tommy Greenwald Thirteen-year-old Teddy Youngblood is in a coma, fighting for his life after an unspecified football injury at training camp. His family and friends flock to his bedside to support his recovery—and to discuss the events leading up to the tragic accident. Was this the inevitable result of playing a violent sport, or did something more sinister happen on the field that day? Told in an innovative multimedia format combining dialogue, texts, newspaper articles, interview transcripts, an online forum, and Teddy’s inner thoughts, Game Changer explores the joyous thrills and terrifying risks of America’s most popular sport.




What Came from the Stars


Book Description

In a desperate attempt for survival, a peaceful civilization on a faraway planet besieged by a dark lord sends its most precious gift across the cosmos into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Massachusetts.




The Wednesday Wars


Book Description

In this Newbery Honor-winning novel, Gary D. Schmidt tells the witty and compelling story of a teenage boy who feels that fate has it in for him, during the school year 1968-68. Seventh grader Holling Hoodhood isn't happy. He is sure his new teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates his guts. Holling's domineering father is obsessed with his business image and disregards his family. Throughout the school year, Holling strives to get a handle on the Shakespeare plays Mrs. Baker assigns him to read on his own time, and to figure out the enigmatic Mrs. Baker. As the Vietnam War turns lives upside down, Holling comes to admire and respect both Shakespeare and Mrs. Baker, who have more to offer him than he imagined. And when his family is on the verge of coming apart, he also discovers his loyalty to his sister, and his ability to stand up to his father when it matters most.




Pay Attention, Carter Jones


Book Description

Sixth-grader Carter must adjust to the unwelcome presence of a know-it-all butler who is determined to help him become a gentleman, and also to deal with burdens from the past.




Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy


Book Description

Turner Buckminster is purely miserable. Not only is he the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, but he is shunned for playing baseball differently from the local boys.




The Trouble in Me


Book Description

"Fourteen-year-old Jack falls under the spell of a delinquent Florida neighbor and gets way more trouble than he bargained for"--




Jupiter Meets Uranus


Book Description

Jupiter and Uranus meet every 14 years. When they do, revolution and innovation join forces with restless exploration and the quest for knowledge.The result is always exciting, educational and unpredictable. Or is it? Anne Whitaker, never one to take anything at its face value, decided late in 1996 that she would observe the effects of this approaching planetary event and investigate whether it lived up to its reputation according to the textbooks. Her method was straightforward: watch world events around the time of the conjunction, and during the rest of 1997; find some volunteers with the 5 Aquarius 55 Hot Spot highlighted by in their natal horoscope; collect their stories during the year of the conjunction; and determine whether the "Jupiter-Uranus effect" could be detected in their lives. As Ken Gillman writes in the foreword, "This is a study of real-life astrology." Nine of the original 17 volunteers stayed with the study throughout. Their disrupted, exciting, turbulent life stories form the core of this vivid exploration of the interface between planetary activity and human life, during a period in which the startling announcement of the birth of Dolly the Sheep in February 1997 indicated that advances in cloning and genetic engineering were taking us on a voyage never before undertaken by humanity. This highly original book, written in a pacy and accessible style, will be of particular interest to research- minded students. It will also appeal to astrologers looking for specific evidence that the personal and collective lives of humankind respond in the same core way to the great music of the spheres, played throughout space and time by the planets in their cycles.




Trouble


Book Description

“Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.” But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry’s older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin’s preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry’s family has lived for generations. Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents’ knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.




Orbiting the Sun


Book Description

Incorporates data collected by the Viking, Mariner, Voyager, Pioneer, and Russian space missions and is accompanied by spectacular photographs.