Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff presents a girl and her massive love for horses. This book is about a little girl and her mom died when she was five. then her dad and brother moved to America to rise horses. so she lived with her and uncle. when one day her dad called and said "I want you to mo...
Benjamin Torres9/29/14Period 3/4 Gingersnap Gingersnap was a great book. I gave it 3 stars because it had good details in the chapter, but sometimes in the end of a chapter, ther...
Lexile Level: 550Pages: 166 p.Summary: It's beginning of the New Era. The Great Depression has created hard times for everyone, but with election of a new president, 12 year-old Rachel is hopeful that things will change for her family. Her father will get his job back at the bank, there will be...
I bought this book with the Scholastic Best Books for Second Grade set they had for 2014-2015. My intention was to be buying some books for reading groups and for gifts at the end of the year. All I want to do with the set of these is give them to the parents of my low second graders. Beast's per...
I was disappointed with this historical fiction book. The premise was interesting enough - Ireland's Potato Famine of 1845-1852 and the indifference of England during that period. I also enjoyed reading that the author, Patricia Reilly Giff, has 6 great grandparents who lived through the famine...
This book is different. It’s not just a novel with words and pages and chapter titles. It’s not just a story. It’s a picture. The author has painted us a picture, one long, deep, full picture of Hollis Woods, a tough orphan no one can handle. Nothing has been left out of this picture. We see Holl...
When a boy named Richard Best's class has a candy corn jar guessing contest things for him get exciting but the fact that you have to read a page for each guess you make. He goes throught this rough time trying to guess how many in the jar and only has three more day's and he can just taste them....
Emily Arrow's blue ring is missing. What could have happened to it? Dawn Bosco knows the whole class thinks she stole it, just because she borrowed Emily's unicorn once. But that was weeks ago.With the detective kit her grandmother has given her -- a polka-dot hat and fake glasses with furry eyeb...
Meggie Dillon's life has been turned upside down by World War II. Meggie's father has announced that they must help the war effort andmove to Willow Run, Michigan, where he'll work nights in a factory building important war planes that will help fight the enemy in Europe. Willow Run will be the g...
It’s August 1941, and Brick and Mariel both love the Brooklyn Dodgers. Brick listens to their games on the radio in Windy Hill, in upstate New York, where his family has an apple orchard; Mariel, once a polio patient in the hospital in Windy Hill, lives in Brooklyn near the Dodgers’ home, Ebbets ...
It's August, and Emily has big plans at the library. She's going to read lots of books and tack a paper fish next to her name for each one. Then Dawn Bosco says she can read more books than Emily. Not only that, both Emily and Dawn want to keep Pickle Puss, a stray cat thay found. They decide tha...
April is invention month. "We're going to make our own inventions," says Ms. Rooney, "and work together in groups."Though Emily Arrow knows it's important for each group to think, listen, and share, she still wishes she were the leader of her invention group. Linda Lorca, the bossy leader, ...
Oh, no! Arno the killer kindergarten kid is back. And Dawn Bosco's grandmother is his baby-sitter. How will Dawn and Jill ever have fun at the zoo with him along?Luckily, Dawn. the Polka Dot Private Eye, finds a mystery to solve. Someone has lost a notebook with gritty white poison all over it. B...
Dawn wonders whether mean Drake Evans is behind the strange happenings at the Polk Street School.
I picked this book up to read because I was attempting to find 4 different chapter books for my 4th graders that deal with immigration (different times, places) to America that we could use for literature circles. This book is the continuing story of Nory Ryan and her family's life in Ireland. I ...
""Milk, Bread, Cheese, Food For Angel" " reads the shopping list inside the shiny red purse Dawn Bosco finds in the school yard. Also inside is some sandy grit that looks like cracker crumbs and seventeen cents.This is Dawn's chance to solve another mystery! Three people say the purse is theirs, ...
- Personal reactionI did not enjoy this book very much because of its historical background. I took World History class during elementary and middle schools. I really enjoyed the classes because learning histories of other countries was very interesting. However, while reading this book, I felt s...
It's a hot summer day at the beach. The sand is crammed with bodies. Arno the killer kndergarten kid is building an apartment complex on his mother's feet. Somewhere a teenager is screaming. Who has stolen Gladys Mindy's almost-diamond necklace with the two almost-ruby hearts? She's offering a re...
Brooklyn, 1875: Bird Mallon lives on Water Street where you can see the huge towers of the bridge to Manhattan being built. Bird wants nothing more in life than to be brave enough to be a healer, like her mother, Nory, to help her sister Annie find love, and to convince her brother, Hughie, to st...
Thirteen year old Dina sails from Germany to America by herself in 1870 convinced she is moving from a life of sewing for her mother to her rich uncle's home. She hopes never to have to sew again. She enters Uncle Lucas' tiny apartment in dirty, dingy Brooklyn to see a sewing machine enthroned in...
Dawn Bosco freezes in horror as her cat Powder Puff jumps out of her arms and into a car. Before Dawn can stop it, the car drives away. Poor Powder Puff!This is a job for Dawn, the Polka Dot Private Eye--and she's ready. The only clues she has, she tells her friend Jason, are a jelly cookie, part...
It was after we’d eaten, my homework finished, and I splashed through the creek, dragging my feet along the sand. And there was that miserable old woman’s house, her broom resting on the porch, both the woman and the broom ready to come after me. This time I’d go after the broom. I crept up on th...
“No play practice today,” Mitchell said. “Jake the Sweeper is painting the walls.” “Tan,” said Destiny. “Yuck.” “A lovely color,” Mrs. Farelli said behind them. Yuck, Gina thought. “Lovely,” she said. Stars were kind. Mrs. Farelli tilted her head. “I have a dress the same color as the wall. I’ll ...
Whew! It was time for the Zigzag Afternoon Center. Mitchell McCabe darted into the lunchroom. He scooped up a snack from the counter. It was some kind of bread thing. It had green stuff inside. The green stuff crunched against his teeth. Mitchell gave his best friend, Habib, a poke. “Weird,” he w...
Destiny’s hair was piled up on her head. It was in a puff with a pink ribbon. She stopped at the not-so-white paper wall. A sixth grader named Peter Petway had written a discovery. It had something to do with numbers. They were squeezed in all over the place. Destiny passed her own blank space. I...
It was a horse, with one leg a little shorter than the others, the face goofy. He held it up; it was just the kind of thing Caroline would make. He patted its clay back and leaned it against the plane so it would stay upright. He took the cloth off the castle. It still needed the roofs for the to...
Almost everyone. Beebe and Destiny were knitting in the art room. The scarves looked like skinny red strings. Mitchell waved at Charlie. “I’m staying for Homework Help. I’m writing the story of my life.” Charlie nodded. Mitchell was the best writer in the Center. He’d won a prize for it. “We don’...
Siria huddled on the fire escape with Laila from the sixth floor, her purple wool scarf pulled over her chin. They leaned against the brick wall, Laila’s WIPE YOUR FEET mat pulled over their heads like a roof. “What luck!” Laila said. “All this snow. No school until after the holidays.” Siria nod...
She had painted it gold. Lumpy gold. Now it looked worse than a gas station. It could be a landing dock for UFOs. Two kindergarten kids stood in the doorway. They chopped the air with their hands. “I’m Trevor, the Karate Kid,” one of them said. Mitchell jumped. Then he saw that Trevor was crying....
They slid into the classroom and hung up their coats. A substitute teacher was standing in front of the room. The one with the fat body and skinny little legs. It was Mrs. Miller. Miller the killer. “Ms. Rooney is side today,” said Mrs. Miller. “She'll be back tomorrow.” “Yucks,” Emily whispered ...
Quirk moved the class around. In math we even crawled on our hands and knees, measuring the classroom, the hall, and the front steps of the school. Mason and I were partners. He did the ruler work; I did the writing down. I began to notice things about him. No matter how neat he started out in th...
We pass the town round, the park in the middle of town. Right in the center is a huge iron pot on a stand. It’s Lester Tinwitty’s original kettle, dinged worse than Diglio’s Acura. Lester dropped in by balloon, forged the kettle, and stayed to found the town. One by one, pioneers staggered in, st...
Zack begins to move Sister Ramona’s desk. It screeches horribly. “If we get caught . . .” I glance toward the open Music Room door. “We won’t get caught,” Zack says. “We’ll just heave ourselves up there and grab on to the light.” “Why not?” I say, getting into it. “Way to go, guys.” Yulefski digs...
Rooney's class marched down the hall to the art room. Emily walked in back of Dawn Bosco. “What's your group making?” she asked. Dawn shook her head. “I can't tell. It's a secret.” Emily bit her lip. “What's your group making?” Dawn asked. “It's a secret too, I guess,” Emily said. They went into ...
Maybe she would pick him. Wayne liked fish a lot. She could cut out fish pictures. She could draw fish in a bowl. She could buy fish food so he could feed the class fish, Drake and Harry. Wayne was a perfect special December person. Emily waited until the bell rang. Everyone lined up to go home. ...
It spattered hard on the roof: an angry sound against the logs, the chunks of clay, and the chimney stones. Stout Lucy, the cat, hated it. She curled herself up on the quilt next to my feet. I thought of the likeness of Lucy that was lying near my pallet. It had been drawn on a mushroom with a na...
Becca’s going on about the new kid, Alex, who’s building steps for their workout practice. “Olympics, here we come,” she says. Linny’s nodding. She looks a little rumpled from lying under her bed, but she’s prepared. She’s got Steadman’s looks-like-real sword tucked under her jeans belt and Willi...