Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. But those troubles don't compare with grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason's best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family's orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can't understand why Lieutenant Baird won't believe the story Mason has told about that day. Mason's new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky,...

Unable to celebrate the holidays in the wake of his older brother's death in a gang-related shooting, Lolly Rachpaul struggles to avoid being forced into a gang himself while constructing a fantastically creative LEGO city at the Harlem community center.

Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself - because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm...

"Lovable monster siblings Natalie and Alphonse are back with big plans in a second surprisingly touching tale in which Natalie is ready to learn how to read. Natalie and Alphonse REALLY like books. Picture books with Dad, scary stories with Mom, and especially stories they remember or make up themselves. So when it's time for Natalie to learn to read, she thinks it will be exciting -- she can have all the stories in the world now, and even read them...

"In December 1920, three US Navy officials boarded a hot air balloon for a routine training flight, but end up stranded in the Canadian wilderness"--

"With the help of some unexpected, and rather ghostly, allies, Lockwood & Co. must battle their greatest enemy yet, as they move ever closer to the moment when the earth-shattering secret of 'the problem' will finally be revealed"--

Describes the process of decomposition, discussing the role of decomposers such as sharks, vultures, and earthworms, and includes experiments demonstrating how decomposition supports new life.

For Arlo Finch and the Rangers of Pine Mountain Company, summer camp is more than canoeing and hiking. It's also a chance to search for ancient forest spirits and discover mysterious messages encoded in tree bark. But when Arlo and his best friends Indra and Wu stumble upon clues about the long-lost Yellow Patrol, Arlo uncovers a stunning history that leads right back to his very own family.

In a series of letters to her cousin, twelve-year-old Arie Mae relates her life in a mountain valley of North Carolina in the 1920s.

"Did you know that the hippo's skin has a sticky, pink sweat? It is a kind of natural sunblock that protects its skin from the Sun's rays. Learn these and other interesting facts in Hippo, a World Languages book."