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ROYAL FIREWORKS PRESS

Royal Fireworks Press

LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM BY MICHAEL CLAY THOMPSON Structure ◆ Sequence ◆ Rigor

A comprehensive grounding in the basics in a highly creative format VOCABULARY ◆ GRAMMAR ◆ POETICS ◆ WRITING ◆ LITERATURE

The texts are demanding; the design is inspiring.

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A program that delights as it instructs

he Royal Fireworks Press Language Arts Curriculum by Michael Clay Thompson has one goal: to ensure that the individual student who completes it is proficient in the language arts at a level that will carry him or her through life. There is one essential behavior that demonstrates the achievement of this goal: the ability to write an advanced academic essay. This is the essay that is required in virtually every college course and is the basis for professional writing, such as scientific papers, legal briefs, departmental reports, and legislative briefings. This curriculum has become a favorite of discerning homeschool parents because it enchants both the children and their parents. The education is sophisticated—far above that of any other language arts curriculum—yet the approach is enticing, drawing children in with meaningful content, creative design, art, humor, imaginative typography, and layout. There is a huge joy about the curriculum that children feel and respond to. Michael Clay Thompson takes delight in language, and his approach to grammar, vocabulary, poetics, literature, and writing is enthusiastic, positive, and great fun. He has chosen to illustrate the early books with the art of Milton Kemnitz, who approached the visual world with a playfulness that is a perfect match for Thompson’s approach and is so obvious in his art that the children respond with delight. The curriculum is carefully constructed to enable children and parents to succeed at a high level. It is built upon a thorough understanding of the basics. This is not a curriculum of sure-fire tricks or secret shortcuts. These are the basics made meaningful, related one to another, to make a whole that is language proficiency. Hundreds of thousands of parents have been delighted by how much their children enjoyed and learned from this curriculum. There are student books and parent/teacher manuals for each part at each level. The Language Arts Curriculum has six levels and covers Grammar, Practice, Vocabulary, Poetics, Writing, and Literature. The presentation of this catalog is color coded by levels. Opus 40 and the Grading CD is appropriate for Levels 3 to 6, and it is listed with each level. It is not part of any pack; it must be purchased separately. The literature trilogies are listed independent of the levels. The curriculum is not watered down. The student books are the same as those being used in thousands of schools with gifted programs across the United States. In some cases in which the teacher manuals used in the schools are not appropriate for home use, we have designed special, more comprehensive parent manuals to provide more help with implementation—and we offer them at a lower cost than the classroom teacher manuals. Enthusiastic parents have formed an online group to discuss the curriculum, its implementation in their homes, and their joys and problems. The forum of 2,500 homeschoolers is a wonderful venue for sharing lesson plans and implementation ideas. Royal Fireworks personnel and Michael Clay Thompson regularly contribute to it.

Take advantage of special prices for all books published by Royal Fireworks, either by using the Order Form or by purchasing online from our website:

rfwp.com

Royal Fireworks Press PO Box 399, Unionville, NY 10988 Tel: 845 726-4444 Fax: 845 726-3824

Sample pages of books, free downloads, and video clips are

available on our website. Sign up for our e-newsletter. JOIN OUR PARENTS GROUP at rfwpsupport.com Michael Clay Thompson

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m i c h a e l c l a y t h o m p s o n


Using the Language Arts Curriculum in Homeschools

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key feature of MCT is that you go at your child’s pace. Some children complete books and levels quick-

ly; others take their time. There are no set week-by-week plans that you must do. MCT offers advice on the website (rfwp.com) on how the strands of the curriculum fit together, but the time-scale is flexible. While there are no workbooks as such, there are exercises and assignments and tests within each book, and the practice books provide 100 more sentences for analysis and discussion at each level. The fundamental starting points are the student books, which are available for the child to read and reread, to explore and enjoy on his or her own. The Elementary Levels: At the first levels of the curriculum, parents have found success by using only the teacher/parent manuals. The full text of the student books is in the teacher manuals, so parents determined to save money can do so, although at some cost in pedagogic value and a loss in activities available to the child as follow-up. The Secondary Levels: Some parents report that they find themselves challenged by the implementation at this level, so special parent manuals are available. We are determined to help all parents with their teaching of the curriculum and will continue to refine and enlarge the range of parent manuals. As a way of thanking you for your commitment to teach your children the MCT curriculum, we are keeping these manuals especially low in cost. Practice Books: These are inexpensive and we believe essential in making the curriculum work as a whole. You need to purchase both student and teacher books for each level. They are excellent guides to how well children are doing and to where parents should focus attention for improvement. Where to Start? For children ages 6 to 9, it is most often appropriate to start with the Island level. Generally, those ages 10 or 11 begin with the Town or Voyage level. Children of 11 or 12 years begin most readily with the Voyage level. For older children, the recommended starting point is The Word Within a Word, Volume 1; The Magic Lens 1; Poetry and Humanity; 4Practice 1; and Essay Voyage. Where appropriate, the use of Essay Voyage can be abbreviated and the student moved on to Advanced Academic Writing, Volume 1. The Homeschool Packages contain books that complement one another at each level to get the full benefit from the curriculum, and they include the parent answer manuals where appropriate. Basic Packages include the books needed by your child if you are on a particularly limited budget. Complete Packages contain the full set. Ordering either will save money, even on the online price of single books added together. Support: There is much discussion and help for families on the Royal Fireworks Press Support Forum: rfwp.support.com, and we have numerous implementation resources, downloads, and videos on our website: rfwp.com, to help you deliver the program.

Homeschoolers on our forum and other message boards: “My kids are loving language arts for the first time. This program is a breath of fresh air.” “This stuff works, and I love it! I have referred many other folks to MCT LA, both with gifted kids and normal and struggling learners.” “I believe the MCT LA program is one of the few that promotes a love of the language, that discusses the beauty of words, that really integrates language into a person’s whole being. ….more than anything, this program has enhanced our family’s relationship in creating shared experiences. And MCT LA also provides thorough LA instruction to boot!” “I have not seen any other program take such a detailed approach to creating a sentence.” “MCT fosters a love of language that I just don’t see coming from other programs. The presentation, lack of condescension (despite the whimsical storylines of ducks and fish), depth, and joy that permeates the texts are what set it apart.” “There are no discrete lesson plans, so I don’t feel pressured to ‘get to the end of the lesson.’ That makes it easier to stop when we have had enough for the day, wherever that may be.” 2 Michael Clay Thompson

An Overview of the Language Arts Curriculum

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xciting, demanding, entertaining, and inspiring, each book serves as a stand-alone text, but ideally as a component in a progressive and comprehensive language arts curriculum as well. There are student books and parent/teacher manuals for every component at every level.

LANGUAGE ARTS: core texts are color coded in this catalog for each of the six levels Level

Grammar

Practice

Vocabulary

Poetics

Writing

Literature

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Grammar Island

Practice Island

Building Language

The Music of the Hemispheres

Sentence Island

Mud Trilogy

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Grammar Town

Practice Town

Caesar’s English 1

Building Poems

Paragraph Town

Alice, Peter, & Mole Trilogy

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Grammar Voyage

Practice Voyage

Caesar’s English II

A World of Poetry

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Magic Lens 1

4Practice 1

The Word Within the Word 1

Poetry and Humanity

Essay Voyage Opus 40

Search Trilogy

Advanced Academic Writing 1

Search Trilogy

Opus 40 5

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Magic Lens 2

Magic Lens 3

4Practice 2

4Practice 3



Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth

Advanced Academic Writing 2

Time Trilogy

Opus 40 Advanced Academic Writing 3

Autobiography Trilogy

Opus 40

Support:

Parent/teacher manuals at each of the six levels give full recommendations for implementation and are supplemented by support at the rfwp.com website. Online Parent Support Group: rfwpsupport.com

POSTERS Both well-sized at 17.25” x 22.5” and personal-sized at 8.5” x 11,” bright and colorful posters help students visualize the simplicity and beauty of important language concepts. Thorough descriptions and visuals are found later in this catalog under the heading The Art of Language Arts. THE SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH SERIES The superlative series combines grammar, vocabulary, poetics, writing, and historical knowledge to probe the central statements of equality in American history. For grades 5 and up, these illustrated books are interdisciplinary. The series is fully described later in this catalog on page 20. OTHER WORKS Michael Clay Thompson has written a variety of other works for educators and students. They include Classics in the Classroom, The Heart of the Mind, Thinkers, Classic Words, and The Conceptual Dialectic; The Sesquipedalian Neologist’s Lexicon; and Relativity, Quanta, and Consciousness.

Michael Clay Thompson

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Michael Clay Thompson’s Series of Five Literature Trilogies

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ichael Clay Thompson has now produced five trilogies for the literature component of his curriculum including a trilogy of novels about Mud the Fish and other characters from the early levels of the curriculum. Our purpose in the literature series, as Michael Clay Thompson writes in his introduction “is to immerse children in great books so that they experience literature as literature and not as a drudgery of tedious school activities.” The ultimate test of the program is “if the child does not love reading, we have failed.” As MCT points out, “It is by loving to read that children become literate.” The focus of the program is on the literature itself, “avoiding all traditional worksheet activities in favor of rich discussion and thoughtful reading. Busywork has been eliminated.” Each part of the program consists of three works of literature (complete and unabridged), together with a parent/teacher manual. In each of the classics chosen, Michael Clay Thompson provides close-ups of poetic techniques, fourlevel analyses of interesting grammar, and comments about writing strategies. They all focus on the author’s writing technique whilst still keeping the child’s mind on the book itself. Mud the Fish Trilogy. The introductory point for literature study. Characters created by Michael to enliven his grammar and writing books have been given a series of adventures in a trilogy of novels designed to introduce younger children to the complex themes and long words of classic literature, but with what he calls “a kind of academic silliness” resulting in pure delight for adults and children.

8401 RESCUE AT FRAGMENT CRAG $13.00 8418 THE RED TIDE $13.00 8425 THE GREEN-FACE VIRUS $13.00 8432 MUD TRILOGY SET WITH PARENT MANUAL $40.00 8432B SET BOUGHT WITH A LEVEL PACKAGE $30.00 8432S EXTRA SET OF NOVELS $27.00

Alice, Peter and Mole studies the great children’s classics: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. This is the collection most appropriate for students at the first or second level of the MCT curriculum. 8029 ALICE IN WONDERLAND $13.00 8012 PETER PAN $13.00 8005 THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS $13.00 8036 ALICE, PETER, & MOLE SET WITH PARENT MANUAL $40.00 8036B SET BOUGHT WITH A LEVEL PACKAGE $30.00 8036S EXTRA SET OF NOVELS $27.00

The Search Trilogy consists of Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. Michael has written a special poem, “Silver’s Song” to go with Treasure Island! There is an Audioclip with the book, below. 8159 TREASURE ISLAND $13.00 8166 THE CALL OF THE WILD $13.00 8173 THE INVISIBLE MAN $13.00 8180A SEARCH TRILOGY WITH PARENT MANUAL $40.00 8180B SET BOUGHT WITH A LEVEL PACKAGE $30.00 8180S EXTRA SET OF NOVELS $27.00

Homeschoolers and parents are invited to join the group: RFWPSUPPORT.com You can Join our email list from our website: rfwp.com 4


The Time Trilogy consists of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur by Mark Twain, and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and is most suitable for 5th and 6th grade level students. Where the original edition contained artwork important to the tradition of the book, this has been included. 8050 THE TIME MACHINE $13.00 8074 A CHRISTMAS CAROL $13.00 8067 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT $13.00 8081 TIME TRILOGY WITH PARENT MANUAL $40.00 8081B SET BOUGHT WITH A LEVEL PACKAGE $30.00 8081S EXTRA SET OF NOVELS $27.00

American Autobiography Trilogy consists of three great and historically significant autobiographies that are essential classics of American literature: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. These important works, though very different from each other, reveal in astonishing immediacy the thoughts and experiences of the writers against a background and description of the times they lived in, and show the contributions they made to the way we live and think now. The fact that we are learning about these great men in their own words makes this trilogy truly interdisciplinary: great writing, authentic accounts, glimpses of personality, and insights into events of historical and social importance. We learn at first hand about the early life of Benjamin Franklin, his life in London and Philadelphia and how his future political, business and inventive skills were honed. The vivid descriptions that Frederick Douglass gives of the horrific cruelty meted out to slaves and their families in the Southern States make for disturbing but essential reading. His determination to survive, to learn to read, to escape to the North and eventually to become a leading abolitionist is an awe-inspiring story. Thoreau’s Walden is a complete contrast, and Thompson draws our attention to the subtleties of the text, the intellectual strength of the writing, the enormous number of classical references, and the poetic and abstract devices that he uses to describe his “Life in the Woods,” his reflections on people and the world around him. These books provide fascinating insights into the past and enormous opportunities for enrichment of your children’s reading. We are excited and proud of this addition to our MCT Curriculum. In the accompanying Parent Manual, Michael Clay Thompson provides you with the wherewithall to prepare for reading and discussion, for writing assignments and more. As in the other trilogies, throughout the books he illustrates significant points of style or grammar and gives definitions of unfamiliar words. For students of upper elementary ages and higher. 8531 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN $13.00 8555 WALDEN $13.00 8548 THE NARRATIVE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS $13.00 8562 AUTOBIOGRAPHY TRILOGY WITH PARENT MANUAL $40.00 8562B SET BOUGHT WITH A LEVEL PACKAGE $30.00 8562S EXTRA SET OF NOVELS $27.00

The illustrated-language highlights have the intention of helping children become more aware readers. We believe they do not have any parallel in the educational experience of children. The Parent Manual is designed to aid you to help the students become more critical, creative, understanding, and aware readers. The books are published in trilogies so you can leverage the reading experience. The three novels are intended to be read in a particular order, with questions flowing from one novel to the next and then to all three. Children are encouraged to make comparisons across all three novels and to regard the reading experience of each in relation to the others. This provides for a richer reading experience and aids the child in developing a broad range of insights into their reading. The program provides activities that are flexible options and are focused on the words of the novels. Crucial to this series is that the parent has read what the child has read, and is prepared to discuss with the child what they have read. This is a program that encourages reflection and discussion, growth, and understanding. We have taken a great deal of trouble with the design of the series. The type is Goudy Old Style which we find to be a very pleasing font. The margins are wide, the type is large, and the space between lines is greater than normal. The books are five and a quarter inches by seven and a half inches, a very easy size for children to hold. Michael Clay Thompson 5


LEVEL 1 The Island Level

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evel 1 is the entry level for the MCT curriculum. Children are ready to begin this level as soon as they can read and are ready to learn. Parent and child or children can snuggle up on the sofa and read together. Many parents have found that the student books are wonderful beginning points for children to begin the practice of reading on their own and then discussing the material. The teacher manuals are full of Socratic questions to raise with the children; there are also many activities in the manuals. Although the material is presented simply, it reaches a surprising level of complexity and sophistication.

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GRAMMAR ISLAND

t the heart of this program is Michael Clay Thompson’s innovative method of helping children to understand grammar as a four-part analysis. Equally important is his elemental delight in grammar. Children catch his infectious enthusiasm, and many a child has adopted Grammar Island as his or her favorite book and clung to it years after moving to higher levels of the curriculum. Thompson’s four-part analysis consists of parts of speech, parts of the sentence, phrases, and clauses. As the children identify each word, each part of the sentence, each phrase and clause, they master grammar without the artificial complexities and mind-numbing repetition of most grammar programs. Grammar Island is a lavishly illustrated book. It introduces, in a simple graphic way, the four-level grammar of parts of speech, parts of sentence, phrases, and clauses. Using Grammar Island offers child-friendly ways to make sophisticated academics alive and fun. Each page focuses on a single concept. The teaching approach is reading together and talking about the concepts, asking questions, referring back, and responding. The teacher manual has many boxes of text for the parent that are not appropriate for students, so children need their own student books. 7985 GRAMMAR ISLAND STUDENT BOOK $40.00 Special Price: $30.00 7992 GRAMMAR ISLAND TEACHER MANUAL $45.00 Special Price: $35.00

PRACTICE ISLAND Practice Island is primarily a supplement to Grammar Island and Sentence Island; students work through the sentences using Michael Clay Thompson’s four-level analysis and thereby reinforce their grammar and writing skills. 6805 PRACTICE ISLAND STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 6812 PRACTICE ISLAND TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

See Pages 18–19 for Homeschool Packages

“Michael Clay Thompson’s books make all the difference: helping me make an excellent education out of a lousy one!” —Geoff Sedlezky, homeschooling parent 6


LEVEL 1 The Island Level BUILDING LANGUAGE

Building Language uses the analogy of the Roman arch to explain the construction of words, and it explores the Roman roots of English and Spanish, followed by ten lessons. It performs the important function of helping children to visualize the makeup of English words. 5841 BUILDING LANGUAGE STUDENT BOOK $25.00 Special Price: $15.00 585X BUILDING LANGUAGE TEACHER MANUAL $30.00 Special Price: $20.00

THE MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES 6562 MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6570 MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 See Pages 18–19 for Homeschool Packages

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ichael Clay Thompson’s poetics curriculum is unrivaled in its ability to impart the fundamentals. He understands poetics as a core component of language arts instruction, and he has set out to teach students all of the basics. This extraordinary series enables students to understand poetry on a higher plane than has been previously possible. Each book can be used as a stand-alone introduction to poetry, or it can set the stage for the more advanced texts that follow. These books are beautiful, creative, engaging, and unusual. Students are taught the elements of poems, including sound, patterns of rhythm, meter, stanza, figures of speech, poetic techniques, and meaning.

SENTENCE ISLAND Sentence Island features an array of quirky animals, birds, insects, a talking tree, and an amazing fish whose name is Mud. From each character, Mud learns a different aspect of sentence structure. These rules and concepts are the essential foundation for formal writing assignments; if a person cannot write a sentence, he cannot write. It is, therefore, essential that children master the sentence, and MCT makes it so much fun. Mud is a favorite in many households. 6683 SENTENCE ISLAND STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6690 SENTENCE ISLAND TEACHER MANUAL $40.00 Special Price: $30.00

“—the books encourage depth, sensitivity, and reflection.” —Shaun Strummer, Ph.D., editor and homeschooling parent “Thank you for such an astonishing language arts program. I literally had tears (of joy) in my eyes the first time I looked at one of your books!” —Mary DeLia, homeschooling parent and poet Michael Clay Thompson

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LEVEL 2 The Town Level

evel 2 dramatically increases the challenges in vocabulary and writing from Level 1. Caesar’s English is a large step up from Building Language, with many more stems and much more text. The other major step is going from the construction of sentences in Level 1 to the various types of paragraphs in Level 2. The exercises in Paragraph Town are more numerous and far more challenging than in Sentence Island. As with Level 1, Level 2 is richly illustrated. GRAMMAR TOWN

The new second edition is in color. Grammar Town builds on the four-part analysis foundation of Grammar Island and offers increasingly sophisticated grammar concepts. It is compact and is intended for use in the early part of the teaching year so that youngsters get the benefits of it throughout the year. It is designed to provide a comprehensible yet sophisticated presentation of grammar. It ignores the low limits and assumptions of traditional grammar instruction for elementarylevel students, including challenging content often withheld in school settings until middle or even high school. The teacher’s manual includes tips for the student pages, pre- and post-tests, activities for specific topics, and original readings to keep the energy level charged with fun learning. The second edition of the teacher manual is too full of boxes of text for the parents to be read easily by the students; we recommend a student book for the child. 5907 GRAMMAR TOWN STUDENT BOOK $40.00 Special Price: $30.00 5914 GRAMMAR TOWN TEACHER MANUAL $45.00 Special Price: $35.00

CAESAR’S ENGLISH 1

Co-authored with Myriam Thompson Caesar’s English 1 has twenty lessons, each introducing five new stems or Latinbased vocabulary words. Student quizzes for each lesson are in the teacher manual. 2087 CAESAR’S ENGLISH 1 STUDENT BOOK $25.00 Special Price: $15.00 2095 CAESAR’S ENGLISH 1 TEACHER MANUAL $30.00 Special Price: $20.00

CAESAR’S ENGLISH I: CLASSICAL EDUCATION EDITION

Expanded, with extra activities, historical essays on Ancient Rome, and numerous original photographs. Two volumes. (See page 23 for more information, and visit the website for sample pages.) 4649 CAESAR’S ENGLISH I, STUDENT $40.00 Special Price: $25.00 4656 CAESAR’S ENGLISH I, TEACHER $45.00 Special Price: $35.00

“I suspect that most parents will be inspired by these books, just as I was, since they reveal aspects of language arts that offer beauty and meaning.” —Cathy Duffy Reviews 8


LEVEL 2 The Town Level PRACTICE TOWN

This is a supplement to Grammar Town and Paragraph Town and uses vocabulary from Caesar’s English 1 and poetics from Building Poems. Students work through the sentences using Michael Clay Thompson’s four-level analysis and thereby reinforce their grammar and writing skills. Each of the 100 sentences has a separate page with four blank lines to fill in the parts of speech, the parts of the sentence, phrases, and clauses. The teacher manual contains the completed answers. 6829 PRACTICE TOWN STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 6836 PRACTICE TOWN TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

BUILDING POEMS

Michael Clay Thompson shows how meticulously poets plan and craft poems, from haiku to ballads. Students gain an appreciation of both the rigorous intellectual discipline and the complex creativity that a poet must combine to write a poem. Building Poems explores elements of poems, including sound, patterns of rhythm, meter, stanza, figures of speech, poetic techniques, and meaning. 6589 BUILDING POEMS STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6597 BUILDING POEMS TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

PARAGRAPH TOWN

In Paragraph Town, two engaging ducks, Fishmeal and Queequack, learn how to organize sentences into orderly paragraphs, learn about the different kinds of paragraphs (dialogue, description, exposition, comparison), and study punctuation as well as grammar. The elaborate teacher manual contains in-depth assignments for each chapter, providing the parent with writing assignments for every week. 6706 PARAGRAPH TOWN STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6713 PARAGRAPH TOWN TEACHER MANUAL $40.00 Special Price: $30.00 See Pages 18–19 for Homeschool Packages

“Thank you for creating a program that inspires ten-year-olds to think and argue passionately about language, and families to talk about it at the breakfast table.” —Joan A-S, Ohio homeschooler “The Word Within the Word has been a joyful program for my students. Their success has astounded me.” —Jeanette Smith, teacher, Pleasanton, California “I find that the Michael Clay Thompson books are so useful that I go back year after year for review and to get new ideas, even after we’ve finished a book. It would be impossible to put a price on what we’ve gained from the series. I only wish all the materials I’ve bought over the years were as useful as MCT!” —Elizabeth Pyle Ross, homeschooling parent Michael Clay Thompson

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LEVEL 3 The Voyage Level

evel 3 marks a significant step in creativity and in the demands of the writing portion of the curriculum. In Grammar Voyage, students are expected to play with grammar in contexts that include poetry. Caesar’s English II has a good deal more emphasis on creativity than its predecessor. Essay Voyage is quite challenging in its writing demands, and it is here that many students and some parents really begin to feel the demands of the curriculum. Opus 40 is very useful to help parents grade their children’s essays. GRAMMAR VOYAGE

Continuing to build on the foundation of Grammar Island and Grammar Town, Grammar Voyage offers increasingly sophisticated grammar concepts. The challenge is compounded by dealing with grammar in the context of poetry. The book is compact and is intended for use in the early part of the school year so that students get the benefits of it throughout the year. It ignores the low limits and assumptions of traditional grammar instruction for elementary students and includes challenging content. A teacher manual includes tips for the student pages, pre- and post-tests, activities for specific topics, and original readings to keep the energy level charged with fun learning. 5795 GRAMMAR VOYAGE STUDENT BOOK $40.00 Special Price: $30.00 5809 GRAMMAR VOYAGE TEACHER MANUAL $50.00 Special Price: $40.00

PRACTICE VOYAGE

Practice Voyage is a supplement to Grammar Voyage and Essay Voyage. It uses vocabulary from Caesar’s English II and poetics from A World of Poetry. Students work through the sentences using Thompson’s four-level analysis and thereby reinforce their grammar and writing skills. 6843 PRACTICE VOYAGE STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 6850 PRACTICE VOYAGE TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

CAESAR’S ENGLISH II

Caesar’s English II has a heavier emphasis on the English-Spanish connection. Each of the twenty lessons has five new stems or five Latin-based vocabulary words, as well as five Latin stems brought forward from Volume 1. 2257 CAESAR’S ENGLISH II STUDENT BOOK $25.00 Special Price: $15.00 2265 CAESAR’S ENGLISH II TEACHER MANUAL $30.00 Special Price: $20.00

“I haven’t bothered with much language arts with my son because so many materials make me nervous, and I can’t bear putting my son through that. And then came Michael Clay Thompson with his wonderful materials, and the scales fell from my eyes, and now we are a family of language lovers. We cuddle up on the couch and read them together like bedtime stories (sometimes in the morning). We both really dig them. Fun is had by all.” —A homeschooling parent “Now I can focus with passion as well as reason on why we should study poetics. It is a wonderful program.” —Leslie Lawner, Roswell, New Mexico 10


LEVEL 3 The Voyage Level A WORLD OF POETRY

The emphasis in this volume is on poetry and science and on poetry and the natural world. MCT covers the poetic device of sound, meter, rhyme, and— stanza. 6600 A WORLD OF POETRY STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6619 A WORLD OF POETRY TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

See Pages 18–19 for Homeschool Packages ESSAY VOYAGE

Essay Voyage offers ten lessons in formal essay writing. It is a straight-forward, comprehensive, high-level introduction to essay writing. The bonus in this volume is the story of a trip around the world, which includes a great deal of geographical information. 6720 ESSAY VOYAGE STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6737 ESSAY VOYAGE TEACHER MANUAL $40.00 Special Price: $30.00

OPUS 40 AND THE GRADING CD

This book contains Michael Clay Thompson’s archive of comments used for grading student papers—and his comments about those comments. It also includes a CD in several formats so the grader can use MCT’s grading and explanations instead of having to write them de novo. An invaluable resource to be used from Levels 3 through 6. 6973 OPUS 40 WITH CD $30.00

6980 GRADING CD $15.00

“We have found these Michael Clay Thompson books to be our favorite things to read together. We have so few books written for the erudite learner that we simply enjoy them.” —Miriam, homeschooling parent, Maryland “These are my personal favorite resources for grammar, vocabulary, and etymology (word roots), as well as introductory studies of poetry and philosophy….” —Julie Shepherd Knapp, owner of the Homeschool Diner resources website “Thank you for articulating methods for constructing and grading essays in a way the average layperson can apply.” —Lori H.


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LEVEL 4

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evel 4 marks an enormous increase in demands in the grammar, vocabulary, and writing portions of the curriculum. This level is a major challenge for the most motivated children to complete in the course of a school year. This is the point at which the students are asked to perform at truly adult levels. THE MAGIC LENS, VOLUME 1

The student book of the third edition of The Magic Lens, Volume 1 is based entirely on four-level sentence analysis. This analysis (parts of speech, parts of sentence, phrases, and clauses) is Michael Clay Thompson’s original approach to teaching grammar and is enormously successful. Now in full color with an improved layout, it includes enhanced sentence diagramming. Punctuation is dealt with at each level of analysis. There is a special homeschool parent answer manual, but those who want additional material can order the teacher manual, which also includes the “loops” of the previous edition and class tests on a CD. 7901 MAGIC LENS VOL. 1 STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 7963 MAGIC LENS VOL. 1 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER MANUAL $20.00 Special Price: $10.00 7918 MAGIC LENS VOL. 1 TEACHER MANUAL $40.00 Special Price: $30.00

4PRACTICE, VOLUME 1

In 4Practice, Volume 1, Michael Clay Thompson has produced 100 sentences about the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans. Each sentence uses vocabulary from The Word Within the Word 1, complements the grammar learned in The Magic Lens 1, and includes the poetic devices studied in Poetry and Humanity. Each sentence challenges students on points of grammar, vocabulary, poetics, and writing. The content of many sentences will propel students to reference works to understand their context. The focus on the ancient world emphasizes the importance of classical Greek and Latin to modern English.

See Pages 18–19 for Homeschool Packages

6867 4PRACTICE 1 STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 6874 4PRACTICE 1 TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

“I just received Paragraph Town, Essay Town, and the corresponding workbooks. I have never been so excited to start a curriculum, probably because I can see many areas where I can learn with my daughter. I also bought Classics in the Classroom. I am astounded at Thompson’s ideas. I have thought for a very long time that we should be approaching literature education in a different manner, and Classics in the Classroom seems to be the way to go. I promised my daughter that we wouldn’t start something new until this summer, but I don’t know if we can wait. She has already read the first three chapters of Paragraph Town in anticipation!” —Britta S. on the MCT LA Yahoo Group

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LEVEL 4 THE WORD WITHIN THE WORD, VOLUME 1 Widely recognized as the premier vocabulary curriculum, The Word Within the Word uses etymology, not word lists. The Latin and Greek stems are presented as a system of thinking, a way of building, analyzing, spelling, pronouncing, and choosing words. In consequence, the student knows thousands of words that are not in the book but are expressions of the system. The student books are packed with activities that encourage awareness of play with language and the relationships between Latin, English, and Spanish. They also draw attention to how great writers use the English language. The Word Within the Word provides weekly lessons. This new edition of Word Within the Word Volume I is part of our planned revamping of the MCT Secondary Vocabulary series where the vocabulary lessons are supplemented with historical discussions and illustrations that offer students a greater understanding of the classical roots of the English language. Volume 1 features Darius and Xerxes, Leonidas and Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, the Spartans and the Athenians, the Peloponnesian and Delian Leagues, Athenian democracy and Spartan oligarchy, Alcibiades and Socrates, and finally Philip and Alexander of Macedonia. There is an enormous amount of historical material, including descriptions of how the Spartans lived, the strategies of various battles, how people voted, the origin and practice of ostracism, the importance of the navy, and the building of the glorious Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. This is an excellent program for preparing students for vocabulary questions on the SATs and SSATs. 6041 WORD VOL. 1 STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $20.00 6089 WORD VOL. 1 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $20.00

POETRY AND HUMANITY

Poetry and Humanity shows and teaches how poets push language to its maximum in order to express those things about us that are most true, or difficult, or subtle. Poets quoted include Hardy, Blake, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dickinson, and many more. 6627 POETRY HUMANITY STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6635 POETRY HUMANITY TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING, VOLUME 1 “W hen we do advanced academic writing…we must learn not only to accept but to enjoy the relaxed pace of research, the meticulous construction of sentences, the gradual architecture of essays. The advanced process must be accompanied by an advanced attitude, because so long as we resist enjoying advanced competence, we will be unable to achieve it.” —Michael Clay Thompson 6744 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 1 STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6751 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 1 TEACHER MANUAL $50.00 Special Price: $40.00


This book contains Michael Clay Thompson’s archive of comments used for grading student papers. It also includes the comments on a CD in several formats so the grader can use MCT’s explanations. An invaluable resource to be used in Levels 3 through 6. 6973 OPUS 40 WITH CD $30.00



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LEVEL 5

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n Level 5, the largest step is in poetics, where students are asked to consider the concept of beauty, particularly in the context of the works of Plato. Another new challenge is afforded by the practice book, which now contains sentences from the classics of English literature. See Pages 18–19 THE MAGIC LENS, VOLUME 2 for Homeschool The demands of four-level sentence analysis increase, and the grammar Packages challenges get increasingly sophisticated. 2117 LENS VOL. 2 STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 5822 LENS VOL. 2 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER MANUAL $20.00 Special Price: $10.00

4PRACTICE, VOLUME 2 The sentences in 4Practice, Volume 2 are taken from works of classic literature, giving illuminating insights into how great writers achieve meaning, beauty, and depth in their writing. This book is a vital supplement to the grammar program in the Magic Lens 2. It uses vocabulary taken directly from The Word Within the Word 2 and refers to poetic devices in Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty.

The authors whose sentences are used in 4Practice, Volume 2 range from William Shakespeare and John Milton to Daniel Defoe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Upton Sinclair, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Toni Morrison, Marjorie Kennan Rawlings, Jane Austen, Stephen Crane, Thomas Hardy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf, Frederick Douglass, Charles Dickens, Alan Paton, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Joseph Heller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bram Stoker, William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, James Hilton, Maya Angelou, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Eudora Welty.

6881 4PRACTICE 2 STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 6898 4PRACTICE 2 TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

THE WORD WITHIN THE WORD, VOLUME 2 This book expands the stems offered in The Word Within the Word, Volume 1 and asks students to deal with them in many different contexts. 6928 WORD VOL. 2 STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 5587 WORD VOL. 2 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER $20.00 Special Price: $10.00 POETRY, PLATO, AND THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty uses Plato’s Dialogues and Socratic questioning as a source of ideas and a way of thinking about the complex concept of beauty. There are numerous quotations from Plato and Aristotle. 6643 POETRY PLATO BEAUTY STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6651 POETRY PLATO BEAUTY TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING, VOLUME 2 “When we do advanced academic writing…we must learn not only to accept but to enjoy the relaxed pace of research, the meticulous construction of sentences, the gradual architecture of essays. The advanced process must be accompanied by an advanced attitude, because so long as we resist enjoying advanced competence, we will be unable to achieve it.” —Michael Clay Thompson 6768 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 2 STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6959 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 2 PARENT MANUAL $50.00 Special Price: $30.00 OPUS 40 AND THE GRADING CD This book contains Michael Clay Thompson’s archive of comments used for grading student papers—and his comments to teachers and parents about those comments. It also includes the comments on a CD in several formats so the grader can use MCT’s explanations instead of having to write them de novo. An invaluable resource to be used from Levels 3 through 6. 6973 OPUS 40 WITH CD $30.00 6980 GRADING CD $15.00

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LEVEL 6

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n Level 6, students are challenged to produce new ideas in their essay writing. The focus has shifted from the “hows” of writing to the “what” of the essay. The poetics book asks students to explore the notion of truth, the practice book has more sentences from the great authors of the English language, and the vocabulary book demands a high degree of creativity. THE MAGIC LENS, VOLUME 3 The Magic Lens volumes are the upper-grades part of Michael Clay Thompson’s grammar program. They continue his innovative four-level analysis, and each volume is coordinated with the same volume of The Word Within the Word to share vocabulary and explore the meaning and grammatical formations of the same words. Each level reinforces the instruction that has come before, and each level takes the student further in sophistication. The Magic Lens front-loads the grammar instruction, allowing all concepts to be introduced at the beginning of the year so they can be applied all year long. 2141 LENS VOL. 3 STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 5839 LENS VOL. 3 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER MANUAL $20.00 Special Price: $10.00 4PRACTICE, VOLUME 3 4Practice, Volume 3 supplements the grammar of The Magic Lens 3. It uses vocabulary taken directly from The Word Within the Word 3 and refers to poetic devices in Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth. Volume 3 includes sentences from William Shakespeare, Kenneth Grahame, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Jane Austen, Stephen Crane, Thomas Hardy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Mary Shelley, Frederick Douglass, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Joseph Heller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bram Stoker, William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry David Thoreau, James Hilton, Maya Angelou, Jack London, Henry James, Robert Penn Warren, James Fennimore Cooper, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Louis Stevenson, W.E.B. DuBois, Thornton Wilder, Oscar Wilde, George Eliott, E.M. Forster, Ralph Ellison, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Swift, T.S. Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Gardner, George Orwell, John Knowles, and Kate Douglas Wiggin. SEE PAGES 6904 4PRACTICE 3 STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 18–19 FOR HOMESCHOOL 6911 4PRACTICE 3 TEACHER MANUAL $15.00 Special Price: $10.00 PACKAGES THE WORD WITHIN THE WORD, VOLUME 3 In schools, this text is extensively used in grades 8-12, and it is appropriate for academically motivated students in grades 6-7. It is an excellent program for preparing students for the most difficult vocabulary questions on the SATs and SSATs. 2044 WORD VOL. 3 STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 5590 WORD VOL. 3 HOMESCHOOL PARENT ANSWER MANUAL $20.00 Special Price: $10.00 POETRY, PLATO, AND THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth continues the use of Plato’s Dialogues and Socratic questioning as a way of thinking about truth. Great poems stand the test of time and express at their core something that is true. 666X POETRY PLATO TRUTH STUDENT BOOK $30.00 Special Price: $20.00 6678 POETRY PLATO TRUTH TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING, VOLUME 3 “When we do advanced academic writing…we must learn not only to accept but to enjoy the relaxed pace of research, the meticulous construction of sentences, the gradual architecture of essays. The advanced process must be accompanied by an advanced attitude, because so long as we resist enjoying advanced competence, we will be unable to achieve it.” —Michael Clay Thompson 6782 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 3 STUDENT BOOK $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 6799 ADVANCED ACADEMIC WRITING VOL. 3 TEACHER MANUAL $50.00 Special Price: $30.00


This book contains Michael Clay Thompson’s archive of comments used for grading student papers—and his comments to teachers and parents about those comments. It also includes the comments on a CD in several formats so the grader can use MCT’s explanations instead of having to write them de novo. An invaluable resource to be used in Levels 3 through 6.

6973 OPUS 40 WITH CD $30.00



15


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THE ART OF LANGUAGE ARTS

ichael Clay Thompson has a genius for rendering the essential elements of language arts as beautiful visual images. He visualizes language arts in patterns that speak volumes to many children. His colorful posters provide images that will carry through life, illuminating an essential point or banishing a potential confusion. We have produced twelve of these images as posters 17.25” x 22.5,” and they are available individually or as a set. Particularly for homeschoolers, we have produced the images on laminated card stock as 8.5” x 11” mini-posters, and we have added an extra image on verbals. The entire thirteen-card set is available at a special price. The mini-posters may be purchased only as a set. THE PARTS OF SPEECH

Beautifully shows the eight parts of speech, with the special importance of the noun and the verb. Students can see that the system is simple, with six minor parts supporting two major parts. 325Y THE PARTS OF SPEECH $10.00 THE NUCLEUS OF THE CLAUSE

A poster that displays the elegant essence of clauses. 3277 THE NUCLEUS OF THE CLAUSE $10.00

A PLACE FOR THE ADJECTIVE

Shows the presence of the parts of speech within the parts of sentence, with emphasis on the opportunity for the adjective to be a subject complement. 3284 A PLACE FOR THE ADJECTIVE $10.00 THE COMPLEXITY OF THOUGHT

Shows the parts of speech, parts of sentence, phrases, and clauses in a single sentence. 3291 THE COMPLEXITY OF THOUGHT $10.00 WRITING IS THINKING

Shows that writing good sentences is a form of higher-order thinking. 3307 WRITING IS THINKING $10.00 THE BEAUTY OF THE BALLAD

Reveals the simplicity and formal clarity of the ballad. 3314 THE BEAUTY OF THE BALLAD $10.00 16


THE ART OF LANGUAGE ARTS POETRY IS EVERYWHERE

Shows the intense use of alliteration, stanza, rhyme, assonance, consonance, and metaphor. 3321 POETRY IS EVERYWHERE $10.00 SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT

“They must agree, or the sentence is dead,” the poster declares, and illustrates with “The man are here”! 3338 SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT $10.00 THE VERB IS THE SWITCH

Illustrates the potential of a verb to be either an action or linking verb, with the resulting flow to direct objects or subject complements. 3345 THE VERB IS THE SWITCH $10.00 PRONOUN USAGE

Illustrates Thompson’s Law: A subject is a subject, and an object is an object. 3352 PRONOUN USAGE $10.00

CLAUSE PUNCTUATION

Illustrates the logical simplicity of clause punctuation. 3369 CLAUSE PUNCTUATION $10.00

PARTS OF THE SENTENCE

Highlights the divide between the subject and predicate, and illustrates the flow from action verbs to direct and indirect objects, and from linking verbs to subject complements. 3260 PARTS OF THE SENTENCE $10.00

Language Arts Posters:

The full set of twelve language arts posters may be purchased for $100.00 (which saves $20.00 on purchasing them individually) plus shipping. 325S LANGUAGE ARTS POSTERS (17” x 22”) SET OF 12: $100.00 The mini-posters set of thirteen is $25.00 plus shipping. 6324 MCT HOMESCHOOL LANGUAGE ARTS POSTERS SET OF 13: $25.00


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HOMESCHOOL PACKAGES To make your ordering easier and save you money...

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e have created packages consisting of books that complement one another and, when studied together, make a complete English language arts curriculum.

Complete packages consist of a student book and a parent/teacher manual for each part of the curriculum. This is the way Michael Clay Thompson intended his books to be used— for the child to read in the student book and for the parent to raise Socratic questions based on the boxes or bullets in the manual. With the exception of the practice books, these are not workbooks, but books to be read with concepts as well as competencies for the child to absorb—hence also the emphasis on the look and presentation of the material in the student books and the desire that each child should have his or her own student book. Basic Packages contain only the parent/teacher manuals for the most part, except where you absolutely need a student book. This enables you to implement the curriculum but diminishes the Socratic element of the implementation. However, sometimes economies have to be embraced wherever they can be found. Even in this configuration, in which the students are working out of the teacher manual and have access to the teaching materials, it is still possible to raise the Socratic questions yourself and to pursue them with your children.

MCT LEVEL 1: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Island, Building Language, The Music of the Hemispheres, Sentence Island, Practice Island H03C Price: $220.00 Special Price: $190.00 MCT LEVEL 1: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Teacher manuals: Building Language, The Music of the Hemispheres, Sentence Island. Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Island, Practice Island H03B Price: $160.00 Special Price: $150.00 MCT LEVEL 2: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Town, Caesar’s English 1, Building Poems, Paragraph Town, Practice Town H04C Price: $220.00 Special Price: $190.00 MCT LEVEL 2: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Teacher manuals: Caesar’s English 1, Building Poems, Paragraph Town. Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Town, Practice Town H04B Price: $160.00 Special Price: $150.00 MCT LEVEL 2: CLASSICAL EDUCATION HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Town; Caesar’s English 1, Classical Education Edition; Building Poems; Paragraph Town; Practice Town H04E Price: $260.00 Special Price: $205.00 18


HOMESCHOOL PACKAGES MCT LEVEL 3: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and teacher manuals: Grammar Voyage, Caesar’s English II, A World of Poetry, Essay Voyage, Practice Voyage H05C Price: $220.00 Special Price: $200.00 MCT LEVEL 3: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Teacher manuals: Caesar’s English II, World of Poetry, Essay Voyage. Student book and teacher manual: Practice Voyage, Grammar Voyage, H05B Price: $155.00

Special Price: $145.00

MCT LEVEL 4: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 1, The Word Within the Word 1. Student books and teacher manuals: Poetry and Humanity, Advanced Academic Writing 1, 4Practice 1 H06C Price: $205.00 Special Price: $180.00 MCT LEVEL 4: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 1, The Word Within the Word 1. Teacher manuals: Poetry and Humanity, Advanced Academic Writing 1. Student book and teacher manual: 4Practice 1 H06B Price: $155.00 Special Price: $145.00 MCT LEVEL 5: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 2, The Word Within the Word 2, Advanced Academic Writing 2. Student books and teacher manuals: Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty; 4Practice 2 H07C Price: $190.00 Special Price: $165.00 MCT LEVEL 5: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 2, The Word Within the Word 2. Teacher manuals: Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty; Advanced Academic Writing 2. Student book and teacher manual: 4Practice 2 H07B Price: $145.00 Special Price: $130.00 MCT LEVEL 6: COMPLETE HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 3, The Word Within the Word 3. Student books and teacher manuals: Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth; Advanced Academic Writing 3; 4Practice 3 H08C Price: $190.00 Special Price: $170.00 MCT LEVEL 6: BASIC HOMESCHOOL PACKAGE

Student books and homeschool parent answer manuals: The Magic Lens 3, The Word Within the Word 3. Teacher manuals: Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth; Advanced Academic Writing 3. Student book and teacher manual: 4Practice 3 H08B Price: $145.00 Special Price: $135.00 “I find the materials extremely rich and imaginative. The language is just such a treat. Thanks, Michael, for your work and dedication to providing appropriate and beautifully crafted materials for our special students.” —Connie Bernard, B.A., English Literature, founder of the Yahoo homeschoolers’ discussion forum for Michael Clay Thompson, MCT LA Michael Clay Thompson 19



THE SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH SERIES: Statements of Equality

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s companion books to the vocabulary, grammar, poetics, and writing programs of Michael Clay Thompson, the Self-Evident Truth series looks at the three great American statements of equality and shows how language can change the world. These books not only serve as important insights into American history and culture, but they also show students the pay-off for the intensive study of language: how grammar is truly a “magic lens” into thought; how word choice can be a matter of meter; how the authors use vocabulary to establish meaning and impact; and how Jefferson, Lincoln, and King used grammatical devices for rhetorical effect. Wonderful books that cross over into English, social studies, and history, they are a fascinating read in themselves. Nothing shows the true brilliance of the three authors like a detailed analysis of their use of language.

JEFFERSON’S TRUTHS

The Declaration of Independence is a revolutionary document. Its function was to announce to the world that the war in progress in North America was revolutionary in aim. During the centuries that followed, it has proven to be a statement that has changed the world, and one that men and women have tried to live up to. In this book, Thompson shows just how revolutionary were the concepts of the Declaration by relating them to the ideas of the Enlightenment, and he then focuses on the language and grammar to announce that revolution. He contrasts the extraordinary, dignified tone of the Declaration with other more inflammatory language used in the Revolutionary War, and he shows precisely how Jefferson used grammar and vocabulary to achieve the ends he sought. On July 4, 1776, King George III wrote in his diary: “Nothing of importance happened today.” It was not simply by chance that he was wrong about it. A great deal of thought and effort went into making him wrong about it. Thompson shows that students can understand the brilliance of Jefferson’s execution of Congress’ charge to write the Declaration of Independence. 6546 JEFFERSON STUDENT BOOK $12.99 6554 JEFFERSON TEACHER MANUAL $12.99

LINCOLN’S TEN SENTENCES

This is a classic Thompson tour de force. Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, on that bloody battleground, a solemn ceremony was held to dedicate for the National Soldiers’ Cemetery the seventeen acres where Confederate and Union soldiers had fought and lost their lives in the battle that decided the unity of the United States. The North’s most scholarly and illustrious orator, Edward Everett, was to give the major address, sharing the platform with Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, who had been invited formally to set apart the grounds for their sacred use “by a few appropriate remarks after the oration.” Compared to the esteemed Everett, the press had been portraying Lincoln as a “baboon” and as having an “untutored” mind. Lincoln’s formal education totaled only one year.

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Lincoln’s address lasted somewhat more than a minute. He used only ten sentences, 267 words. Although it was not a poem, he used poetic devices to increase the power of his words. So perfect was Lincoln’s speech that Everett, who was a past U.S. Senator, President of Harvard, and Phi Beta Kappa poet, requested a copy of it from Lincoln, saying, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” In Lincoln’s Ten Sentences, Michael Clay Thompson thoroughly explicates the noble “Gettysburg Address” and introduces the reader to accomplished poet Abraham Lincoln, his use of detail, word sound by controlled vowels and consonants, impact of a spondee, and strategic grammar, diction, and vocabulary. Lincoln’s choice of words, repetition of key words, use of words that the common people would understand, use of alliteration, and repetition of the pronoun we are all explored. 6503 LINCOLN STUDENT BOOK $12.99 6511 LINCOLN TEACHER MANUAL $12.99

FREE AT LAST

This examination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech looks at the poetry, grammar, and vocabulary of the most important modern statement of America’s commitment to the equality of its citizens. Free at Last examines how powerful emotion is built up by repeated ideas and words, how King’s vision of the future and great call to freedom was achieved by carefully chosen vocabulary and word pictures conjured by metaphor, by the poetics of meter, alliteration, and assonance, and by other carefully selected grammatical devices. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. Its purpose was to draw attention to the injustice of segregation and to push for jobs and economic equality. The statue of Lincoln was chosen as the backdrop for the speeches, and Dr. King began with the words that echoed the beginning of the Gettysburg Address: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…but one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free.” 652-X ML KING STUDENT BOOK $12.99 653-8 ML KING TEACHER MANUAL $12.99


OTHER WORKS By Michael Clay Thompson CLASSICS IN THE CLASSROOM

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ere is a mother-lode of material for parents and teachers who want their children to benefit from education in classics and original source material. Thompson believes that classics are part of the heritage our civilization offers; they are part of being civilized. Classics help us to equip our children with preferences for subtlety, complexity, curiosity, equality, honesty, harmony, and humanity, and they can help to inoculate them against stupidity and cruelty and inspire them with the love of thought. Once they are comfortable with ordinary educated language, children love classics and prefer them to forgettable books. A classic is not a best-seller for a winter; it may sell well for 30 or 300 or 3,000 winters! Children who read classics delight in good ideas, characterization, depth, complexity, word play, originality, cleverness, and imagination as much as adults do. Even the very young love to be read to. Classics in the Classroom features a list of 1,300 classics for readers in kindergarten through graduate school. Arranged alphabetically by author, it includes comedy, tragedy, adventure, drama, children’s stories, poetry, philosophy, and history. It is cross-referenced to other distinguished reading lists and indicates books that are prize-winners. 2206 CLASSICS IN THE CLASSROOM $14.99 Special Price: $12.99

THINKERS hinkers is a guided tour through a vast array of great works and the minds behind them. It provides the inspiration and enthusiasm that will encourage student readers, as well as adult readers, to learn to think about thinking and the way the mind works. In each chapter, Thompson discusses an author’s work and life, providing quotes from the work and valuable insight into the mind behind the creation.

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THE CONTENTS INCLUDE 21 ESSAYS: 1. C harles Van Doren’s A History of Knowledge 2. Sir Kenneth Clarke’s Civilisation 3. Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone 4. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time 5. George Eliot’s Middlemarch 6. Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Creators 7. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

8. F yodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment 9. Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists 10. James Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed 11. A C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy 12. Ellen Foster’s Kaye Gibbons 13. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter 14. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

15. W alt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass 16. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening 17. E ugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night 18. Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World 19. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar 20. Bill Gates’s The Road Ahead 21. The Narrative of Frederick Douglass

2184 THINKERS $14.99 Special Price: $12.99

CLASSIC WORDS n extraordinary book! Michael Clay Thompson spent more than a decade recording the words used in great classic literature and the instances of their use. There are separate chapters for many of the most important words: countenance, profound, manifest, serene, sublime, prodigious, acute, clamor, exquisite, languor, grotesque, condescend, allude, odious, placid, incredulous, tremulous, visage, singular, venerate. The book ends with a list of the 100 most frequently used words in the classics.

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2192 CLASSIC WORDS $9.99 Special Price: $8.99

THE HEART OF THE MIND ssays on educators and education, giftedness and gifted education, thinkers and thinking, artists and creativity, writers and literature, philosophers and thought. In the more than forty essays in this book, Michael Clay Thompson covers a wide array of topics, many of them of fundamental importance to educators of gifted children. Topics include: Multiple Intelligences, Depth, Fourth Graders and Trilobites, Rembrandt, Gifted and Learning Disabled, The Problem of Problem Solving, Grouping, Gifted Hispanic Children, Is Gifted Education Elitist?, Choice, Leadership, Respect for Intuition, Is It Legitimate to Specialize in Gifted Education?, Grammar for Gifted Kids, Special Populations, Gifted Kids: A Misunderstood Minority, and much more.

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2419 THE HEART OF THE MIND $14.99 Special Price: $12.99

Michael Clay Thompson 21



OTHER WORKS BY MICHAEL CLAY THOMPSON THE SESQUIPEDALIAN NEOLOGIST’S LEXICON

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his book is an amusing compendium of words made up from Greek and Latin stems. It is a wonderful book for those who love vocabulary and an excellent bonus for children working in the Word Within a Word program. 1749 THE SESQUIPEDALIAN NEOLOGIST’S LEXICON $7.99 Special Price: $5.00

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RELATIVITY, QUANTA, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

his discussion is an extended reflection on the foundational findings of modern physics in terms of the implications they may have for a quite different phenomenon: human consciousness. It is an interdisciplinary and personal probe into possible synthetic connections that may be discernible between the nature of science and the nature of awareness. If Einstein was right about space-time, and Planck was right about the quantum of action, what do these theories imply about what human consciousness is? If we set aside supernatural explanations during the discussion and accept the terms of theoretical physics as valid, we must ask: What is consciousness made of? How does it come about? In what sense are these very questions examples of space-time and quantum mechanics in action? The conclusion is profoundly Socratic. 8052 RELATIVITY, QUANTA, AND CONSCIOUSNESS $14.99 Special Price: $9.99

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THE CONCEPTUAL DIALECTIC

his book is Michael Clay Thompson’s contribution to the debate in gifted education about content versus process, about the importance of facts and the need for concepts in the development of gifted children. In it, he offers a much-needed discussion of the development of concepts in the education of the gifted as well as how and when to introduce them. 2427 THE CONCEPTUAL DIALECTIC $9.99 Special price: $7.99

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CLASSICAL EDUCATION EDITIONS OF CAESAR’S ENGLISH CAESAR’S ENGLISH I

CLASSICAL EDUCATION EDITION

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s part of our commitment to a truly exceptional language arts curriculum, provided especially for those engaged in classical education, we are offering an alternative, expanded edition of Caesar’s English I. The Classical Education Edition comes in two volumes, each containing 192 pages of new material, activities, and photographs. The content is traditionally structured into twenty language lessons, each layered with reinforcing activities. The underlying structure reinforces the grammar underpinnings of the entire curriculum. Each quarter of this edition relates the vocabulary to one of the four levels of grammar analysis. Vocabulary is not simply words; it is the use of words in place, and that place is grammar. Furthermore, the poetics form an appreciable part of each lesson. And the literature is there, far more than children are going to see in any other text, and far more than they are going to comprehend fully at this age. But it is there so that they can begin to develop a familiarity with great writers, ancient and modern. This edition expands the material devoted to the Ancient World, including a score of maps, word searches, a ten-part biography of Julius Caesar, and poems by Michael Clay Thompson. There are contributions from Myriam Borges Thompson to increase the emphasis on the relationship between English and Spanish and to add a new consideration of the feminine experience of Ancient Rome. There are fifteen new essays by Dr. Thomas Milton Kemnitz on Roman architecture and construction methods, columns, roads, and buildings. The whole is buttressed by more than 100 photographs of the world that was Rome. 4649 CAESAR’S ENGLISH I: CLASSICAL EDUCATION, STUDENT $40.00 Special Price: $25.00 4656 CAESAR’S ENGLISH I: CLASSICAL EDUCATION, TEACHER $45.00 Special Price: $35.00

A Classical Education Edition of Caesar’s English II will follow. Take advantage of special packages and prices for all books published by Royal Fireworks, either by using the Order Form or by purchasing online from our website: rfwp.com

The website also has the latest information about new titles, as well as articles, videos, and downloads about our books and about education.


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Companion Poetry Anthologies

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oyal Fireworks Press is pleased to offer two companion poetry anthologies to help you make the most of the poetics series. These include, in their entirety, all of the poems studied in the textbooks, and they are to be used as instructors’ reference books. The publication of these anthologies is due to requests from teachers, parents, and students who have asked for a convenient collection of complete poems in cases where the poetics textbooks contain only a stanza or a line. With these two books, you have access to more than 200 of the most memorable poems in the English language, chosen personally by Michael to illustrate not only the techniques of poetry, but also the beauty of the English language. In his introduction, he gives insights into why he chose some of the poems, and into some of the themes he explores in his insightful and inspiring poetics series. Level One covers the poems in the elementary textbooks The Music of the Hemispheres, Building Poems, and A World of Poetry. Level Two includes the poems in the upper, secondary level: Poetry and Humanity; Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Beauty; Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth.

7879 COMPANION ANTHOLOGY: ELEMENTARY $12.50 7886 COMPANION ANTHOLOGY: SECONDARY $17.50

“Now I can focus with passion as well as reason on why we should study poetics. It is a wonderful program.” — Leslie Lawner, Roswell, New Mexico 24


The Design and Appearance of the Royal Fireworks Press Language Arts Curriculum By Michael Clay Thompson

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ichael Clay Thompson not only wrote the curriculum, he designed all of the books. And he is a genius at using design. He understands the relationship of ideas to presentation. In the first chapter of The Music of the Hemispheres, the reader immediately is imbued with the sounds of the language from just looking at the book. Thompson does not make words fit on a page. He makes ideas and understanding fit on pages, and those ideas and understanding are presented in ways that other publishers would deem highly inefficient. There is a lot of white space. Letters bleed off the page. If Thompson has a few simple concepts, he does not try to force them together onto one page to squeeze a few dollars out of the cost of manufacture. He is concerned with making certain that the child gets it and enjoys understanding it. He does not cut corners on ideas. Thompson tends to use a soft blue as well as various shades of gray. The blue and gray are calming colors, an influence to slow down the child’s metabolism and allow him or her to respond to the written word and presented image. Thompson avoids colors like orange that tend to raise metabolic levels and influence children toward a more frenzied response to stimulus. A calm child is a child who can take the time to learn, and this is the state in which MCT wants his readers. So many textbook publishers simply splash a primary palette across the page as though that is where the child’s concentration should focus. Their aim is to grab the attention, and the result is that they disrupt learning rather than enhance it. Thompson uses art, not cartoons or simple illustrations, to engage children. Art is more imaginative, more opening, more welcoming, more friendly. Art engages the imagination and encourages the child to respond creatively. Cartoons and illustrations too often present a closed reality; there is no place to go once the picture has been viewed for a few seconds. It is not so with art. When MCT uses photographs, they are often very openended and can take the child to worlds where the imagination can roam. MCT is always looking to engage at the level of Socratic questions, and repeatedly he employs art toward this end. The art that Michael Clay Thompson uses, for the most part, is by Milton N. Kemnitz (1911-2005), an American artist who began painting when he served aboard ship during World War II. Milton Kemnitz had a lifelong love of ships, and he did hundreds of drawings and paintings of ships, ports, harbors, and maritime hardware. Thompson uses many of these paintings and drawings in the Voyage series. Kemnitz had a keen eye for buildings and urban landscapes. Growing up at a time when the car was just beginning to replace the horse and when few buildings rose more than six stories, he appreciated a human scale of architecture, one that did not overwhelm people or make them feel small and insignificant. He devoted much of his later life to painting buildings that he felt should be preserved and protected. At his death, he was described as the person most responsible for the appearance of Ann Arbor, Michigan, his hometown. Many of the buildings depicted in the Town series are in Edinburgh, Scotland; Brighton and London, England; and Amsterdam, Holland. Milton Kemnitz owned an island in Georgian Bay, Canada, and he spent part of every summer painting there until the last years of his life. The images in the Island series and most of his wildlife art come from his time on the island. Sentence Island and Paragraph Town are the ultimate in the use of art to engage creativity and imagination in the service of learning some of the most basic concepts of writing. They are, fittingly enough, also the ultimate in the use of storytelling for the same purpose. Thompson is able to go way beyond the concepts of more prosaic texts because he is engaging the child at so many levels. He has used book design just as he has used storytelling in the service of pedagogy at a level so far beyond what we are used to that many adults miss what is transpiring. But so many children respond with enthusiasm! The proof is always in the learning, and with Michael Clay Thompson, the children learn and love it.

Homeschoolers and parents are invited to join the group: RFWPSUPPORT.com You can Join our email list from our website: rfwp.com Michael Clay Thompson 25


H I S T O R Y U N I T S

ANNOUNCING A NEW CURRICULUM

Problem-Based Learning Units By Dr. Shelagh A. Gallagher

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r. Shelagh A. Gallagher is a nationally recognized expert in gifted education. She is a two-time winner of the NAGC Curriculum Division Award for exemplary curriculum. Her problem-based learning unit Excluded! won this award in 2000. Problem-based learning immerses students in real-world, complex situations. While searching for a solution, children simultaneously learn content and improve their skills in research, higherorder thinking, decision making, and more. They leave the experience more motivated and better educated. PBL emphasizes critical thinking skills, understanding, learning how to learn, and working cooperatively with others. Students must go beyond their textbooks to pursue knowledge in original resources. Each unit requires: The Resource Book of original papers, speeches, and photographs of the period, Problem Logs for students to record work, and a Teacher Manual describing how to conduct the project, how to develop problem-solving skills, and how to lead students into considering all sides of a historical situation. The three units in the series align directly to core social studies content, outlined in the National History Standards, and integrate the themes of individuals, groups, and institutions from the curriculum standards of the National Council for the Social Studies. PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING IN YOUR HOMESCHOOL

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his is a practical guide to implementing problem-based learning. It is useful background guide to the PBL units. 8616 PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING IN YOUR HOMESCHOOL $20.00 Special Price: $15.00

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EXCLUDED!: CHINESE IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES NAGC CURRICULUM AWARDWINNER

tudents investigate how and why the Chinese Exclusion Laws came into being from the vantage point of a Congressman from California. They consider what reasonable limits can or should be placed on immigration in a country that urged, “bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses….” They draw parallels to contemporary immigration issues. They find out why Chinese immigrants first came to America, the rate of Chinese immigration, changing attitudes toward Chinese immigrants, the initial Chinese Exclusion Law, and Supreme Court decisions. 4557 EXCLUDED PROBLEM LOG $5.00 4571 EXCLUDED RESOURCE BOOK $15.00 4564 EXCLUDED TEACHER MANUAL $25.00 4564S UNIT SET PACKAGE $45.00

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History Units

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY: CHILD LABOR IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

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tudents take on the role of members of the National Child Labor Committee. Presented with photographs from Lewis Hine, they launch into questions about the extent and nature of child labor, its differences in industry and agriculture, the background of the children, existing regulations, and more. The unit culminates as the students present their recommendations at a Congressional Hearing. 4595 ALL WORK PROBLEM LOG $5.00 4618 ALL WORK RESOURCE BOOK $15.00 4601 ALL WORK TEACHER MANUAL $25.00 4601S UNIT SET PACKAGE $45.00

H I S T O R Y U N I T S

BLACK DEATH NAGC CURRICULUM AWARDWINNER

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he plague comes to Europe. Students put themselves in the role of 14th-Century Italians in a small town, knowing that the plague is coming and trying to decide what to do about it. In the end, the Bubonic Plague killed so many Europeans that it brought about the collapse of the feudal system.

7206 BLACK DEATH PROBLEM LOG $5.00 7213 BLACK DEATH RESOURCE BOOK $15.00 7195 BLACK DEATH TEACHER MANUAL $25.00 7195S UNIT SET PACKAGE $45.00

History Units

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S H E L A G H A G A L L A G H E R

FERRET IT OUT: A PROBLEM ABOUT ENDANGERED SPECIES AND ANIMAL ECOSYSTEMS

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he first science unit in the PBL series! Ferret It Out: A Problem about Endangered Species and Animal Ecosystems.

The black-footed ferret is the most endangered mammal in the US. Students are placed on a recovery team whose job is to assess whether Fort Collins, Colorado is an appropriate site to re-introduce ferrets that were bred in captivity. In the process they learn about biomes, habitats, human-animal interaction and many other science concepts. Ferret It Out was pilot-tested in several sixth grade classrooms throughout Fairfax County, Virginia. The unit is aligned to national and regional middle school social studies objectives An Appendix details the alignment of Ferret It Out to National Science 5-8 Content Standards, Common Core Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects Grades 6-8, Common Core Writing Standards, and Speaking and Listening Standards in Language Arts.

4779 FERRET IT OUT PROBLEM LOG $5.00 4755 FERRET IT OUT TEACHER MANUAL $35.00 4755S UNIT SET PACKAGE $40.00

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SHELAGH A. GALLAGHER

HULL HOUSE: LIVING DEMOCRACY IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA NAGC CURRICULUM AWARDWINNER

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his unit immerses students in the study of the Progressive Era through a specific problem faced by the Board of Directors of the Hull House in Chicago, the landmark Settlement house. Jane Addams, Hull House co-founder, has lobbied for labor reform and as a result a prominent Chicagoan has threatened to withdraw financial support. Hull House had been planning to start programs to improve health, advocate for better working conditions, provide educational programs, support better juvenile justice, and improve housing. Now there is funding available for only one of their projects. Students, as the Board of Directors, must decide which project to fund. As they consider their options, they learn about the living and working conditions of America’s immigrant poor through the study of primary resources, letters, cartoons, and newspaper articles (many provided in the Resource Book). Using guided discussions and graphic organizers in the Teacher Manual, they synthesize this information as they compare the consequences of a variety of social ills. In doing so they will uncover underlying issues and prejudices and discover the inequities of the time. Hull House was pilot-tested in several sixth grade classrooms throughout Fairfax County, Virginia. The unit is aligned to U.S. History Content Standards for Grades 5–12; National Council for Social Studies Teaching Standards; Common Core Reading Standards for Literacy/Social Studies; Common Core Writing Standards; National Center for History in the Schools. 4700 HULL HOUSE PROBLEM LOG $5.00 4724 HULL HOUSE RESOURCE BOOK $15.00 4717 HULL HOUSE TEACHER MANUAL $25.00 4717S HULL HOUSE UNIT SET PACKAGE $45.00

A FINAL APPEAL: THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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teacher has been fired for using To Kill A Mockingbird in her class. She sued the district and lost. Now she is appealing to a district court, and the students, as members of the court of appeals, must decide the case. Based on an actual court case, A Final Appeal instructs students in the nuances of the First Amendment. Framed around the concept continuity, students learn how court decisions are made as they address the same questions facing real judges. What speech is protected and what is not? What are the rights of employers and employees? What is the role of stare decicis, the rule that compels judges to follow precedent cases? Students also learn about the structure of the US court system—and they read To Kill A Mockingbird, too! A perfect unit for middle or high school government courses, Language Arts, or, interdisciplinary instruction. This aligns with the curriculum standards in Fairfax County, Virginia, the district for which the unit was written. Other frequently banned novels could be substituted). 7312 FINAL APPEAL PROBLEM LOG $5.00 7329 FINAL APPEAL RESOURCE BOOK $15.00 7305 FINAL APPEAL TEACHER MANUAL $25.00 7305S UNIT SET PACKAGE $45.00

SHELAGH A. GALLAGHER

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S H E L A G H A G A L L A G H E R

N A T U R E

PARENTING AND FAMILIES

NATURE STUDY FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY AN AWARD-WINNING AND HIGHLY INSPIRATIONAL BOOK

By Laurel M. Dodge

“…t

he wonders of nature and wonders of childhood are artfully intertwined.” The first book in our new Nature Study Curriculum introduces the idea that all families, wherever they live, can explore their neighborhood and find a “wild spot” to study and observe the changing seasons. With wonderful illustrations and examples, Laurel Dodge writes with passion and sensitivity. She explains how you can record and identify what you find, how to go at a pace appropriate for children to connect with what they see, how to stay safe, how to cooperate with others, and how to develop nature study as an enriching part of family life. The author, who homeschools her two children, writes from a lifetime of experience of exploring nature as a child and later with her family, and also as an expert in environmental studies. She writes in the book: “The nature lore you discover with your children today may be passed down as a precious gift to your grandchildren in years to come.…The strongest influences on children’s lives are the actions and values of their families. A family that demonstrates its values by getting outside, getting moving, and getting engaged with nature teaches compassion, conservation, and curiosity with every step. It is up to you to show your family what you value.” “Laurel Dodge loves nature as she does her children. What makes this book special is that the wonders of nature and wonders of childhood are artfully intertwined. Laurel makes each experience in the wild a personal one, bringing the reader along on the walk and making it all the more meaningful.” —Lynn Hamlen, Executive Director, Darien Nature Center, CT 8106 NATURE STUDY FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY $20.00 Special Price: $15.00

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Nature

GEMINI: GIFTED EDUCATION MANUAL FOR INDIVIDUALIZING NETWORKS OF INSTRUCTION

By Dr. Christine L. Lewis, Sheila M. Buckley, and Cathy Sarvat

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his is a wonderful resource for parents homeschooling exceptional children. Gemini relates thinking to behavior, and it enables parents to understand both good and bad behaviors, providing a framework in which to understand children’s strenghts and weaknesses to the thinking skills that lie behind them. Gemini provides a structure for understanding a child’s thinking in terms of four cognitive and two affective structures. The cognitive areas are Independent Study, Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Communication; the affective areas are Personal Growth and Motivational Development. These areas are divided into 23 networks, which are the framework for 449 behaviors. The authors have organized gifted education into networks of instruction that provide a useful tool. In the cognitive domain, the Independent Study section has three areas: Research, Problem-Solving, and Organization. The Critical Thinking area includes Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The Creativity section includes Fluency, Flexibility, Originality, and Elaboration. The Communication section is divided into Verbal, Non-Verbal, Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Listening. The affective domain includes Personal Growth, with Coping with Failure, Decision-Making, Self-Concept, and Critical Acceptance. Motivational Development includes Curiosity, Imagination, Risk Taking, and Complexity. In each of these 15 cognitive areas and eight affective areas, the authors have provided behaviors that students will show to demonstrate their comfort and their abilities. These 449 behaviors provide objectives that every educator—and homeschooling parent—should be attempting to develop. Individualization: The structure provided by Gemini enables teachers and administrators to assess the particular characteristics of a student. On that basis, individual needs can be identified, and programs can be developed to meet them. Gemini is used by coordinators, curriculum directors, teachers, and authors for the development of curriculum for gifted students. It is a wonderful tool for assessing the thinking abilities and progress of each and every gifted child, and it ought to be part of the library of every serious homeschooling parent. 0158 GEMINI $15.00 Buy Gemini with Pegasus at a combined price of $25.00 (code: 0220).

PEGASUS: PROVIDING ENRICHMENT FOR THE GIFTED: ADAPTING SELECTED UNITS OF STUDY

By Dr. Christine L. Lewis, Sheila M. Buckley, and Marjorie A. Cantor

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egasus is the practical companion book to Gemini: Gifted Education Manual for Individualizing Networks of Instruction. It provides six lesson units with strategies to develop the behavioral objectives listed in Gemini: 1. Independent study skills are developed by a 41-lesson unit on oceans. 2. Critical thinking skills are taught in a 37-lesson unit on revolution. 3. Creativity is fostered in a 38-lesson unit on clothing and dress. 4. Communication skills are developed in a 56-lesson unit on humor. 5. Personal growth skills are enhanced in a 38-lesson unit on origins. 6. Motivational development is fostered by a 52-lesson unit on the future. Pegasus provides an excellent example for serious homeschooling parents in how to design instruction to develop the behaviors and skills you want in your children. 0174 PEGASUS $15.00 Buy Pegasus with Gemini at a combined price of $25.00 (code: 0220).

Go to RFWP.COM for a full list of nearly 1,000 titles, plus curricula and downloads. Resources

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R E S O U R C E S

R E S O U R C E S

HOW TO BUILD A CHILD’S CHARACTER BY TAPPING INTO YOUR OWN

By Dr. Stephen Birchak

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or teachers, counselors, parents, and mentors, this inspirational and important book sets out principles and strategies for creating happy human beings, whether they be members of your own family or of the school community. The experience-based results are increased cooperation, less aggression, and improved relationships. The book shows how to examine your own relationships and character, help children develop valuable life skills, free children of the biggest obstacles to success, find the secret to making more quality time, reduce stress in daily life by tapping into your own resources, deal with conflict—even in very young children, teach collaboration in place of aggression, learn three steps to change paths of incivility, and develop five mental skills to guarantee a resilient personality. 6652 HOW TO BUILD A CHILD’S CHARACTER BY TAPPING INTO YOUR OWN $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

THE JERK WHISPERER

By Dr. Stephen Birchak

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n a world frequently filled with hostility, anger, and rage, how can we build healthier lives for ourselves and our loved ones? A Jerk Whisperer is a mindful individual who extends kindness when confronted with incivility. A Jerk Whisperer has the ability to live a peaceful, compassionate, and stress-free life and can be assertive while still having a calming effect on others. This remarkable book from an inspiring teacher will give you new insights and help you to discover the ten essential skills that will enable you to remain calm, kind, and productive (even when others are not); unearth the secrets to permanently rid your life of petty obsessions, imaginary crises, resentment, and revenge; recognize the six most common reactions to Jerks (and how these reactions rob our energy); understand the eight most paralyzing myths related to mean and cruel behavior. If you have more than one crisis a month, you need to re-evaluate your life! So said Dr. Birchak’s son, Nick, when co-presenting with his father. This book is movingly dedicated to his memory. Dr. Stephen “Bird” Birchak, the original and master Jerk Whisperer, is a professor, dynamic speaker, father, husband and reformed class clown. He is internationally acclaimed for his presentations and motivates thousands of people each year. A leader in character development and conflict resolution, he combines optimism with humor to bring a hopeful message. 3946 THE JERK WHISPERER $12.99

By John F. Cullicott

BOYS SHOULD BE BOYS

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he author has worked with boys and young men for more than 30 years. He sees boys as needing the kind of support and advice that he believes girls and young women traditionally have had. He believes that there are answers to the questions: Why are there so many unhappy boys? Why are so many boys sullen, frustrated, hostile, and confrontational? Why are others thriving and happy? His answers, and solutions, deserve to be heard. They involve helping boys make good early choices, empowering them to make choices rather than reacting, and helping them to build self-confidence and to learn to take responsibility for their actions. He discusses male parenting and tackles the topic of “anxiety failure,” the culture of competitive sport, and how they impact growing boys and young men. 5361 BOYS SHOULD BE BOYS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

PARENT POINTS

By Amy Maid Burke

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arent Points, a home-friendly book designed for parents, provides low-key, educationallyoriented activities to do with children. Focusing on topics certain to interest the children (such as chocolate), it offers a variety of easy, fun-to-do activities that foster the children’s expanding thinking-reasoning skills, math and writing abilities, imagination, and creativity. Twenty topics, each with 12 fun activities, change learning into play using common things found around the house. 224X PARENT POINTS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Resources

AESOP’S FABLES: MY BOOK ABOUT READING, WRITING, THINKING, VOLUMES I — IV

By Dr. Kathryn T. Hegeman

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he series emphasizes reading, writing, thinking, speaking, values, decision making, parts of speech, grammar, visual interpretation, creative expression, and life skills. Designed for early reading, writing, and thinking, the Aesop’s Fables program provides a year’s worth of enrichment. Each of the volumes contains 11 different fables. The reading level increases from 2.1 in Volume I to 4.3 in Volume IV. Each fable receives four pages: one for illustration, one for the text of the fable, and two for language arts activities. Every fable includes sentence writing, new vocabulary, and an opportunity to color. The laminated books measure 8.5” x 11” and are bound on the short side so they are easy for young readers to use. VOLUME I: FABLE ACTIVITIES The Goose with the Golden Eggs The Two Frogs The Bald Man & the Fly The Boy & the Filberts The Old Man & His Sons The Dog & the Shadow The Boy Who Went Swimming The Frog & the Ox The Travelers & the Bear The Lion, the Fox, & the Beasts The Miser & His Gold

Nouns Verbs Nouns & Verbs, Drawing Design, Labels, Capitals Concern for Others, Synonyms Opposites, Prediction, Drawing Signs, Safety Rules Noun, Verb, Adjective Visualization, Adjectives Paragraph, Story Alphabetizing, Dictionary Usage

0514 AESOP’S FABLES, VOL. I $7.99 Special Price: $5.99

VOLUME II

The Ass in the Lion’s Skin The Fox & the Lion The Gardener & His Dog The Ant & the Dove The Wolf & the Goat The Town Mouse & the Country Mouse The Fox & the Cat The Man & the Wood The Shepherd Boy & the Wolf The Frogs that Desired a King The Fox & the Grapes

Sentence Structure, Story Visualization Questioning Evaluation, Lists Problem Solving, Letter Writing Play Writing, Story Visualization Letter Writing Prepositions Categorizing, Story Writing, Visualization Sequencing, Punctuation Description, Alphabetizing, Encyclopedia Usage Creative Problem Solving, Story Writing, Days of Week

0522 AESOP’S FABLES, VOL. II $7.99 Special Price: $5.99 VOLUME III

Hercules & the Wagoner The Lion & the Mouse The Tortoise & the Hare The Mice in Council The Woodsman & the Serpent The Peacock & Juno The Crow & the Pitcher The Fox, the Rooster, & the Dog The Fox & the Crow The Tree & the Reed Androcles & the Lion

VOLUME IV The Two Crabs The Rooster & the Pearl Mercury & the Woodman Mercury & the Sculptor The Lioness Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, & Momus The Ant & the Grasshopper The Farmer & the Nightingale The Milkmaid & Her Pail The Hares & the Frogs The Porcupine & the Snakes

Directions, Possessive Apostrophes Rewriting Sentences, Identifying Nouns, Verbs, Questions Compound Words Adjectives, Rhymes, Poetry Storytelling with Moral, Title Description, Story Writing Writing Names, Initials Puppet Show, Announcement Writing Evaluation Listening & Talking Questions & Answers

0530 AESOP’S FABLES, VOL. III $7.99 Special Price: $5.99

Visual Imagery, Homonyms Evaluation, Adverbs Pronouns, Classification Characterization, Writing Advertisements Written Invitation, Spelling Series with Commas Contractions, Apostrophes, Visualizing a Setting Classification, Sensory Perceptions List Making, Story Writing Calendars, Alphabetizing, Reference Works Creative Problem Solving, Directions

0549 AESOP’S FABLES, VOL. IV $7.99 Special Price: $5.99

English Language Arts

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e n g l i s h l a n g u a g e a r t s

e n g l i s h l a n g u a g e

SUPPOSE THE WOLF WERE AN OCTOPUS: A GUIDE TO CREATIVE QUESTIONING FOR ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY LITERATURE By Myrna Kemnitz his resource enables parents to use literature to develop children’s thinking abilities. It provides carefully structured questions for appropriate children’s literature. • Designed to develop critical and creative thinking through elementary-grade literature • Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, with multiple questions for each level • Covers fiction and nonfiction REVISED AND EXPANDED TO COVER GRADES K–7 IN FOUR VOLUMES: • Volume 1: Grades K – 2 • Volume 2: Grades 3 and 4 • Volume 3: Grades 5 and 6 • Volume 4: Grade 7 Each one of the volumes explores the rationale for creative questioning in the teaching of literature. Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy’s six levels of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, each volume provides multiple questions for each level. The volumes cover about 50 literary works each, providing a brief synopsis of the novel before the questions. Story synopses and taxonomy questions act as literature lesson previews for: • parents who wish to teach thematically and are seeking appropriate materials • parents who might not be familiar with a literary work and find comfort through the questions about it that it is indeed a piece to be included for their children The K—2 book has three questions at each level, the 3 to 4 book has four questions at each level, and the 5 to 6 and the grade 7 books have additional questions at the higher levels of thinking.

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SUPPOSE THE WOLF WERE AN OCTOPUS K–2 contents: (Order # 2478, $14.99 each)

Five Chinese Brothers Three Billy Goats Gruff Three Wishes Story of Babar the Little Elephant Little Red Riding Hood Puss In Boots Three Little Pigs Goldilocks and the Three Bears Sleeping Beauty Hansel and Gretel A Birthday for Frances Story of Ferdinand Frog and Toad Together Arrow to the Sun Town Mouse, Country Mouse Sylvester and Magic Pebble Junie B. Jones is a Beauty Shop Guy Marvin Redpost: Alone Cobble Street Cousins: Some Good News Mary Maroney: Chocolate Dingoes at Dinnertime: Magic Tree House Pee Wee Scouts: Planet Peewee Get the Picture, Jenny Archer? Littles and the Lost Children Bailey School Kids: Dragons

Stone Soup Cinderella Helga’s Dowry: A Troll Love Henny Penny Six Foolish Fishermen Rumplestiltskin Jack and the Beanstalk Pied Piper Emperor’s New Clothes Star Boy Fisherman and His Wife Amelia Bedelia The Tooth Fairy Is Broke! What Mary Jo Shared Blind Men and the Elephant Curious George Eli Alexander and the Terrible... Island of the Skog It’s So Nice to Have a Wolf Amber Brown Sees Martha Ann and the Mother Bunnicula Strikes Boxcar Children: Stolen Sword Baby Sister’s Little Sister: Karen’s...

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Sarah, Plain and Tall Charlotte’s Web Pippi Longstocking The Computer Nut TV Kid Velveteen Rabbit See You Around, Sam! Aldo Ice Cream Amelia Bedelia Helps Out

How the Camel Got His Hump Encyclopedia Bown Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears Otherwise Known a Sheila the Great George’s Marvelous Medicine Help! I’m a Prisoner in the Library Max and Me and the Time Machine Miss Pickerell on the Trail Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic

Elephant Child Charlie and Chocolate Factory James and the Giant Peach Mr. Popper’s Penguins Ramona the Brave McBroom Tells the Truth B is for Betsy Purple Coat Case of the Midnight Visitor Cricket in Times Square

Freckle Juice Stuart Little Superfudge Blubber All of a Kind Family Elephant Child Freaky Friday Amelia’s Notebook Class Clown Busy Body Nora

Sixth Grade Can Really Kill Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst Wrestling Game How to Eat Fried Worms Bridge to Tarabithia Great Gilly Hopkins

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Summer of the Swans Danny, Champion of the World Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth and Me, Eliz... Love, From the Fifth Grade Celebrity Sign of the Beaver Lady or the Tiger? Inexperienced Ghost

Then Again, Maybe I Won’t Adventures of Tom Sawyer Death Be Not Proud Wrinkle in Time From the Mixed Up Files... Black Beauty Strange Little Prince

Black Stallion A Girl Named Al The Outsiders Ben and Me Call of the Wild Kid Power The Cay

Witch of Blackbird Pond Scarlet Letter Where the Red Fern Grows The Count of Monte Cristo Island of the Blue Dolphins Nadia of the Nightwitches White Fang

Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban A Day No Pigs Would Die The Hobbit The Old Man and the Sea Billy Budd Legend of the North The Slave Dancer Troubling a Star A Midsummer Night’s Dream Treasure Island A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court The Diary of Anne Frank Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

SUPPOSE THE WOLF WERE AN OCTOPUS 3–4 contents: (Order # 2486, $14.99 each)

a r t s

SUPPOSE THE WOLF WERE AN OCTOPUS 5–6 contents: (Order # 2494, $14.99 each)

SUPPOSE THE WOLF WERE AN OCTOPUS: 7 contents (Order # 2443, $14.99 each) Lyddie Ivanhoe Rebecca Sounder Redwall Going Solo


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INTELLIGENT LEARNING: THINKING & WRITING A three-year course in which students learn the skills for successfully completing expository writing assignments

By Faith Waters, Margaret MacMullen, and John Glade

I

ntelligent Learning: Thinking & Writing has been field-tested with junior high school students and has been particularly successful with students who lack the skills, the confidence, or (as is so often the case with accelerated learners) the patience necessary to think through and complete problems and assignments, and for students who block when asked to write. The program’s flexibility allows it to embrace remedial to gifted children. Suggestions for remedial and general use, with adaptations for use with the gifted, are included. The program accomplishes the following: • Students learn the thinking skills and strategies used by competent writers, problem solvers, and readers. • Students learn how to use the parallels between the processes of problem solving and of writing. • Students become aware of and learn to monitor and control each stage in the thinking/writing process. • Students learn the differences between private and public writing and how to use each effectively. • Students learn to respect their own and others’ learning styles and how to use each others’ strengths. • Students evaluate their own initial strengths in problem solving and writing and learn how to apply the strategies they use in those areas to their less comfortable areas. The total Intelligent Learning: Thinking & Writing program is divided into three teacher’s guides and three student books. In both the teacher’s and the students’ texts, Book One deals primarily with problem solving and leads into writing. Book Two continues the work in writing. Book Three focuses on more sophisticated thinking skills and helps students take a significant step forward in their writing. In Book One students are taught a process for solving concrete problems, including the recursive stages of planning, doing, and reviewing. They learn strategies under the categories of carefulness and flexibility that apply to each stage of the process. As they master the problem-solving process, they develop thinking skills and strategies that they can apply usefully to the writing process. In Book Two students transfer the process and strategies they learned in the context of problem solving to writing. They are able to apply the same terminology and approaches to writing assignments. In addition, they learn specific skills needed for successful expository writing: how to organize and write coherent paragraphs, how to use details to provide accuracy and completeness, and how to use vivid descriptions. In Book Three students learn more sophisticated thinking skills and strategies needed to write more complex essays. They learn how to ask effective questions; to formulate, test, and refine theories; to spot inconsistencies in their reading; and to avoid inconsistencies when they write. They expand their own capacity to understand an issue and to incorporate the ideas of others into their thinking. And they learn techniques for gathering and using data. The two final writing assignments call for outside research, asking students to formulate opinions and theories, to test them by using new information, and to express and support their conclusions. Teacher guides for each book give abundant teacher support for the key instructional elements and suggested teaching strategies for each activity. Purpose and sequence are made clear through unit overviews, chapter introductions, and chapter summaries. Student texts support the students by providing direct instruction of thinking/writing skills and strategies and assignments to complete. Intelligent Learning engages students in actual practice. It provides a carefully structured, fully described curriculum, which allows for a great deal of flexibility and teacher adaptation. 0203 INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK ONE—STUDENT $7.00 0211 INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK ONE—INSTRUCTOR $10.00 022X INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK TWO—STUDENT $7.00 0238 INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK TWO—INSTRUCTOR $10.00 0246 INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK THREE—STUDENT $7.00 0254 INTELLIGENT LEARNING BOOK THREE—INSTRUCTOR $10.00 210S INTELLIGENT LEARNING COMPLETE 3-YEAR COURSE $40.00


35



GUIDE TO LITERARY TERMS

By Marjie Giffin and Mary Ann Yedinak

T

he authors describe this useful handbook as a “toolbox” of vocabulary for literary analysis. They list and define hundreds of terms that are used to study and appreciate literature and give wide-ranging examples of where they occur. The sections cover the forms and genres of literature, an introduction to style, literary movements and periods, and film studies and media literacy. There is a comprehensive index, making the book useful for all students of English literature. 3994 GUIDE TO LITERARY TERMS $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

EDUCATIONAL PLAY: LANGUAGE ARTS

By Deborah Valentine

A

compendium of more than 50 games and activities that parents, teachers, or mentors can play with children to increase their language arts skills. The games cover the full range of skills and subject matter: poetry and prose, spelling, grammar, verb tense, parts of speech, memorization, critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, creativity, elaboration, flexibility, reading for speed and comprehension, creative writing, plays, skits, short stories, interviewing techniques, vocabulary, etc. An added bonus for parents are the 25 games that can be played in a car. 1707 EDUCATIONAL PLAY: LANGUAGE ARTS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

rfwp.com 36


JASON & MEDEA

“With both a strong hero and heroine, boys and girls alike can enjoy this classic tale of love and loyalty, danger and adventure, respect, magic and bravery.” —Children’s Literature By Linda Cargill

V

ictorious in the battle of his life, but set up by the king to be slaughtered with his Argonauts rather than be rewarded as promised, Jason was brave enough to attempt to steal the Golden Fleece against all odds. His people desperately needed its favor and wondrous bounty. But without Medea’s help, Jason had no mere mortal hope of getting the Fleece and bringing it home. Medea would have to betray her family and her own people to save the golden giant among men whom she came to love. Together they would face the wrath of her father and his army and take on the gods. But to what personal end? This Medea is unlike the Medea most of us have come to know, the dark murderess of Euripides of Classical Greece (500-400 BC), when the religion of the Sky God Zeus had taken over. Cargill’s Jason & Medea is set in Mycenean Greece (about 1250 BC), a time when God was a She. Medea follows her goddess Hecate. This is not the typical male interpretation of history or myth. Novel Type Based on the Argonautica or The Voyage of the Argo of Apollonius of Rhodes, Cargill’s Medea isn’t Adventure, just a witch; rather, she is a human being who loves and hurts just as we do. For her love, she has Classical Mythology betrayed her family, has set out for an uncertain future in an unknown land, and must somehow Primary Audience Boys/Girls reconcile her love for a man with her love of her homeland. From Medea’s point of view and intelInterest Level ligence, the reader sees the world of ancient Greece and experiences her anguish, motivations, and 13 yrs & up aspirations. She is believable, as are the novel’s other characters. Jason & Medea showcases the combination of Linda Cargill’s love of the classics and literature and her talent in fine-tuning an action-packed, spirited page-turner. Her lyrical language comes from her trained ear from reading the ancients. Her storytelling craft has been honed in more than 20 young adult horror and suspense novels, one of which has sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide. 5485 JASON AND MEDEA (157 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Thomas O. Jones

LORD OF THE GEATS

H

ere is the famous Beowulf story, retold for the young adult reader. Like the original AngloSaxon manuscript, it is divided into three parts. The first section narrates Beowulf’s battle against Grendel. The second section tells of the furious revenge of Grendel’s mother, an ageless monster with indomitable will who lives in a dark green, murky sea, which the Danes believe to be bottomless, and who can stalk and kill with her son’s savage power. This section is often left out of retellings. The third section shows the great hero in his declining years. It almost never appears in retellings. Herein, Beowulf is an old man. It is decades after his assistance to King Hrothgar, and Beowulf is back home among the Geats as their chosen king. His final battle shows his new method in fighting. Youthful speed and strength have been replaced with cunning, deception, and strategy. There are moments when his strength revives. His opponent is an aging dragon who now flies slowly Novel Type and awkwardly but can still shoot down enough fire to imperil the Geats’ kingdom. Aging hero faces Classic literature, aging monster in an early-day twilight of the gods, with displays of valor and chivalry before those Beowolf terms were known. The dragon breathes streaks of lethal fire but suffers shortness of breath. The Primary Audience heavy scales on his body provide excellent armor but tend to tire him. While flying, he notices small Boys/Girls birds passing him. The two opponents feel a grudging respect and realize their era is ending, no matInterest Level ter who wins their relentless duel. 15 yrs & up Thomas Jones, award-winning author from Michigan, has translated the Beowulf poem from the original Anglo-Saxon and now combines scholarship with the spellbinding force of a great epic tale. Mr. Philip Helms, editor for the American Tolkien Society, says of this work: “Mr. Jones’s retelling of the Beowulf epic transforms the ancient, heroic poem into a gripping adventure story for young adults. Not just an exciting read, his novel will prove a valuable aid to the young reader’s appreciation of the original classic, and a well-crafted tool for those who would open the original to the younger student.” Mr. Jones has published creative writing in more than 50 quarterlies. 1757 LORD OF THE GEATS (158 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99


37


S P A N I S H l a n g u a g e a r t s

SPANISH ACTIVITY BOOKS BY CARI SKIER

T

his collection of brightly colored books, some with music CDs, will help young children learn Spanish. Songs, activities, counting, games, and recipes are included in each book. In keeping with the philosophy that all children can learn a second language, the activities allow opportunities for success while providing practice and reinforcement of skills. Cari Skier is a teacher, writer, and illustrator who brings a joyful, fresh, and yet rigorous approach to early language learning.

EXPLORING SPANISH THROUGH CULTURE

A

collection of folk art projects, games, and simple recipes that offers a taste of Spanish and Latin American traditions. Children respond with enthusiasm and excitement as they begin learning about the culture. Make colorful figures like the whimsical traditional toys of Mexico, or an Aztec picture calendar, or a dancing skeleton. A Guatemalan Worry Doll is fun to make, as is a poncho to wear. Gazpacho, guacamole, tortillas, and fruit punch are easy recipes. The games range from simple spiral hopscotch to the Mexican Hat Dance. Great fun. Through research as well as extensive travel in Spain and Latin America, the author has gathered the materials distilled here to make them accessible to teachers and their students. 8137 EXPLORING SPANISH THROUGH CULTURE $15.00 Special Price: $10.00

FIESTA! A SPANISH COUNTING BOOK

A

colorful and joyful counting book for fiesta time written and illustrated by the author, with an accompanying CD of music performed by Miguel Lascarez and Francisco Hernandez Rojas. 8151 FIESTA! A SPANISH COUNTING BOOK $15.00 Special Price: $12.00

SILLY SONGS IN SPANISH

T

his is a delightful book and CD—a collection of 24 songs and sayings that introduce basic Spanish vocabulary with the help of music, rhythm, and of course, silliness. Children respond with excitement and laughter as they learn. By means of tunes, which are recognizable and easily learned, children naturally embrace the language with ease and enjoyment. The illustrations provide visual cues to the meaning of the songs. Fundamental understanding is enhanced with the addition of movement, masks, and puppets. Some of the songs are adaptations of familiar folk tunes, and others are original material. 8113 SILLY SONGS IN SPANISH $20.00 Special Price: $15.00

INTERACTIVE SPANISH: LESSONS FOR EARLY LANGUAGE LEARNING

T

his activity book (of 135 pages) is designed to enhance and supplement any Spanish language program. Based on the knowledge that comprehensible input is essential to second-language acquisition, the activities use visuals, manipulatives, games, and songs for hands-on learning. Such a variety of approaches also responds to the need to appeal to all learning styles in a standardsbased curriculum. The book is organized thematically, with a number of activities in many areas most commonly found in curricula for early language learners. What makes the book unique is that the teacher is provided with several reproducible pages that feature valuable visuals and labels to introduce reading. With the help of these pages, students will be able to create manipulatives that can be used to support communicative activities. Student directions are given in Spanish to allow the teacher to use the language as the project is introduced and modeled. 8120 INTERACTIVE SPANISH: LESSONS FOR EARLY LANGUAGE LEARNING $25.00 Special Price: $15.00

38

Spanish Language Arts

A SIMPLE GUIDE TO SCREEN PRINTING

By Vidabeth Bensen and Barbara Forshag

S

creen printing is a simple, enjoyable, and cost-effective method of creating multiples of original artwork. Artists and teachers will benefit personally and professionally from following the explicit and easily understandable steps in A Simple Guide to Screen Printing. The authors guide you step by step through the printmaking process. You will learn how to print your own designs on paper, cards, banners, and T-shirts and create original prints for framing. The materials are inexpensive, and teachers can use screen printing to enrich almost any area of their curriculum. Vidabeth Bensen as been screen printing since her college days and has developed the simple methods described in this book. Barbara Forshag joined her in a workshop several years ago and has been screen printing ever since. Vidabeth and Barbara conduct classes at the University of Connecticut every summer, guiding teachers from all over the world on how to use screen printing for their own enjoyment and in their school programs. You will be amazed at the results you can obtain after following the steps in this book. 6803 SIMPLE GUIDE TO SCREEN PRINTING $20.00 Special Price: $15.00

Creative Problem Solving THE TOOTH FAIRY IS BROKE

Story by John Robbins

Art by Rae Owings

fter years and years of reimbursing boys and girls for their lost teeth, A Myrtle, the Tooth Fairy, has run out of money and is forced to seek financial aid from the king of the fairies, King Oberon, who is disinterested in

her plight and no help at all. Refusing to disappoint the children around the world and determined not to be a failure, Myrtle is forced to rely upon herself and problem solve. No longer a svelte, flighty fairy, middle-aged Myrtle has experienced life and knows something about people’s natures and what makes them happy. She takes stock of her options and opportunities. The toothless gutter trolls! Myrtle presents a mutually beneficial idea to the interested king of the gutter trolls, King Hogard. Not mentioning her own financial problem, she deals from Novel Type Self-Esteem, a position of strength; the toothless trolls are unhappy, having teeth would make them happy, Relationships, and she can supply the troll kingdom with teeth for a fair price. That she has an endless supply Humor of teeth remains her secret. Myrtle successfully refinances her Tooth Fairy coffers with a selfPrimary Audience perpetuating, fair financial solution. Boy/Girls Writer John Robbins and artist Rae Owings have teamed as co-directors and co-hosts of Interest Level 5-8 yrs two highly successful PBS television series, Gather ‘Round and Telltales, and six of the stories for The Gentle Giant, in which a version of The Tooth Fairy Is Broke appeared. Until recently, Rae had been the Artist in Action at concerts for young people with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Fairfax Symphony at Wolf Trap, and others, sketching on large panels of paper as music is played. The Tooth Fairy Is Broke is a John Robbins signature classic, full of warmth, wit, and insight wrapped in a fantasy that tickles the funny bone of young and old alike. Owings’s full-color drawings bring Robbins’s characters to life. 5698 THE TOOTH FAIRY IS BROKE $14.99 Special Price: $9.99

Art • Drama • Music

39

A R T • D R A M A • M U S I C

A R T • D O N A L D Painting

awing

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t right is a list of av a ai a lable subjects. The list willl be added to periodical w ally an a d can a be fo f und n our website: rfw fwp.com

This original Sumi and watercolor painting done in impressionist style designed for a plate. The flowers and leaves are a little more than just indicated.The three butterflies are a strong color contrast and are painted with greater detail than the rest of the painting. Butterflies come in an infinite variety of colors. At right are some to practice from.

ox 399 399, Unionville Unionville, NY 10988 [email protected]

WPCOM WP.COM

Learn all about the materials and equipment you need to know about before starting your first paintings: brushes and pencils, watercolors and palettes, frames and easels, light sources and the usefulness of a camera. A useful guide for starting out as an artist. 8380 BEFORE THE FIRST BRUSHSTROKE $35.00 Special Price: $25.00 HOW TO DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE How to Draw a Straight Line

©

Written and illustrated by

Donald Skier

Donald Skier shows how to draw objects more accurately by reducing them to simple shapes such as rectangles, cones, circles, and ovals. Learn to draw and paint with the techniques professionals use, with tips that will immediately improve the drawing and painting of anyone, child or adult.

Draw a objects more accurat a elyl by reducing them to simple shap a es such as rectan a gles, cones, circles, an a d oval a s.

ROYAL FIREWORKS PRESS

Saililboats S t Butt tterflies Two ex Tw examp m le l s of wo w rk rkbook pages

#1 Lands d ca capes ##2 Lands d ca capes # Lands #3 d ca capes # Lands #4 d ca capes B rn Ba r s and Ol Old Bui uildings Boats t Bui uildings Butt tterflies C rs Ca r and Tr Trucks Flowe Fl wers Impre Im r ss ssionis i ts t Lig ighth t ous u es M re Mo r Ba B rn r s S ililboats Sa t S ace Sp Sti till Lif ife SumiSu i E Pa P in i ti ting

e are pleased to announce a new curriculum designed to empower children as artists. BEFORE THE FIRST BRUSHSTROKE

No 00

ENT OK SUPPLEM WORKBO


LANDSCAP

00

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HOW TO DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE

ION No

S K I E R Drawing

SPPACE

LARGE 11 X 17 INCH FORMAT

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BY DONALD SKIER

SKIER


ENT SUPPLEM

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NEW ART CURRICULUM

T

8250 HOW TO DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE $35.00 Special Price: $25.00

hese 17 workbook supplements are low-cost ($3.00) companion practice pads. Because of their size and packing requirements, there is a minimum order of five copies, in any combination of titles. These workbooks are 11” x 17” and have basic instructions, as well as five pre-printed practice sheets and five blank pages on which to paint or draw. They are without hard backing and are stapled along the 17” side. Go to our website for details and ordering. Books on the great artists Cezanne, Gauguin, and Vermeer are the next books in the series. 8281 ART WORK PAD: LANDSCAPES 1 Price: $3.00 8298 ART WORK PAD: LANDSCAPES 2 Price: $3.00 8304 ART WORK PAD: LANDSCAPES 3 Price: $3.00 8267 ART WORK PAD: STILL LIFE Price: $3.00 8274 ART WORK PAD: BUTTERFLIES AND FLOWERS Price: $3.00 8311 ART WORK PAD: BUILDINGS Price: $3.00 8328 ART WORK PAD: BARNS AND OTHER BUILDINGS Price: $3.00 8335 ART WORK PAD: BARNS 2 Price: $3.00 8342 ART WORK PAD: CARS AND TRUCKS Price: $3.00 8359 ART WORK PAD: BOATS AND SHORELINE BUILDINGS Price: $3.00 8366 ART WORK PAD: SAILBOATS Price: $3.00 8373 ART WORK PAD: LIGHTHOUSES Price: $3.00 ROYAL FIREWORKS PRESS

Painting

Watercol

ors with

a Sponge

To paint in follow the watercolor using a previous principa small, natural shape;

sponge, ls. Roughly then and branches outline the horizon, andindicate the branches . The branches tree paper towel, the foreground. Dab . Paint in the sky, the should look like they would need not connect with a crumple light dab in the and let dry. Then be connecte but d up tree source, and use a with leaf clumps, d. Choose darker green and the branches leaving spacea natural sponge, a on one side to show through. lighter green underside of some for of the clumps mixed with Finally, paint the sky and the tree directly some yellow of leaves. Use a in the trunk facing the to beneath the light source. do the side of tree. Add a shadow

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

52

“I have seen many books on drawing and painting over the 45 years I have been teaching, and How to Draw a Straight Line is one of the best of its kind.” —Jerrold Schoenblum, Professor of Art, City University of New York 40

Donald Skier

HOW TO COMPOSE MUSIC: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO COMPOSING, ARRANGING, AND ORCHESTRATION

By Bob B. Ashton and Nancy L. Colbaugh

“C

an you help me write a song?” This question, frequently asked by musical children and by adults who themselves simply want to write songs, is finally answered by How to Compose Music. The manual provides all the information an aspiring songwriter needs and may be entered at any level of difficulty. It even provides a 15-minute quiz to help determine a musical local or starting point! A separate workbook is available.

Table of Contents: Part I Where Do I Start? The Basics You Should Know to Write a Song Dividing Your Song into Measures Idea People, Song Writers, and Composers Developing Your Inner Ear Intervals Defining the Scale “Hearing” a Melody in Your Mind Part II Is There Only One Method by Which We Can Compose? Composing by Sight Steps, Skips, and Leaps in Melody Writing What Goes Up Must Come Down A Good Pattern Is Worth Repeating Sequence...It’s Much Like a Pattern but Has a Slightly Different Twist What Beings Must End The Need for a Cadence within a Song Part III Rhythm...Where Composing Music Really Counts At Lease One Million Melodies Waiting to Be Discovered

Part IV Writing the Lyrics to a Song Are We Certain We Understand Rhyme? What about Using Free Verse in Lyrics? One Other Thing...Accented Beat The Lyric as a Tool for Note Placement Composing by Lyric Enlarging the Scope of Lyric Writing Composing by Use of a Counter Melody...Or Partner Song The Blues...The Loosest Form of Lyric and Melody Composing a Fugue Part V Writing the Accompaniment: Introducing the Models Models...Fitting Your Song in a Form March Model Sacred Model Standard 32-Measure Popular Song Model Folk Song Model Simple Orchestration...Its Component Parts Transposition...What Is It? Composing and Arranging with the Voice (or Voices) in Mind Some General Hints for Vocal Arranging

6113 HOW TO COMPOSE MUSIC MANUAL $9.99 6113A HOW TO COMPOSE MUSIC WORKBOOK $10.00 Special Price: $7.00

Art • Drama • Music

41

A R T • D R A M A • M U S I C

c r e a t i v e p r o b l e m s o l v i n g

CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING PROGRAM By Dr. Kathryn T. Hegeman, Dr. Thomas Milton Kemnitz, and Anne Kaye

T

he complete problem-solving program consists of Levels A, B, and C student activity books and 8.5” x 11” picture cards. For Levels A and B, the cards picture an age-appropriate, real-life problem on the front, and material for the parent on the back, which includes a story to read, vocabulary, questions to stimulate problem solving, and extension activities. The student book pictures the same illustrations, with activity pages to analyze the problems and develop solutions and scenarios of their results. The last two pages include instruction in essential skills.

Level C is a quantum leap to a more sophisticated level of problem solving, with a great deal of emphasis on problem definition and implementation of solutions. On this level, the pre-teen confronts high-interest, adolescent-type situations and enters a more sophisticated problem-solving atmosphere. An “Eleven-Step Problem-Solving Plan” is introduced. It is designed to ensure a problem solver’s careful follow-through before actions are undertaken. A complete introductory lesson using the plan is included. The student learns to work with the Flow Chart, the Pert Chart, and the Milestone Chart. Substantial extension activities are provided for each problem. The laminated wall poster of the Eleven-Step Problem-Solving Plan is particularly appropriate for this age-level of student. The picture card/workbook format of the program allows parents flexibility in instructional method; activity books require more student writing; picture cards lead to more discussion-oriented lessons. The books and cards may be used independently or in combination. Level A: (K-2)

045X CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING CARDS (16 cards) $25.00 0433 WHAT TO DO? STUDENT MANUAL (48 pp.) $7.99

Level B: (Grades 3-4) 0883 CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING CARDS (15 cards) $25.00 0891 WHAT TO DO? STUDENT MANUAL (48 pp.) $7.99 Level C: (Grades 5-6) 7004 CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING CARDS (16 cards) $25.00 7012 WHAT TO DO? STUDENT MANUAL (48 pp.) $7.99 Grades K-2 What to Do?

Grades K-2 Picture Cards

A Student Activity Book

(16) Set A with lesson plan on back

Grades 3-4 What to Do?

Grades 3-4 Picture Cards

B Student Activity Book

(15) Set B with lesson plan on back

Grades 5-6 What to Do?

Grades 5-6 Picture Cards

C Student Activity Book

(16) Set C with lesson plan on back

PUZZLES AND PROJECTS FOR BRIGHT SCHOLARS

By Rita Hogan Keuten

F

un, original, and challenging, this book will give your students a chance to get their brains fired up after the day’s lessons have finished. It offers a selection of puzzles, word activities, and projects for children, especially those in grades 3-6. If you are a classroom teacher, you probably have a wide range of students with an even wider range of abilities. Do you have children who work quickly and want something extra to do? Do you have gifted children who are looking to get their educational needs met? Get their brain connections fired up with these puzzles and activities. Give them an opportunity to think outside the “easy” box. Rita Hogan Keuten says: “Interesting, challenging, fun education was a way of life in the schools where I taught. Even though I had many high-achieving students, all of my classes had children of varying abilities. These children were, and in my heart always will be, my scholars.” 9028 PUZZLES & PROJECTS FOR BRIGHT SCHOLARS $7.50

42

Creative Problem Solving

ADVENTURES ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIERS A CLASSROOM LIBRARY ADVENTURE SHELF OF 20 EXCITING AMERICAN HISTORY VOLUMES FOR YOUNGSTERS IN GRADES 3 TO 5

E

BY EDITH MCCALL

ach book takes a biographical approach to a different aspect of American history and presents several biographical stories within that aspect. These are not cut-and-dry biographies, rather they are exciting, history-based stories of real people in real situations. Each book gives its young readers a historically correct picture of the men and women who made America. Adventures on the American Frontiers provides both reading and social studies enrichment and is perfect for those educators seeking materials for interdisciplinary instruction. The books are printed on acid-free, recycled paper using vegetable-based inks. Each has been formatted for the elementary reader with open spacing and clear artwork. Drawings appropriately illustrate the stories, and the final volume, Space: The Race to the Moon, is documented with many full-color photographs.

These are the 20 books:

Heroes of the Western Outpost

Adventures of the Mail Riders

Adventures on the Waterways

Adventures of Exploring the New World

Adventures of Taking Wagons Over the Mountains

Adventures on Steamboats to the West

Adventures of Pioneering on the Plains

Stalwart Men of Early Texas

Adventures of Cowboys on Cattle Drives

Adventures of the Early Trappers and Traders

Gold Rush Adventures

Adventures of the First American Colonists

Adventures of Pioneer Show People

Adventures of Pirates and Privateers

Hunters Blaze the Trails

Adventures of Men on Iron Horses

Log Fort Adventures

Forts in the Wilderness

Adventures Along the Cumberland Gap

Space: The Race to the Moon

FRON1 The complete set of 20 volumes, one of each title, is $120.00 A single copy of a title is $7.99. Following is a listing of the 20 books and their specific story contents.

Adventures on the American Frontiers

43

a d v e n t u r e s o n t h e a m e r i c a n f r o n t i e r s

a d v e n t u r e s

ADVENTURES OF PIONEER SHOW PEOPLE The Drake Players Go West The Drake Boat Show Moves On Tom Rice, Father of the Minstrel Show The Chapman Showboat Ralph Keeler, Minstrel Boy Doc Spaulding and the Floating Palace Annie Oakley and the Wild West

o n

3025 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

t h e

FORTS IN THE WILDERNESS

a m e r i c a n f r o n t i e r s

ADVENTURES OF PIRATES AND PRIVATEERS Peter Francis Buccaneer Henry Captain Kidd Blackbeard’s Capture Stede Bonnet, Landlubber Pirate Silas Talbot, Heroic Privateer 3017 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

STALWART MEN OF EARLY TEXAS

LaSalle Meets the Illinois Indians First Fort in the Wilderness Tonty Faces the Iroquoi The Fort Atop the Rock Pontiac in the Illinois Country Gunpowder to Win the West Stars and Stripes Over the French Forts

Cabeza de Vaca, Captive on the Land Escape of the Captives La Salle Lost and Shot by Traitors The Austins Come to Texas Houston, Bowie, Crockett: Texas Heroes Lone Star Republic of Texas 3165 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99


ADVENTURES OF THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONISTS Thirty Hungry Frenchmen Angry Indians at Fort Caroline Spaniards at St. Augustine Mystery at Roanoke Island Man Who Saved Jamestown Capture of John Smith Foothold in Virginia Mayflower Driven to New England Plymouth Stands Firm 3041 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

ADVENTURES OF EXPLORING THE NEW WORLD Westward to a New World Search for Seven Cities River in the Wilderness New Lands for France Canoe Trip to Battle Search for the Northwest Passage The Half Moon on the Hudson Up the Wide Missouri Sea of Salt Search for the Buenaventure Mapping the Westward Trails 3084 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

44


ADVENTURES ON STEAMBOATS TO THE WEST Before the Steamboat Steam Fights the River The River Fights Back The Man Who Wouldn’t Give Up Shipwrecked by a Buffalo Indians on the Martha The Cannon Roars at Powder River Buffalo Bill Rides the Far West Snakes on the Yellowstone The Work Is Done 3173 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

ADVENTURES ON THE WATERWAYS Davey Crockett and the Ring-Tailed Roarer Mike Fink, King of Keelboatmen Mrs. Trollope’s Trip to Memphis Jim Garfield, Canalboatman Ralph Keeler, Cabin Boy Sam Clemens, Cub Pilot The Cub Takes Over Race of the Lee and the Natchez 3033 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

LOG FORT ADVENTURES Forts in the Wilderness James Ray’s Narrow Escape Captured by Indians Tricks on the Trail The Rescue Capture at the Salt Licks Little Shut-His-Eyes Daniel Boone’s Escape Simon Kenton, Lifesaver The Long, Long Trail 3130 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

GOLD RUSH ADVENTURES Long Trip to Sutter’s Fort Governor Colton Buys a Pick Forty-Niners Struggle Across Country Horace Greely Sends Taylor via Panama J. Goldsborough Bruff Fights His Way West Bruff’s Year-Long Trip Ends Borthwick Finds Gold with a Paintbrush 3106 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99


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ADVENTURES OF COWBOYS ON CATTLE DRIVES

ADVENTURES OF THE EARLY TRAPPERS AND TRADERS George Groghan, King of the Packhorse Trail Manuel Lisa on the Missouri The Bent Brothers The Santa Fe Trail Trader Kinzie Abe Lincoln, Trader

Charlie Goodnight’s Story James Cook’s Story Tom Smith’s Story Will Rogers’ Story 3068 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99


ADVENTURES OF PIONEERING ON THE PLAINS

ADVENTURES ALONG THE CUMBERLAND GAP

Hamlin Garland, Boy of the Prairie Moving Day Cabin at the Edge of the Woods Plowboy of the Prairie Journey to the General Store Pioneers Against the Plain Howard Ruede, Kansas Sod-Buster Howard Finds His Claim All’s Well that Ends Well At Home in a Dugout

Tomas Batts Finds the Great Warrior’s Path Gabe Arthur Walks the Warrior’s Path Thomas Walker Follows a Buffalo Trace Washington and the French Indian Washington and the Wild Allegheny Peddler with a Pack of Dreams Boone’s Long Hunt, Big Trouble Boone Stopped by Indians Wilderness Road


305X $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

ADVENTURES OF TAKING WAGONS OVER THE MOUNTAINS We’ll Be There with Bells On From Boone’s Lick Road to Santa Fe Indians Who Would Not Go Away Marcus Whitman Takes Wheels to Oregon John Bidwell’s Giant Step to California Alec Major’s Wandering Oxen Billy Cody, Wagon Boy 3181 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

ADVENTURES OF THE MAIL RIDERS Paul Revere, Cross-Country Carrier Michigan Mail Boy Butterfield’s Overland Mail Mules Against the Overland Mark Twain Rides the Central Pony Bob on the Long Trail The Pony Goes Through Billy and the Blizzard 3149 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

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HUNTERS BLAZE THE TRAILS

SPACE: THE RACE TO THE MOON

Davy Crockett, Bear Hunter Davy, the Bear, and the Pit Beaver Trappers in the Rockies Fitzpatrick’s Adventure Kit Carson, Man of Courage Buffalo Hunter in the Making Bill Cody and Brigham Buffalo Bill Wins His Name

By Tom Kemnitz, Jr. Background Game Plan to the Moon Our First Sub-Orbital Manned Flight: Alan B. Shepard, Jr. An American Hero: Orbiting John Glenn, Jr. Tragedy at the Test Site for Apollo 1 Apollo 11: Giant Steps to the Moon Apollo 12: Moon Travelers’ Merrymaking Apollo 13: The World Waits at Three Minutes and Counting After Apollo, What? The 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99


ADVENTURES OF MEN ON IRON HORSES

“The readers’ space journey begins with the launchings of U.S. weather satellites in 1957 and continues through America’s manned space shuttles in the late 1980s. The policies, technologies, setbacks, and triumphs of the U.S. space program are described in simple context, including the three stages designed to land a man on the moon and return him to Earth safely. Kids will enjoy the information about gravity, the moon’s surface, and astronaut training and qualifications. They will relive the excitement when a radio broadcast of the first U.S. sub-orbital manned flight is broadcast over an elementary school public address system. The obstacles and danger that space travelers confront are evident as the deaths of three astronauts at the test site for Apollo 1 are recounted. This tragedy and America’s perseverance and subsequent achievement inspire readers. For example, the author captures America’s excitement, relief, and pride when the Apollo 13 crew is brought home safely. The chapter focusing on Apollo 12’s trip to the moon is written by Al Bean, the fourth man on the moon. His self-deprecating humor is amusing. The third-person narrative and well-organized chronology make the book easy to follow. Cold War, Communism, and Democracy are defined early on, when the backdrop for the space race is established. Many color photographs of the moon and astronauts bring history to life. It is an informative and fun book that will spark discussions in science or American history classes; or recommend it to astronaut-wanna-bes for pure enjoyment. Some enthusiastic readers will want to delve deeper into the topic of space travel.” —Todd Moning, Children’s Literature

Peter Cooper’s Horse and a Half William Brown Rides the Dewitt Clinton Stubborn Hamil and the Jumping Stick William Ogden’s Iron Pioneer Ed Clark’s Record Run to the Pony Express J. McIntosh Opens the Throttle on His War Horse Real Indians in Lincoln’s Dream Straight Rails and Circling Indians Crocker’s Pets Carve a Mountain Leland Stanford Hits the Golden Spike 3157 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99

HEROES OF THE WESTERN OUTPOST The First Fort in the West John Colter’s Race for Life Joe La Barge, Missouri River Boy The Hero of Bent’s Fort Long Journey to the Fort Jim Bridger, Mountain Man The Wagon Train Raid The Boy Who Saved Fort Kearney Wild Bill Hickok, Army Scout 3114 $9.99 single copy Special Price: $7.99


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H I S T O R I C A L

TAKING CONTROL

By Ann Love ulian, a schoolboy on a trip to a museum, meets Mr. Callisthenes, who offers to teach him about Alexander the Great—a hero who is nothing more than a name to most modern children. They are to go back in time to visit Alexander at various points in his lifetime. In the first episode, Alexander shows his father, King Philip, that he understands horses better than his elders. In the second vignette, Philip is assassinated, and Alexander becomes ruler. Julian witnesses Alexander going to Troy, honoring Achilles, and making his claim as Achilles’s successor. Julian is at the Battle of Issus when Alexander defeats Darius, King of the Persians, and begins to subdue the Persian Empire. Julian comments on the taking of Tyre and the slaughter. He sees Alexander going to consult the Oracle of Ammon in Siwa, and he and his sister Melanie are present when Darius is killed, when Alexander decides to return to Macedonia, and when he dies. This is vivid history!

J

Novel Type History, Action, Adventure

9988 TAKING CONTROL (157 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Primary Audience Boys/Girls

N O V E L S

Interest Level 8-12 yrs

TINYACHA’S QUEST

By Thomas O. Jones his is a retelling of ancient American folklore of the native Wallas Indians, long before the Spanish came to Peru. They inhabited western Peru centuries even before the Inca culture rose to pre-eminence. A fantastic adventure, it is the tale of Tinyacha, a drummer boy in his early teens, and it is set at the time of the festival honoring Wallala, the chief god. Tinyacha has his eye on Chinita, who has been chosen queen of the spring festival; in the course of the ceremony, Chinita disappears, and this sets Tinyacha on a quest where few Wallas have ever gone—into the high Andes. Tinyacha has to outwit the cunning, fierce she-bear and her spoiled son to save his life and that of Chinita. A condor, frogs, and a hummingbird are all caught up in the tense drama before he wins his sweetheart. The story is based on the author’s scholarship, but the tale is told in an engaging way to delight young readers. Thomas O. Jones is also the author of Lord of the Geats, a vivid retelling of the ancient Anglo-Saxon poem Beowolf.

T

Novel Type Folklore, Legends Primary Audience Boys/Girls

7758 TINYACHA’S QUEST $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Interest Level 10 & Up yrs

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Historical Novels

CRUSADERS

By Gary Robert Muschla

F

rance, 1095. Raised in a monastery, 16-year-old Robert is not sure if he wants to commit his life to God or to be a knight. His abbot hopes that at Clermont, where Pope Urban II will call upon Christians to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslim Turks, Robert will declare himself for God’s army. At the Council, Robert meets the Count of Sarvaux and his lovely daughter Eleanor. Robert vows to liberate Jerusalem, joins with Count Edgard’s group, and trains for war with them. Ferdinand, a hot-tempered knight, is Robert’s rival for Eleanor, but it is Robert who saves her from a wild boar and then from the drunken Ferdinand. Four months later, Edgard’s party journeys to Cologne to join thousands of warriors and pilgrims under Peter the Hermit, who will lead them to the Holy Land. Battles and killings along the way prompt Robert and Eleanor to question their feelings about God and about each other. After reaching Constantinople, they sail across the Bosporus to Anatolia. Novel Type History, In the Dracon Valley, their army is destroyed, but not before Edgard orders Robert to retreat Political/Social and save Eleanor, who is back at the Christian camp. Eleanor misinterprets Robert’s return Relationships as meaning he left her father to die in order to save her. Primary Audience In their retreat, Robert and Eleanor come upon a merchant being attacked. His caravan Boys/Girls Interest Level has been destroyed. Robert saves him. Thankful, and realizing that Robert’s abilities in 14 yrs & up French and Greek are compatible with his plans to expand business into the West, Solomon insists that Robert and Eleanor stay with him and his daughter, Ruth, in Constantinople. Wrestling with her guilt about being alive, Eleanor now believes she has lost Robert to Ruth and vows that she will return to France alone. As soon as Robert leaves on a business trip to Antioch, Ruth sets Eleanor straight. Robert knows he will now keep his vow to free Jerusalem, but he must first make sure that Eleanor has departed for France. He finds her waiting for him in Constantinople, and they both determine to rejoin the crusade. In the final terrible battle for Jerusalem, while Christian knights slaughter the inhabitants, Robert leads people to safety. Robert and Eleanor realize that their love is God’s sign. They return to Constantinople to begin anew together. 4918 CRUSADERS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 THE SWORD AND THE CROSS

By Gary Robert Muschla

A

t 17, Rodric becomes the young Count of Valenta when his parents are killed by the vile Ervig, Lord of Aleveso. In 975, Valenta was on the northern edge of the Muslim penetration into the Christianheld lands in Spain. Rodric has to deal with the Moors to the south, as well as Ervig’s aggression on his flank. Ervig wants to become the pre-eminent lord among the Christians. This is an exciting novel of the tensions between Christians and Moors, as well as among the weaker Christian lords. The author reveals the multiple layers of cooperation, competition, benevolence, hostility, and savagery among the various factions that lived in Spain at the end of the first millenium. The book is a complex and gripping introduction to a world that is generally inaccessible to young people today. 4726 SWORD AND CROSS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Novel Type Political/Social Relationships Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 14 yrs & up

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H I S T O R I C A L N O V E L S


JULIETTA

By Myra Saturen

T

royes, France, 1283. Among Medieval physicians, a courageous few were women. They faced popular prejudice and furious opposition to their participation in the medical field. Yet 14-year-old Julietta’s dream had always been to dare to follow in the footsteps of her herbalist mother and the tradition of healing. Homeless after the expulsion of Jews from her village and removed to the city of Troyes for safety, Julietta is separated from her mother to become a ward of master physician Brion. Female and therefore banned from seeking knowledge, Julietta seeks solace in restoring Brion’s tangled, weed-filled garden. How unlike her mother’s it is! Mother’s was filled with healing herbs and color. With each herb Julietta plants, she consults her mother’s herbal notebook and discovers the herb’s ability to heal. Filled with compassion for the sick and suffering, naturally intelligent Julietta learns by patience and discovery. Novel Type She works with stems, leaves, berries, and flowers. She begins to create remedies. She Medieval History, Medicine, yearns to be allowed into Master Brion’s blue-tiled special study room. She yearns to learn, Jewish History, to apprentice. Women’s Rights Primary Audience Spirited, compassionate, and inquisitive, soon Julietta must confront the usual antiGirls feminist obstacles and more—a skeptical mentor, a jealous rival, and her own self-doubt— Interest Level to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor. 12 yrs & up The novel offers young readers a glimpse of a fascinating but obscure era in Jewish history, the Middle Ages, with its customs, ethos, and folk beliefs. It also explores a littleknown facet of medieval life—the daring participation of women in the field of medicine. In so doing, the story highlights women’s historical journey from herbalists to doctors’ assistants to physicians in their own right. 5388 JULIETTA $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

TROUBLE AT THE SCRIPTORIUM

By Anne E. Johnson

H

Novel Type Music, Mystery, Medieval England Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 10 yrs & up

arley, the jester’s son, lives in a castle in medieval England. He admires the Lady Margaret, with whom he was raised. But now the difference in their birth and rank means she hardly speaks to him—until they find a common purpose in deciphering a coded message in an illustrated chantbook. Then they find out the truth behind the appointment of the strange new head of the scriptorium. Jewels have been stolen. Harley is attacked. With a plot that thickens on every page, the story takes us right into the life of the castle and the nearby monastery. It is a world of feasts and festivals, but also of greed and misdoings, and the dangers that lurk outside the castle walls. A unique aspect of this enthralling book is the thread of Gregorian chant that is at the heart of the secret message. Anne E. Johnson has a Master’s Degree in Music Theory and History, and taught music history for fifteen years at Mannes College, The New School for Music in New York City. She is now a full-time writer. She says: I like to present music history in engaging storytelling. That’s what I am trying to do with Trouble at the Scriptorium, to take the arcane topic of Gregorian chant and weave it into a mystery and adventure. The support website for this book has background notes, a video of Psalm 50 being sung and a copy of a 13th century Gregorian Chant Book similar to the one described in the novel. 3927 TROUBLE AT THE SCRIPTORIUM $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

TALES FROM 1492

By Mary Ann Whittier

I

f your fax machine or email account gave you reports from around the world in 1492, this book might be their compilation. Presented in a week-to-week diary format, a global view of this pivotal year and its politics, art, and discoveries takes shape as the reader meets famous people and some fictional characters in accurate surroundings. Many of the historical characters should be familiar: Michelangelo, Isabella of Spain, Montezuma the Aztec, Ivan the Great, Lucretia Borgia, Martin Luther, and Albrech Durer. Others are less well known: the Inca Huaya Capac, the Bantu king Mani Kongo, the Spanish sailor Martin Pinzon, and the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II, but are important to the story. This is not an Anglo-centric view of events in 1492, but a global adventure that includes China and Japan—where Columbus thought he was headed—the Americas he found, the diverse Europe and Moslem worlds, Africa, and even Hawaii and Australia. It is a multicultural approach to history, that emphasizes art and literature. Cultural pluralism is particularly reflected in holidays religious and cultural observances, arts, crafts, and everyday life around the world. This book is an exciting chronicle of 1492, the year the Old World met the New World.

Novel Type History/Biography Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

9805 TALES FROM 1492 $14.99 Special Price: $7.99

THE GHOST FROM THE SCHENECTADY MASSACRE

By Jack Reber

I

t is the first day of school, and fifth grader Marsh Mayo has secretly taken his pet white mouse to school, but has escaped through a hole in his pocket. Fortunately, there is an early dismissal, and Marsh is able to walk the short distance from his home back to school and, with the permission of the janitor, get into his classroom to look for “something he left behind.” While Marsh is in the process of catching his mouse, a sudden chill and a smoky odor fill the room—a ghost is present! Marsh is thrilled that the rumor of Stockade Elementary School being haunted is true. He has always been interested in ghosts, and it doesn’t take him long to figure out the “who,” “what,” “when,” and “why” of this one. Unceremoniously, he touches a part of the ghost’s aura and is transported by the ghost, inadvertently, into its time and dimension. The ghost is the minister of Schenectady, Dominie Perrtus Tesschenmaeker, who cannot rest until he finds his Liturgy and conducts the Service for the Dead for his massacred congregation. The dominie’s body is also Mayo’s portal back to the present. Novel Type History, Coincidentally, Mayo’s class is studying the Schenectady Massacre. Very quickly, Mayo Action, Adventure is able to involve two classmates, Albert the brain and John the bully, in the quest for the LitPrimary Audience urgy, and author Jack Reber is into a double story-line that entertains and teaches an actionBoys/Girls packed history lesson. While the class studies the textbook version, Mayo, Albert, John, Interest Level 9-12 yrs Casper the mouse, and the reader are interactive witnesses to the activities on both sides to the realities of February 8, 1690, the day when the French and their American Indian allies attacked the Dutch settlement. Through the typically modern boys, the reader is involved in the historical moment, sharing in the lifestyle of the period and the horror of the massacre. The boys do find the Liturgy, now displayed as an artifact in their church. The indentifier tag says that it is open to the Service for the Dead. A copy machine is used to duplicate the pages, and the boys get them to the ghost. Jack Reber is also the author of The Eerie Canal, a historical time travel novel. 5477 SCHENECTADY MASSACRE (121 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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SHAKESPEARE • ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND • ADVENTURE RUNAWAY WILL

By Linda C. Fisher “…an entertaining and quick-paced read…” —Mollie Water, English instructor

F

rom the moment 16-year-old Will Shakespeare runs away from home, his goal is to avoid danger. But Fate ignores Will’s plan. “You’re a handsome boy,” Volka, the old Gypsy queen, tells him. “With the right clothes, you’ll fit in with us.” Fit in? With these fearsome Gypsies? With their whips and knives and bears? Never! Then again, when you’re on the run, hiding from authorities, home is where you find it. How and why did William Shakespeare go to London from Stratford? How and where did he first learn to write plays? When did he first fall in love? Runaway Will has some highly original answers while transporting us to an adventure among the sometimes violent but also romantic Gypsies in Elizabethan England. There are free enrichment study notes on the rfwp.com website for this book.

Novel Type Historical Adventure, Elizabethan England, Shakespeare

7208 RUNAWAY WILL $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

A WILL OF HER OWN

By Linda C. Fisher

T

his is a fascinating story of intrigue and murder set in murky 16th-century London, where a young man named Luke becomes friends with a young actor/playwright named Will Shakespeare. But Luke really is 15-year-old Lady Lucinda, a young woman who has disguised herself as a boy so she can act in a play. Only males were allowed to act in plays in Elizabethan England. As a boy, however, Lucy finds herself fighting off assailants and even getting involved in a duel. Together, Luke and Will have a series of adventures that lead to uncovering and foiling a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. As Lady Lucinda, Lucy is a dutiful daughter of a lord, and no one suspects her double life. As she explains to Will Shakespeare, it is her brother who has all the fun; she leads a very sheltered, dull life. This is an exciting and unusual story with great background detail. In reviewing this book, Professor Peter Huggins, Auburn University, writes: Novel Type Historical Adventure, Elizabethan England, Shakespeare Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

“When well done, historical novels are great fun. A Will of Her Own is great fun.… Sword play and word play abound, and the novel moves with the precision and suppleness of a fencing match…. The plot turns on various cases of mistaken identity and deliciously echoes The Comedy of Errors, a device which enhances the fun….Fisher has made her first-person narrative convincing and believable.” 6416 A WILL OF HER OWN $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

ORDER BY FAX: (845) 726-3824 OR EMAIL: [email protected] USE YOUR CREDIT CARD 52

Historical Novels

PIRATES SAIL TO CARIBEE

By Michael Hagen

Q

ueen Anne of England has declared war on France because the grandson of King Louis XIV has become the king of Spain. Louis the XIV aims to combine the power of the Spanish and the French against the English and the Dutch to dominate the world’s trade. 1702, New York Colony. When Jack Slate, the famous pirate, arrives at Jemmy’s father’s farm to ask him to join the crew of his ship as mate, 13-year-old Jemmy is part of his father’s bargain. The men have sailed together before, and now Slate is a commissioned privateer sailing under the English flag to plunder French and Spanish ships. Jemmy’s father has the sea in his blood but does not want to leave his son on the farm alone. Jemmy, about the same height as his father, looks to be 16 or 17, wants to be a sailor, speaks and writes both English and Dutch, and is excellent with arithmetic. Through Jemmy’s eyes, we see the larger details of the ship and unique crew, as well as the smaller details important to young adult readers. The decks, the rigging, the maneuverNovel Type ing at sea, the weaponry, the food, and of all the things that were a matter of course during History, Action, Adventure a day at sea are new to Jemmy, and important. So is the whole concept of privateering Primary Audience and the Articles of Contract, including payment percentages, which are the rules of the Boys voyage. The chase and capture of a French ship gives him his first knowledge of the real Interest Level 11-13 yrs consequences of battle. The action-filled novel is capped by the capture of the Butcher, a Spanish pirate who has been harassing English shipping in the Windward Islands. And there is a surprise revelation that Captain Slate is really from a British noble family and must now succeed his deceased father as earl. Michael Hagen is the author of Klaus, a historical novel about a German boy of 14 and how Hitler’s failed putsch of 1923 affects him, and African Term, a novel set in 1960 Addis Ababa that focuses on a teenager’s perception of his American Peace Corps teacher and the teacher’s perception of the educational system, his students, and the country. 4101 SAIL TO CARIBEE (157 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

BOTTLES OF EIGHT AND PIECES OF RUM

By Michele Torrey

W

hen Kip fails to prepare an oral report for history and attempts to fake one on piracy at the end of the class period, he manages to buy one night to produce a report for the next day. The only clues he has about piracy are the stories he’s heard from his sickly old grandfather. Now that Grandfather is nearing his end, he begs Kip to believe that he truly has lived the tales he told. He had lived in two dimensions: one in the present, and one as an 18thcentury pirate. The key to returning to the past is in a chest in the attic. He beseeches Kip to make the trip to the past and bring to the present the daughter he left behind many years ago. A family picture moves Kip to believe the old man, and his curiosity takes over as he examines the wondrous items in the chest in the attic. Within seconds of a bottle being in his hands, Kip is transported to a sea inhabited by pirate ships and is swimming for his life. Fished out of the sea by the crew of a pirate ship, Kip becomes one of them and learns Novel Type History, Action, Adventure the pirates’ code of behavior and business in detail. He swabs, serves, fights, and watches. Primary Audience But it is just after he rescues Captain Dawes from drowning and administers CPR that he Boys/Girls faces great jeopardy. He discovers that Captain Dawes is a woman. She would kill to proInterest Level tect her secret. 9-12 yrs Kip further discovers that Captain Dawes is his aunt, the daughter of his grandfather and the person he went into the past to bring back. He cannot stop the punishment the crew metes out to him and Captain Dawes, but both finally make it back to the present. And what a show on piracy he presents to his class! 3210 BOTTLES OF EIGHT AND PIECES OF RUM (138 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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REVOLUTIONARY WAR By A.J. Griffin

ASA’S CHOICE

T

he Hudson Valley, New York. In the Crossing, a small settlement in the Catskills, American-born and British-born are on both sides of the controversy. Militiamen, “rebels,” favor independence. The Tories still give allegiance to the British king. Almost 16, Asa hasn’t yet decided which side to take. His father is one of three Board of Selectmen who govern town affairs, and his neutral position keeps the peace. But the young men fight among themselves, and Asa finds himself more excited to think of fighting for his country than settling in the Crossing and selling off tracts of land to other settlers. When an Indian raid almost demolishes the town and destroys the militia, Asa is sent to Schoharie to get help. There, with his mission done, he volunteers to go to Albany with a small contingent to stop Burgoyne. Through Asa’s eyes, a fascinating document emerges on how the Continental Army and various militia units harassed and appealed to young men to join their fighting units, as does a panoramic presentation of the men, horses, and wagons in the vast AlNovel Type History, bany encampment. Asa fights in a bloody war and eventually joins a group that has “advantages Action, Adventure of opportunity,” after their official assignment is completed, to strike back at the Indians who Primary Audience raided their villages. This is a group spurred on by obsessive hate of the Indian. Asa cannot Boys kill innocent Indians, particularly one lovely young Indian woman, and is seriously wounded Interest Level attempting to stop her rape and murder by a fellow soldier. As the young woman, Easter, and 14 yrs & up her mother-in-law nurse him back to health, he grows to understand and respect their culture. Whole again, Asa returns to the Crossing and builds and takes part in the settlement now called “Gaynor’s Corners” with his family. Matured by the experience of war and killing, he remains an emotional outsider, unable to share his feelings and longings, desiring to return to Easter, but he resists. He knows that shame and derision will be heaped upon him for consorting with an Indian woman if he becomes a “squaw man.” A.J. Griffin’s descriptions of the American landscape are breathtaking and beautiful, his war scenes are accurate and horrible, and Asa’s perceptions and reactions are riveting. 5663 ASA’S CHOICE (156 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

AMERICA’S CHILD

By A.J. Griffin

K

Novel Type History, Action, Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

athy Fountain, a foundling, is left at the doorstep of the poorhouse in Albany, Colony of New York, during the night of July 14, 1758. As she approaches the age of 16 and conditions at the poorhouse become intolerable, she sets out alone and seeks shelter at an orphanage. The orphanage then places her as an indentured servant at an inn alongside the road between Albany and New York. When she is at the poorhouse, Kathy does menial labor and scrounges for food down at the docks to help feed the other inmates. Among her acquaintances are prostitutes. At the inn, she often has to cope with the leers and scrutiny of ill-willed men. There, she also hears the loud arguments of the Loyalists and the colonists. She understands the opinions of both sides. At times, she learns and flourishes under the tutelage of well-intentioned benefactors, who recognize her intelligence. Enduring hardships and separation from those she loves, Kathy has the courage to contract for marriage with a partner who regards her as his “indentured bride.” For a time, she is a political spy. Kathy is a atrong intelligent young woman living in extraordinary times. She is part of a remarkable adventure in a country yet to be named, a land that is populated by citizens who call themselves Americans when they must unite to fight for their independence. The spirit and cause of patriotism flow in Kathy’s veins. America is her parent, and she is America’s child. 4934 AMERICA’S CHILD $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

THE SHOT NOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD

By Charlie Damitz

Y

oung Jeremy has hunted rabbits and squirrels many times with his father in the woods near their farm. He is a good marksman with his musket. On April 19, 1775, he is one of those alerted by Paul Revere to the British march to Concord. The redcoats are coming! Jeremy hurries to assume his assigned place in the Minuteman plan: sniper behind a stone wall to hunt the redcoats. He has practiced; he is ready. All he has to do is wait. Yet when the moment comes to shoot the enemy, who is close enough to look into his eyes, Jeremy cannot. Nor can the giant of a redcoat shoot Jeremy. In that moment, two unsung heroes are called into action, and bloodshed is averted. An understanding passes between the two. Jeremy keeps his mouth shut about the incident because no Minuteman would understand. After soul searching about being a coward or a traitor to the cause of liberty, Jeremy finally decides to confide his innermost thoughts to Doc Thorndike, whom he’s known all his life. The answer is clear: Jeremy will train with Doc Thorndike to be a surgeon’s asNovel Type sistant, and as a team, they will help the war effort as true patriots. Events lead a wounded History, Action, Adventure Roger Poole, the redcoat of Jeremy’s previous encounter, to hide in the chicken coop on Primary Audience Jeremy’s farm. Finding him, Jeremy sneaks him to Doc Thorndike for treatment. Roger, Boys too, wants to be a doctor and to study with Doc Thorndike. The good doctor invents a Interest Level new identity for Roger and now has two dedicated pupils. Their instruction is rigorous, 10 yrs & up hands-on, and graphic. Soon the team is on its way to Bunker Hill to join the makeshift medical corps already there. At the Battle for Bunker Hill, they see the true horrors of war. Charlie Damitz tells his story in an extended flashback as the now elderly Doctor Jeremy recalls why he became a doctor. The Shot Not Heard Around the World is an easy read, even with its many details about anatomical, pathological, procedural, and other medical matters, because Jeremy’s youthful yet intelligent viewpoint prevails. 4403 THE SHOT NOT HEARD $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

THREE SPIES FOR GENERAL WASHINGTON

By Clavin Fisher

A

dolescent readers experience the adventure and awe of a segment of the American Revolution in this book through the eyes and actions of three young comrades-inarms with diverse views and personalities. The setting is New Jersey, from the fall of Fort Lee in 1776, through the American victories at Trenton and Princeton, and into the winter at Washington’s encampments in the Morristown area. David Holcomb, orphaned after the death of his father at the hands of the British at Concord Bridge, is an ardent patriot. He is determined to help free America from British rule. John Tantaquidgeon, of Mohawk Indian ancestry and a former military drummer, sees the Revolutionary War as a great adventure. Several times his unique skills save the boys from life-threatening situations. Peter Kennett, a former British fifer, is captured by the Americans at Fort Ticonderoga Novel Type and paroled in the custody of David’s uncle. He has difficulty in adjusting to the American History, Army and the concepts of democracy. At times, his soldiering experiences prove invaluAction, Adventure able. Primary Audience Boys/Girls Drafted as spies for General Washington, the three men’s principal targets are the ToInterest Level ries, who infested New Jersey throughout the war. Their harrowing adventures are spiced 12 yrs & up nicely by a developing romance between David and the daughter of an American master spy. Calvin Fisher is a historian who has written hundreds of magazine articles, a half-dozen short stories, and two young adult novels. The history is precise, and the tales are full of outdoor adventures. 4594 THREE SPIES FOR WASHINGTON (188 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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SARATOGA CAPTIVE

By Jack Reber

I Novel Type American History

n September 1777 , while Ruth Anna’s father and brother are away fighting the British, her mother is wounded defending the family farm. Ruth Anna tries to get help, but instead finds herself captured by Indians. She is ransomed as a servant to a noble German family traveling with the Redcoats. Though she is treated kindly, the twelveyear old must escape to find her father and brother. As a Saratoga Captive, she sees both sides of the Revolutionary War, and is a witness to a significant turning point in its history. 3819 SARATOGA CAPTIVE $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 9 yrs & up

THROUGH GOYA’S EYES

By Dr. Dorothy Ricci

F Novel Type History, Art, Relationships Primary Audience Boys/Girls

rom the perspective of Gaspar Jovellanos—diarist, educator, magistrate, friend of Francisco De Goya, and galvanizing figure of the Spanish Enlightenment—we experience the Spanish Enlightenment and gain understanding of the context and precipitating events for much of Goya’s art. This biographical novel takes us into a world that is unknown to American students. Because Gaspar is a central figure, the reader gets a real picture of the tragic history and human cost of the repression of the Spanish Enlightenment. Through Goya’s Eyes illuminates for American students not only this period of Spanish history, but also the world and events behind the paintings, drawings, and prints of Goya.

Interest Level 10 yrs & up

7635 THROUGH GOYA’S EYES $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

SURVIVING EREBUS: AN ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE

By John Barell

S

urviving Erebus is based on an amazingly courageous and pioneering Antarctic voyage of exploration that began in 1839 and lasted for several years. Told through the eyes and experiences of a young stowaway, whose chances for survival are low when he is discovered and who has to prove himself again and again to the ship’s hostile and aggressive crew, this is a tale of a young man confronting the most adverse conditions on the planet. David’s adventures of exploration and discovery in Antarctica are described graphically and accurately, and the reader can almost hear the cracking of the ice and the creaking of the ship’s timbers as winter closes in, feel the discomfort of the cramped and basic living quarters, and Novel Type share the fear of young David as he wonders how he got himself into this most challenging enHistory, Adventure vironment. Primary Audience That David comes through, survives to become a valued crew member, and grows up is due Boys not only to his resilience, deep curiosity, and basic good nature, but also to the support of an imInterest Level 12 yrs & up portant mentor, the ship’s scientist, who enrolls him as his assistant. A wonderful tale that will enthrall, involve, and engage! “A rippin’ good yarn. One which makes you turn the page over and over again. But it’s more than this. It is historically faithful to the extraordinary, epic voyage of Sir James Clark Ross. It captures the characters of the leader and those whom he led in the treacherous waters and ice of Antarctica. It brings events, which happened over one hundred and fifty years ago, vividly to life. A compelling read. Congratulations on a considerable achievement.” —James Ross, great-great-grandson of Admiral Sir James Clark Ross, Commander of the Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions during the years 1839–1843 7031 SURVIVING EREBUS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

ABE AND THE WILD RIVER

By Edith McCall

F

ourteen-year-old Abe is anxious for adventure and a wider world beyond St. Louis. In 1811, working on a keelboat going down the Mississippi seems the way to do it. He can read and write and do mathematics, and his common sense and good humor more than make up for what he might still lack in height and strength. Captain Byrne sees that in him when he hires Abe as cabin boy on board the Rosalie. In addition to a cargo of furs and shot, the keelboat carries French passengers Antoinette and her father. Soon Abe is not only keeping the books for the captain and learning to read the surface of the river for sand bars, sawyers, and planters, he also is instructing the lovely Toni in English. And he is secretly curious about the mystery of a young lady’s picture in the captain’s cabin. As the keelboat moves down the Mississippi toward New Orleans, Abe learns to be a deck hand and to use the cordelle for moving the boat against the tide. His impression about Indians is broadened as the captain meets with the Choctaws to trade shot and gunpowder for food. A Novel Type run-in with river pirates brings out Abe’s cleverness and heroism under pressure. History, Action, Adventure But his ultimate test of courage comes when the New Madrid Earthquake strikes, and its Primary Audience aftershocks rain terror on all men and beasts. Abe pitches in to help wherever he is needed, unBoys mindful of the danger and without complaint, as the wild and terrible circumstances dictate. He Interest Level is under self-control even when the raging Mississippi River runs backward! 10 yrs & up In a postlude containing a long letter from Abe, finally in New Orleans, to his parents, the author gives the reader additional details about the earthquake and its destruction from Abe’s point of view. Abe is now safe and reporting the news to them. The letter is a dazzling finish to the adventure. Edith McCall’s many educational American history novels are well-known to elementary school teachers throughout the United States. In series format, her books have breathed life into historical people and events and have helped youngsters see our history as real. 439X ABE & THE WILD RIVER (184 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Diane Levero

WHAT SO PROUDLY WE HAIL’D

B

altimore, 1812. Candace leaves finishing school and does the unthinkable—goes to work in a newspaper office and learns the job from the grunt and grunge-work level up. Soon she is caught up in the arguments about the War of 1812, the riots, and the British invasion, and she is in love with Zachary, a young man who she believes to be on the wrong side of every issue. All of this is played against a social background filled with actual people of the period, the social snobbery of the rich and those aspiring to be like the rich, and the needs and work ethic of the working man. Candace, a Democratic-Republican in favor of the war with England, works at the Register. Zachary, a Federalist actively against the war, has taken a leave of absence from his elder brother’s law firm in Annapolis to help the publisher of the Federal Republican. They develop a three-tiered relationship that is political, social, and personal. At once intelligent and loving, the pair falls in love even as they hotly debate whether the war should have been fought. What So Proudly We Hail’d provides an accurate picture of the production of a newspaper. Novel Type And in the re-creation of the Baltimore Riots of 1812, the author closely follows the details History, Romance, provided in newspapers, court affidavits filed by some of the victims, and other contemporary Action records. Primary Audience Like Candace and Zachary, today’s historians still debate the War of 1812. Under the Girls terms of the peace treaty, neither side won much of anything. Most of the issues over which the Interest Level 14 yrs & up country had gone to war faded of their own accord. But the war did achieve one thing: Britain could no longer view the United States as a collection of break-away colonies. At last it had to recognize the United States as a truly independent nation. With that reality established, Britain and the United States were free to become friendly nations and, eventually, strong allies. 0548 WHAT SO PROUDLY WE HAIL’D (302 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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THE KEY TO HONOR

By Ronald Wanttaja

S

et during the War of 1812, The Key to Honor is filled with maritime action and images. Young Nate Lawton’s bravery in combat aboard the USS Constitution in her famous victory over the HMS Guerriere has earned him midshipman’s rank. But he hides a guilty secret: He deserted his post during that same battle. Although everyone sees him save the Constitution’s captain, no one sees him hide from the rest of the fight. Nate is determined to regain his honor, and it looks as though he will soon have his chance. He has been assigned to the Chesapeake in Boston Harbor. A pair of British frigates, led by the HMS Shannon, blockade the harbor, and the Chesapeake’s Captain Lawrence is under heavy pressure to deal with the blockade and reopen Boston’s vital trade. Nate must first discover what honor is. Does it lie in the senseless duels fought by his superior officers? The arrogance shown by his fellow shipmen? Or in overcoming the Novel Type History, contempt of the experienced seamen shown toward him, their 15-year-old leader? One of Leadership, Relationthe shortest battles of the early U.S. Navy provides Nate’s answers and the novel’s finale. ships, The reader becomes one with Nate as he shares his thoughts and feelings, which are Maritime Action, Self-Esteem juxtaposed with Navy protocol and shown both aboard and off ship. Everywhere the auPrimary Audience thor’s extensive research is deftly blended with his smooth writing style to enhance the Boys novel’s superb realism—from dialogue and full-bodied characterization and mood settings Interest Level to ships’ details, Navy rules, confrontational scenes, and the historic final battle. 12 yrs & up The Key to Honor is powerful. It has won a Pacific Northwest Writers Conference Award and high praise from the Sea Room: “A perfect book for young adults 12–15...it demonstrates civility and honor, teaches leadership, teaches the nautical stuff along the way, is a bit better than reality, has a happy ending, and feels authentic.... Highly recommended....” 2702 THE KEY TO HONOR (188 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

THE PRICE OF COMMAND

By Ronald Wanttaja

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Novel Type History, Leadership, Relationships, Maritime Action, Self-Esteem Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 12 yrs & up

he battle of Lake Erie took place a little more than three months after the Shannon/ Chesapeake scrape. In this follow-up novel to The Key to Honor, midshipman Nate Lawton is sent to Lake Erie to help man the rough frontier fleet built by Oliver Hazard Perry. Historically, the novel is set in the middle of the Perry/Elliot controversy. To his initial delight, Nate finds that a shortage of officers places him in a much higher position than his limited experience would normally bring. The fortunes of war catapult him to an even higher rank: the acting first lieutenant of a Brig of War. But command has its price. Nate’s captain is unwilling to pay it and uses Nate as his scapegoat for the dirty work. Now Nate is caught between the rocks of naval discipline and the shoals of his superior officer’s unbending ambition. His captain thinks nothing of bending the truth to glorify his own career and ruin Nate, if he speaks out. The following review was for the first book in the series, The Key to Honor. The Price of Command is a faithful continuation:

“...fascinating...characters as detailed and multi-faceted as are found in any novels for adults...a gripping naval story hard to lay down, it is also a coming-of-age story, a novel of character development that far surpasses many naval stories for adults.” —John Forester 2869 PRICE OF COMMAND (330 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

GOING AROUND THE BEND

By Radiana Markow

F

ifteen-year-old Henry Shreve has always loved the Ohio River, unlike his older brother, Israel, man of the house, who believes that a Quaker’s heart belongs on the farm. Now, with the farm in danger of foreclosure, Henry is sure that their only recourse is for him to become a wage earner, a riverman moving cargo down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans on a flatboat. He will run away from Israel’s farm, learn the river, and return with money to pay off their debt—a man in everyone’s eyes. Henry’s problems begin on board when superstitious Pierre wants to kill him because a boy on crew would bring bad luck. Henry has to learn to read the river and know the dangers that its beauty hides: a sheet of glass means a sandbar, beautiful ripples mean a sunken tree, and swirling white foam and eddys mean certain boat breakup. His hands bleed at the long oar, and he falls into the water, ashamed. But he perseveres. He learns to hunt turkeys and deer on land to restock the food supply. He battles Indians in hand-to-hand combat and is wounded. He has the presence of mind to save the longboat from an eddy by swimming against its current out to another Novel Type History, Adventure, boat in calm water with a rope to pull it free. Finally the goods are delivered, and Henry is paid. Biography Now begins the dangerous walk home, upriver, along the Natchez Trace. Never had Henry Primary Audience dreamed of being attacked by pirates for his wages, being taken prisoner for sale to a sea-going Boys captain, the days of thirst following his escape, or the stinking swampland and being eaten alive Interest Level by black flies. 12-15 yrs Although he is duly welcomed home, Israel expects Henry to resume his farm chores. But Henry, now a riverman, speaks his mind—and Israel hears. Henry Miller Shreve later divided his time between farming and working on the river. Eventually he captained his own keelboat and invented a double-decker steamboat and a snagboat (a boat that removes sunken trees from the riverbed). For the first time, riverboats could steam upriver safely. Shreveport, Louisiana is named for him. 1668 GOING AROUND THE BEND (94 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

COURAGEOUS JOURNEY

By Paul A. Snyder

F

ifteen-year-old Kate and 11-year-old Will must travel from Pennsylvania to Texas in the spring of 1837. Their father has a new homestead and has written for his family to join him. But the youngsters’ mother and sisters and brother are dead. They all died in an epidemic. Kate determines that she and Will will make the dangerous trip alone. She will negotiate a good price for the farm, plot the trip, and take good care of her brother. Kate and Will have barely begun their journey before two outlaws begin to track them, certain that they are carrying a bundle of cash. The youngsters, armed with only a slingshot and a Colt revolver, pit their brains against the outlaws’ brawn as they determine to continue their perilous trek. Between them and Papa lay 1,500 miles of hostile American frontier. Rivaling Kate’s and Will’s hair-raising escapes on land outrunning violent characters and wanted criminals are their tumultuous keelboat adventures down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, where the most important fact of life is that the right of way belongs to the biggest and meanest steamboat. Pirates and waterfalls follow. The youngsters do make it to Papa’s ranch, only to find a full-scale, ongoing shoot-out in progress. It seems that a flim-flam man is claiming that the ranch is his, and hired guns are in the thick of it against Papa. But Kate and Will get help from a savvy outlaw they befriended along the way, as well as two surprise just-in-the-nick-of-time heroes. Courageous Journey is an action-packed, all-American Western with flashes of comedy, a breath of a first love for Kate, and a wonderful dog/wolf heroine called Lucy.

Novel Type History/Adventure Action Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12-14 yrs

3601 COURAGEOUS JOURNEY (216 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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FINDING HER WAY

“A novel that will illuminate Thoreau, Walden Pond, Margaret Fuller, and the Transcendentalists for secondary students.” —KLIATT Magazine By Anne Faigen

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Novel Type History, Social/Family Relationships Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 14 yrs & up

oncord, Massachusetts, 1845. Fifteen-year-old Rachel is neglecting her farm chores in order to sketch and draw. To make money for her art supplies, she raises hens for their eggs, but a drought forces her father to ask for that money for the farm. Understanding his need, but miserable when he calls her life’s ambition to draw a “little hobby,” Rachel runs to Walden Pond to recover. There, she is befriended by Henry David Thoreau, who is living “an experiment” in Walden Woods. During a subsequent visit to Thoreau, Rachel meets Margaret Fuller, author, editor of The Transcendentalist Journal, reporter, and America’s first female foreign correspondent. Fuller takes samples of Rachel’s art with her to New York for an opinion from a teacher. Gino Riccardi agrees to instruct Rachel by mail until she can come to New York. Rachel’s family visits her brother in Boston, and, not allowed into the factory, she contents herself with sketching a young boy warming himself by the fire in the courtyard. She is shocked by the number of children working there. Rachel’s talent reaches new highs with the sketch of the young Simon, and Sr. Riccardi notifies her that she must now come to New York for instruction. Rachel wants Thoreau to intercede with Riccardi to keep her lessons coming by mail, but Thoreau instead tells her about his friends, the Emersons, in New York who have room for her (William is Ralph Waldo’s brother). Their conversation is interrupted by shouts of Ben falling into frozen Walden Pond while ice fishing. Thoreau rushes

out to save him. With the family now indebted to Thoreau for their son’s life, Thoreau accepts their thanks in terms of Rachel’s being allowed to study art in New York—and the portrait of Simon for his walls. In the spring, Rachel says good bye to Thoreau and her beloved woods; he, too, prepares to leave Walden. Throughout the novel, the Anne Faigen is careful to contrast for the reader the differences between commonly accepted attitudes and expectations and those of the Transcendentalists, who judge people in defiance of conventional expectations. 4055 FINDING HER WAY (189 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

THE EERIE CANAL

“...a superbly researched historical/fantasy where all the background details are painstakingly accurate...will engage the attention of young readers ages 8–12.” —The Children’s Bookwatch of the Midwest Book Review By Jack Reber

T

Novel Type History, Adventure

wo 10-year-olds on a class trip to the Erie Canal find themselves transported back in time to the canal of 1829. Dragged aboard a canal boat, the boy and girl experience adventures getting through each day by blending into the boat’s tempo and chores while trying to find a way back to the present. The author imparts an enormous amount of detail about the canal through the storyline, and his colorful characterization brings the story to life boldly. This novel is at once entertaining and exciting enough to hold a youngster’s interests and detailed enough to be of use to teachers trying to teach the history of the canal or the period.

Primary Audience Boys/Girls

3105 EERIE CANAL (108 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Interest Level 8-12 yrs

60

Historical Novels

AMERICAN INDIAN SHINING STAR

By Joyce Esely

“Outstanding historical novel...a welcome and enthusiastically recommended novel that totally engages the reader from first page to last.” —The Children’s Bookwatch of the Midwest Book Review

H

ere is a story replete with American Indian traditions and information. Shining Star is a 10-year-old Comanche girl. By spending time with her and her family, sharing the events of their days and their community interactions, the reader learns about ceremonies, lore, daily living, interdependence of tribal members, and the notion of the tribe above one. For The People to be strong, bravery is a must, and Shining Star’s goal is to overcome her dread of lightning. Ever since she was hit by lightning five years earlier, thunderstorms have traumatized her, and she has hidden her fear because The People are afraid of nothing. Death is a part of life: tribal members will pass on, and animals yield food and clothing. As Grandfather tells her, “It is not death we fear, but meeting death bravely.... Only the rocks live forever.” Novel Type History, Woven into Shining Star’s story is a fabric of many pieces of information: tipi making Family and moving, foods and diet, buffalo hunting, arrow making, tanning hides, courtship, horse Primary Audience raids, scalping, stories of the elders, the power of the number 4, the dream walker, the contrary Girls man, closed face, war paint, and more. Interest Level 8-12 yrs Joyce Esely has won two Frontiers in Writing awards and a Beaux Arts award for Shining Star. 1455 SHINING STAR (124 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 WHISPERS IN THE WIND

“...packs a powerful story...does a good job of enlightening students about the time period. Recommended for junior high school students.” —KLIATT Magazine By Betty Headapohl

T

his is a superb period piece drawn against accurate historical detail that captures a time in American history before the Civil War when slavery was practiced by American Indian tribes and white plantation owners. It was a time when American Indians and African-Americans often were enslaved on plantations side by side. The story of Little Moon, a Tsalagi maiden, spans four years and runs full circle from the child’s being kidnapped by slavers to her return to the Land of a Thousand Smokes as a young woman. A beautiful tribal child raised with a reverence for nature, mindful of omens, and believing in spirits, Little Moon ponders the acceptance of white man’s ways by some tribes. When a runaway, injured Black slave is sheltered by her people, she is awestruck by his size and appearance. White slavers are on his trail and eager to do their business, which means also taking Little Moon and sellNovel Type ing her to a Creek tribe. Historical/Relationships, Action During her days as a Creek slave, Little Moon contrasts the Creek way of life with that of the Primary Audience Tsalagi. The reader sees the maneuverings of the beautiful but jealous Laughing Eyes, who owns Girls Little Moon, to keep her from the brave Panther Shadow. The reader also sees the relationship beInterest Level tween American Indian girls and their mothers. Eventually, Laughing Eyes connives to have Little 12 yrs & up Moon taken by white slavers, who then sell her to a white plantation owner. Now the reader gets a picture of white man’s slavery through Little Moon’s eyes. Relationships between Little Moon and the plantation’s Black slaves are explored. The Black slaves befriend her and teach her English. Jeremiah, the escaped slave whom her people had sheltered, has been recaptured and returned to this plantation. The two become friends and execute an escape that is doomed to end them in the slaver’s hands. But out on a hunt, Panther Shadow intercedes and vanquishes the slavers. He ushers Little Moon and Jeremiah safely back to the Land of a Thousand Smokes, where he declares his love for the now-beautiful young woman. The story ends happily with the ritual of an engagement offering. 2974 WHISPERS IN THE WIND (158 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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PSALM FOR A WINTER TWILIGHT

By Beatrice La Force

I

nspired by the American Indian version of the Twenty-Third Psalm, Psalm for a Winter Twilight is a moving study of the contrasts and similarities between Indian and white men in the abysmal time of American history when the Indians had already been defeated and the white man persisted in driving them, often starving, from their homes and land. It was a time of maniacal vengeance on both sides, when innocent children were slaughtered. It was a time of tragic cultural ignorance and a mean-spirited sense of superiority spurred on by fear. But there was also a commonality in people, a possibility of understanding. And the story, which opens in blood-red violence, closes in the cooler violet glow of the possibility of brotherhood under a Greater Being. Indian and white man share the transcending beauty of the Twenty-Third Psalm in sign and spoken English. Psalm for a Winter Twilight addresses knee-jerk emotions and considered actions. It Novel Type speaks to the better side of people: the minister and his wife who adopt two orphaned History, Relationships Indian children and raise them as their own, the once-proud chief and his little band of Primary Audience survivors who opt to trust, the U.S. Army officer who is wrestling with his military oath and Boys/Girls his religious/humane convictions. There are the young soldiers and homesteaders driven by Interest Level punishing overkill, too, but this night in a house of God, they are held off. At the center of 13 yrs & up the story stand the two adopted children, now teenagers. They are the interpreter and the bridge. From their first encounters with Christian missionaries, the North American Plains Indians used Universal Sign Language to communicate the Psalm among tribes that spoke different oral languages. In 1894, Isabel Crawford, a Baptist missionary to the Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma, translated the sign version into literal English. The Indian version of the Twenty-Third Psalm is included in this story in a very slightly edited form. 3202 PSALM FOR A WINTER TWILIGHT (93 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

CHEROKEE WINDSONG

By Evelin Sanders

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y the fall of 1839, the white population of the United States had crowded American Indians to the extent that government officials coerced the Five Civilized Tribes into signing treaties that exchanged their eastern lands for money and territory in what is now Oklahoma. Most Cherokees refused to honor the New Echota Treaty signed by some members of their tribe. Consequently, the U.S. government rounded them up and herded them into stockades for forcible removal over a route that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. This book is loosely based on that historic event. Its main characters are two young adults. Alisa Renoir, a wealthy and well-educated young lady of French Cherokee descent, is forcibly removed from her home in Tennessee, along with the rest of her tribe. Her Cherokee fiancé deserts her to hide in the hills. With her grandparents, she endures the humiliation of being herded in a stockade, hating the soldiers who put her there. On the trek to Indian Territory, she is befriended by young U.S. Army Lieutenant Clayton Morgan, who sympathizes Novel Type with the plight of the Cherokees. Alisa learns to cope with unaccustomed harsh circumstancHistory, Romance es, and her bitterness is replaced by a slowly developing love for the young lieutenant. Other Primary Audience characters, children, teens, and old people have important roles in the story as well. Girls Interest Level Cherokee Windsong is described by the author as a heritage romance designed to bridge 13 yrs & up the gap between young adult leisure reading fare and the more difficult classics. Beautifully written, the novel succeeds in making the reader more culturally literate while sounding the themes that true love can survive obstacles and that adversity need not be calamity. Evelin Sanders has authored two other novels: A Rainbow High and Janine. 3008 CHEROKEE WINDSONG (253 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

HAWK IN THE WIND

By Joan Price

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ansa, a 14-year-old Hopi boy, lives on the high mesas in Arizona. He has recently passed the tests for his initiation into manhood. Although the Hopi are farmers and people of peace, Dansa dreams of becoming a warrior. Above all, he wants a horse. With a horse, his warrior dreams of avenging his father’s death and protecting his people from Navajo raiders could become a reality. Many Goats, a 14-year-old Navajo girl, and her mother are prisoners of Spanish slave traders. The slavers decide to leave them and their horse with the Hopi until they recover from “the fever.” After the death of the mother, and before the Spaniards return, Dansa volunteers to take Many Goats safely home to Canyon de Chelly. For payment, he wants the horse. Many Goats disagrees. Hawk in the Wind is a multi-level novel. It is the story of the adventures of Dansa and Many Goats, her recapture by the Spaniards, his loss of the Navajo horse, and his determination to find the horse again. It is the story of a Hopi boy’s experiences as a guide for Colonel Novel Type History, Kit Carson as well as the U.S. Army capturing Navajos in Canyon de Chelly. It is the story Relationships of a boy entering manhood. Primary Audience A native Arizonan, Joan Price grew up with the Hopi and Navajo people and was deeply Boy/Girls involved through friendships with their culture, religion, and road of life. She was one of Interest Level 10-13 yrs only a handful of white women ever invited to attend sacred ceremonies in the Hopi kiva and the healing ceremonies of Navajo singers. She completed post-graduate work in Native American Religions and has authored numerous academic magazine and journal articles, as well as several books. 4462 HAWK IN THE WIND (124 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

FEATHERS IN THE WIND

By Lillian M. Fisher

F

eathers in the Wind, the story of Olive Oatman, is based on fact and is true to her life. Olive and her family appeared in the West at a time when the white man and the American Indians were engaged in mortal combat. The white man was determined to tame and settle the western wilderness, and the Indians fought to keep their homelands. In 1851, Olive and her younger sister Mary Ann were taken captive by the Apaches. Her family, including her parents and all but one of her brothers, was murdered. Lorenzo, although gravely wounded, survived, and he never lost hope that his sisters were alive, too. With Lorenzo’s help, Olive’s re-entry into white society in 1865 was made easier. In Arizona today, a town in the Black Mountains has been named Oatman in remembrance of Olive. Not far from this town, Olive spent four years with the Mojave Indians as a slave and daughter. Lillian Fisher is an author of young people’s novels, a poet, and an artist. Feathers in the Wind vividly evokes the emotions, textures, and experiences of the Oatman girls and their Indian masters and families. 4381 FEATHERS IN THE WIND (155 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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Novel Type Historical, Biography/Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 9-13 yrs



TRAPPED!

THE TRUE STORY OF A PIONEER GIRL

By Eunice Boeve

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Novel Type History, True Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 9-14 yrs

Kansas State Reading Circle Choice

his is the true story of 12-year-old Virginia Reed, who, along with her family, faced and survived incredible hardships during an overland journey to California. In the spring of 1846, the Reed and Donner families leave Springfield, Illinois, traveling by ox-drawn wagon. Along the way, they join with other caravans bound for Oregon and California and are midway through their journey when they learn of another route—a shorter, better route, they were told. But what they are told isn’t exactly the truth. After much discussion, most of the wagons go on, keeping to the old, established road. Twenty wagons, including the Reed and Donner wagons, turne off onto the new road. Almost from the beginning, they run into trouble. First they literally have to chop their way through a densely forested range of mountains. Then they cross a desert, where many oxen and several wagons are lost, and as they travel, summer slips away into fall. It is late October when they begin climbing the last obstacle before them—the high Sierra Mountains. Winter has set in early in the Sierras this year, and soon deep snow makes further travel impossible. Exhausted, frightened, and discouraged, the pioneers erect crude shelters and spend the winter in the mountains. This story chronicles the events as they happened. Only the dialogue has been invented. This is a true adventure story of survival against the forces of nature! Eunice Boeve research led her along the trail of the Reeds and Donners from Springfield, Illinois, to the monument erected in their memory in the Sierras, and on into California. 1609 TRAPPED! (92 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

CAMELS WEST

By Phyllis de la Garza

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he Day the Alamo fell in 1836, Santa Ana’s soldiers botched the job of killing the Mexican infant Graciela. But the knife-cut across her throat did take away her voice forever. Now, 20 years later, the United States Congress is depending upon the young woman’s medical skills and courage to help their agent in a tactical experiment using imported camels. The camels are to be transport carriers as the agent surveys a wagon road along the 35th Parallel from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River. If all goes well, use of these camels will be the first step in a plan to study, breed, and adapt camels at Camp Verde for both long-distance transport and for war. Camels were used successfully by the Persian Army as artillery base carriers, and their reputation as “Gunships of the Desert” is impressive. Camels could be as familiar as the packhorse and donkey on the American frontier and in war! But the plan needs time, and the American Civil War and the railroad ultimately end the experiment. Novel Type History, Adventure, Camels West is an epic action-adventure based on a real but little-known period in AmerAction ica’s history. The camels, their handlers, the Comanche danger, and the trek are all true. U.S. Primary Audience government agent Jeremy McNeal is based on a real person. Graciela is fiction, to round out the Boys/Girls story with a romance and to add the dimension of a woman’s emotions. She is a representation Interest Level of all of the strong women who helped open the West. The herbal medicines and skills ascribed 12 yrs & up to her character have all been meticulously researched and are accurate. This is the sensational story of exotic camels and the commitment of a man and a woman to their jobs—and to each other. Phyllis de la Garza is a well-known author who was born in Illinois, lived in Mexico, and now resides in southeastern Arizona. 4438 CAMELS WEST $9.99. Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

YOUNG HEROES OF THE CIVIL WAR

By C. A. Fiore

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efore the 20th century, many boys served in armies, particularly carrying flags or as drummers and buglers. The musical instruments were important because they were how orders were conveyed in battle. Battles were noisy, and the shouts of commands could not be heard above the guns and the groans and screams of the wounded. Many of the boys performed heroically in the battles of the Civil War, and this book celebrates their bravery on both sides. Among them are Johnny Clem, drummer boy of Shiloh and Chickamauga; Willie Johnston, Medal of Honor recipient; Orion Howe, drummer boy of Vicksburg; Nathaniel Gwyne, young cavalry bugler/hero; Arthur MacArthur, teenage officer and Medal of Honor recipient; and many others. 6393 YOUNG HEROES OF THE CIVIL WAR $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

CONFEDERATE PRAYER BOOK OF THE ARMY AND NAVY his is the famous Confederate Army and Navy Prayer Book, a rare facsimile reproduction of the entire book. It was first published in Richmond in 1864 by the Diocesan Missionary Society for the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia. It measures approximately 3.25” x 4.25” and was designed for the pockets of soldiers.

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6249 CONFEDERATE PRAYER BOOK $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

IN SHERMAN’S PATH

By J.F. Spieles

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Civil War Sesquicentennial Anniversary Novel

“In Sherman’s Path is a compelling tale of the Civil War, very much recommended reading.” —The Midwest Book Review “A wonderful story of how war and people’s actions can have life-changing effects on one young man’s life.” —Teresa Gaylard, children’s librarian, Dayton Metro Library “...A must-read for any student who thinks one’s skin reveals anything about the person beneath it.” —Becky Davis, eighth-grade language arts teacher

Twelve-year-old orphan Henry Akinson lives in Georgia. It is in the autumn of 1864, during the time of Sherman’s March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. Henry carries out some dangerNovel Type American Civil War ous missions for a plantation owner who has offered to protect him, but instead he is put directly Primary Audience in the path of Sherman’s looters and foragers. Through it all, Henry develops a relationship with a Boys/Girls slave family. His interactions with them challenge his previously held attitudes and beliefs about Interest Level slaves. He is forced to consider what equality really means, and he learns that true honor and cour11 yrs & up age have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin. This is a compelling story that brings the dangers and realities of the Civil War alive for young readers, and it is a powerful and effective way to engage them when learning about history. Jeffrey Spieles is an elementary school teacher in Englewood, Ohio. A nominee for the 2011 Ohio Teacher of the Year award, drama and storytelling have been major influences on his teaching style. 8593 IN SHERMAN’S PATH $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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COUNT THE STARS THROUGH THE CRACKS

By Billie Hotaling Winner of an Ohio Arts Council Award for Fiction! Received highest marks from VOYA Magazine:

“This simple narrative is a treasure, packed with information and understanding. The writing is unadorned, but, at the same time, beautiful and emotional. Excellent for sixth grade and up. This deserves consideration for Best Books.”

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ere is the story of a 15-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister who set out with their mother to escape from the plantation where they were born into slavery. Their escape is occasioned by the selling of their father to a slave holder farther south. During their journey, their mother dies, and Jute and his sister Susu must fend for themselves as they transverse the Underground Railroad. Their adventure is exciting, because at any moment they risk being captured and returned to slavery. Their lives are frequently in Novel Type History, the hands of whites who are responsible for moving escaped slaves through a series of hiding Adventure places to final safety in Canada. Primary Audience During their journey, Susu breaks her leg. A doctor hides them until she can recover Boys/Girls suffi ciently to be moved to the house of a free Black family. This family is unusual. The Interest Level 12-15 yrs. husband is building a mill out of a pattern book, and he employs Jute in that endeavor. The mother teaches Susu to read. Jute is marked by a fierce pride, a desire to be free, and a desire to make his way in the world. His pride is the driving force behind their escape and the choices he makes on the passage. The $5.00 a month he earns building the mill is a source of considerable pride and satisfaction. After months of waiting, Susu’s leg is healed, and they take their carefully saved money to Xenia to buy two railroad tickets to Canada. They find the town in turmoil, and they learn that the Civil War has started—they no longer have to run and hide, for Ohio does not support slavery. 0521 COUNT THE STARS (145 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 MARCH OF GLORY

By Carla Joinson

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arch of Glory is a handsomely written novel for young adults and Civil War buffs. It is about the mindset of a young Southern soldier. It is an American history experience masterfully crafted, richly documented, and accurate in every detail. Cadet Charlie Stuart’s story is a must-read, alone or as a parallel piece to Red Badge of Courage. Born into a prosperous North Carolina family with business ties in the North, Charlie decides to become a soldier when North Carolina secedes from the Union. Against his father’s wishes, he enrolls in the Virginia Military Institute to become a good fighting soldier for the honor of his state and his country. The war, he believes, was started over states’ rights but was now becoming a war over slavery. Through Charlie’s relationships with and observations about his Southern family, VMI cadets, and upperclassmen, we experience the psychological, emotional, and economical toll Novel Type on the Southern family unit and social group. The external economics of the plantation sysHistory, Relationships Adventure tem and slavery are clear, too. Hard work, long hours of study, little food, and belittling relaPrimary Audience tionships with upperclassmen, as well as close, cherished friendships with other new cadets, Boys/Girls are all here. Characters have pasts and personalities. The reader is a witness in real time to Interest Level real people. Even Charlie’s brief capture by Union soldiers has unusual depth as he dramati12 yrs & up cally shares his fear and his discovery that a Union soldier is capable of compassion. Although the South is ill-equipped for war, the pervading feeling is that it will fight to the death to preserve its way of life. Therefore, when the VMI Corps of Cadets supports General John C. Breckenridge’s forces in Staunton, Virginia, we see an extraordinary battle scene. March of Glory is an American novel of human feelings, honor, values, and soldiering. It is superb! 0823 MARCH OF GLORY (125 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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WAR COMES TO MADELINE

By Bev Martin

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ar is coming; it is 1861. Papa owns a tobacco plantation and slaves, but he frees them all when Tennessee votes to withdraw from the Union and become a part of the Confederacy. He can’t go off to fight in the war knowing that he owns other human beings. Twelve-year-old Madeline, older brother Matthew, and oldest brother Sidney are to run the plantation with Mama and the now-freed former slaves Eb, Sukey, and Ole Tom. The war is not short, as the South had hoped it would be. Running the plantation changes from slave labor to a collaborative effort between family and freed Blacks working for a small wage. Daily life changes from outwardly genteel to frank problem solving for keeping food on the table and harvesting the crop, to calculating to outwit the pillaging hungry soldiers form both sides, to diverting and dodging the slavers as the family conspires to move its precious human cargo to safety, and to praying that their men will return from the battle alive. Three years in war-torn Tennessee change young Maddie, too. Always a curious, observant artist and vivacious child, she becomes an expert rider with a purpose, a smuggler of runaway slaves to a safe stop on the Underground Railroad, and, at least once, the youngest female Confederate spy in Tennessee. War Comes to Madeline is a fast-reading, actionpacked story that will keep young adult readers entertained from first page to last. 4634 WAR COMES TO MADELINE (155 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Novel Type History, Action, Adventure Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 10-14 yrs.

SECESH

By Sue Thomas

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uly, 1861. The Civil War is dividing the people of Missouri. Eleven-year-old Kate is loyal to the Confederacy from the onset, but when she listens to her parents and two older brothers and hears their divided opinions, she begins to realize that the issues are not simple. Through Kate’s eyes, we see a family’s daily life and a system of relationships: North and South; family and neighbors; siblings, parents, and children; family and farmland; mother and daughter; and father and sons. Momma was raised on a Kentucky tobacco plantation and condones slavery, viewing slaves as manpower. Steadfast and loving Poppa comes from the Kentucky hill country, is a hard worker, and learned to read from Momma. Together they homesteaded in Missouri and are raising a family. Oldest son David shares the popular idea that the war will be short, and he joins the Confederates for the money. Fifteen-year-old Waltus joins the Yankees. Passionate about the rights of every human being Novel Type to be able to have a life, to work, and to dream of accomplishment, and himself dreaming History one day of owning a wool mill, Waltus can’t fight on the side that condones men stealing his Primary Audience Girls sheep, his dream, or the rights and hopes of others. Young Benjamin is often the thorn in Interest Level Kate’s side and Momma’s “good boy,” but he and Kate share dangerous adventures. 8-12 yrs. Kate is a typical intelligent 11-about-to-be-12-year-old. She cannot keep a secret. She asks hundreds of questions. Her pet. Grasshopper (a goat) is her confidant. She is beginning to question Momma’s opinions because she is shaken by Momma’s heartless reaction to a neighbor’s captured runaway slave girl being separated from her baby (which is sold) to teach her a lesson. Throughout the insecurities and deepening awareness of others’ feelings that war brings to her, Kate learns that family love remains a solid grounding. A leading educator in the field of teaching children to express their creativity, Sue Thomas has written an excellent book on teaching the writing of poetry: The Poetry Pad. In Secesh, her first novel, she brings her considerable talents to shaping wonderfully absorbing characters, as well as a historically correct, action-filled plot. 540-X SECESH (120 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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GIDEON TELL AND THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG

By Robert W. Walker “Recommended” —The Book Report

ith his father killed in the battle of Shiloh and four younger siblings still at home to support, W and too young by one year to join the Union Army, 14-year-old Gideon Tell becomes apprentice photographer to fast-talking, clever, and well-read Charles Rintree. Rintree is headed to

Novel Type History, Action, Adventure Primary Audience Boys /Girls Interest Level 10-14 yrs

infiltrate enemy lines at Vicksburg to take photographs of positions and armaments, reckoning to get them to General Grant, not for outright cash, but for the fame and subsequent money that fame will bring. Vicksburg has been blocking Union supply lines in the Mississippi. Aboard Empress, Grant’s supply steamer, Gideon and Rintree are caught between a double line of fire. The captain has taken civilian passengers aboard against the arguments of Union troop commander Lieutenant Stephen Kane. With the steamer under attack, Rintree has Gideon bravely remain on deck taking pictures of the shore battlements. Later, seeing the photographs and realizing that photographic surveillance is the way of the future, Kane conspires with Rintree to place him and Gideon inside the city of Vicksburg—their cover story to be that they are refugees desiring to return to the South—Rintree a surgeon, and Gideon his son with an interest in the new science of photography chronicling his father’s work. The Millers, newspaper owners with Union sympathies, will be their “contacts.” Rintree quickly becomes a surprisingly good full-time civilian surgeon. Vicksburg’s society loves him. Gideon realizes that it is up to him to take the pictures. Under the guise of a newspaper photographer creating an image of Vicksburg for Miller’s newspaper, Gideon may go almost anywhere and photograph freely “on assignment.” His objective is the panoramic view from atop the

courthouse. Slowly, Gideon reassesses Rintree as a liar, forger, and perhaps wheeler-dealer angling to sell the photographs to the highest bidder. When Kane arrives incognito (switching identity with a recently dead war correspondent and doing a fine impression of him), they share their suspicions of Rintree being a double spy. It becomes imperative to get Gideon and his prints to General Grant. A prisoner/troop train out of Vicksburg is the answer. What follows is a thrilling, action-packed, no-holds-barred, identities-revealing, great train escape. The novel is seasoned with humor, seeds of romance, masked identities, and great insight into character development and relationships. A bonus is actual photographs of Vicksburg and historical personages that are woven into the story. 5558 GIDEON TELL AND THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG (190 pp.) $9.99


DANIEL WEBSTER JACKSON AND THE WRONG WAY RAILROAD

By Robert W. Walker

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n this rousing 1852 romp through the eerie woods surrounding Hannibal, Missouri, and up and down the Mississippi River, 14-year-old Daniel Webster Jackson runs into a counterfeit Underground Railroad when he decides to run away from his foster home. At every turn he musters courage to survive in a land where the law is at odds with the heart and soul of a people and where the Missouri Compromise forces everyone into a disguise or a secret identity. Daniel, a white teenager, assumes a Black identity and becomes a hero. George appears to be a Black slaver, but he is really a freed Black man and a superb forger of papers for travelers on the Underground Railroad. Colonel Halverston carries an air of mystery about himself and his plantation because he resigned his commission at West Point to take over the plantation, complete with slaves. Really, he operates an elaborate railroad station from it. Sheriff Brisbane meanly enforces slave laws and also pretends to run a railroad station; however, his passengers end up in the Deep South instead of up North. Billy, the wise old Black storyteller on Colonel Novel Type Halverston’s plantation, could be free at any time but remains to be a highly visible slave who History, Action, fuels the eerie rumors about disappearing slaves through his scary stories—and keeps everyone Social/Family Relationships, who snoops off-balance about the truth. John Fairfield is the greatest white conductor of them all Adventure, Humor and a grandmaster of disguise. His Colfax Excursion Line cruise boat is pure magic and moxie. Primary Audience The Black counterfeit tourist passengers, led by big Daisy (who knew all along that Daniel was Boys/Girls white and who turns out to be George’s mother), will certainly have a place henceforth in young Interest Level adult literature. 12-15 yrs The historical content of the novel is impeccable, and the characters are wonderful. There is plenty of action and adventure in this American yarn that follows in the spirit of Mark Twain spiced with Alexander Dumas. A serious quest is tempered with great humanity and humor. The well-told story makes the reader want to jump into its pages as a character. 554-X DANIEL WEBSTER JACKSON (219 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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SUMMER SPY

By Linda Miller Wilson “Summer Spy is a terrific Civil War yarn.” —The Children’s Bookwatch

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ennessee was almost split in half by the Civil War. Residents of the eastern mountain region were largely pro-Union. When the state seceded in 1861, those resisting the Confederacy faced harsh retribution. Many families left the state, but Matthew and Elizabeth Burnett on their farm high in the Smoky Mountains chose to stay. It is 1863, and Tennessee is a battleground for the clash of Union and Confederate forces. Nathaniel, the Burnetts’ oldest son, is a Pinkerton spy, risking his life for the Union to report on Confederate troop movements. When Nat breaks his leg in a fall, he asks his 14-year-old brother Jonathan to deliver vital information to the Pinkerton contact. Jonathan enjoys the solitude of mountain life and lacks his brother’s daring spirit, but he agrees to go. In his first confrontation with a Confederate officer, Jonathan manages to quell his jittery stomach by imitating Nat. Later, his resourcefulness is tested in a midnight battle with bushwhackers. An unexpected detainment in a Confederation camp and his friendship with Onesimus, a young Black slave, convince Jonathan that “there is no winning under either flag.” Summer Spy is the story of a boy whose unswerving determination to fulfill a promise to his brother carries him through each personal challenge until he finally realizes his own strength and courage.

Novel Type History, Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 8-12 yrs

1722 SUMMER SPY (93 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

A BIT OF IRISH EARTH

By Paul Shanley

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his is wonderful historical fiction with its roots in both Irish tradition and lore and the American Civil War. Some of the story is biographical; the rest is wishful blarney.

John Shanley did migrate from Ireland and did join the Union Army. He was wounded in the second battle of Bull Run, and he was later captured and sent to Richmond, probably to Libby Prison as a prisoner of war. But he died in Richmond on January 17, 1864. The author is a distant relative through John’s oldest son. He visited Libby Prison and was so moved that he decided to recreate John Shanley’s trek from Ireland to a better life in the United States. He has rewritten family history a bit, superimposing possible adventures, an escape from Libby, and a life in Boston and Bangor. John Shanley is given the life he could have had, and the reader is treated to the person he most probably would have become because of his personal convictions. Surely Irish eyes are smiling on the older Shanley’s enhanced daring adventures and the younger Shanley’s sensitivity to his story. The atmosphere and mood are accurate. 179X A BIT OF IRISH EARTH (158 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Order on Our Website: rfwp.com Historical Novels

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Novel Type History, Relationships Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up



REDHEADED ANGEL

By Joy Fowler

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his is the story of Columbia Victoria Stuart Boyden, who finds herself a virtual orphan after her father goes to fight in the Civil War and her mother dies. She makes the long and difficult trip to her uncle’s Virginia plantation, where she is taken in and treated as a member of the family. Her uncle is the illustrious General Jeb Stuart, and Columbia becomes part of an exciting world of war, privilege, and adventure. Through her eyes, we see the exuberant world of the Virginian Confederacy in the early years of the Civil War. Dr. Joy Fowler is Chair of the Writing Department at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she has taught for more than 20 years. Much of her writing is connected to her hobby of historic re-enacting and portrayals of historic characters. 7345 REDHEADED ANGEL $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Novel Type History Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

THE PRINTER’S DEVIL

By Marion Page

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trangers Tyler Maldren and Jem Harvey have southern accents that few in Groton, Vermont, have ever heard. And they have a printing press. The townspeople don’t trust them; many are convinced that they are southern spies. Why else would the two want to start a newspaper in little Groton? When 15-year-old Livy chances to meet them on the road near her home, they seem an answer to her dream. She has just graduated from the one-room schoolhouse and hopes to go to secondary school at Newbury Seminary, and she needs money. If these are newspapermen, they’ll need news. Writing things down is easier for Livy than talking, and with a houseful of sisters, she knows all the town’s news. She blushes at her own forwardness in asking Tyler and Jem if she can be a reporter for their paper. She has no idea of the dangerous future she is bargaining herself into. Novel Type The Printer’s Devil plays on several well-wrought levels: the mystery of the newspapermen History, Relationships, Romance and their interest in a rumored tunnel, the harsh reality of what happens in wartime to a farming Primary Audience town when sons go off to war and the old folks cannot keep up the farms, when girls take over Girls chores typically performed by men and how their lives are affected, and the effects of the Missouri Interest Level Compromise of 1861. 12-15 yrs Livy manages to get herself into a dangerous situation. She determines to rescue the childslave Solomon, whom she believes the newspapermen are holding captive. She screws up her courage to investigate the existence of the legendary tunnel under the Peter Paul house, where the newspapermen have set up shop. And she loses her Yankee heart to Jem, who turns out to be an officer in the Confederate army looking for a stash of excellent counterfeit money, plates, and dies made by the infamous Bristol Bill and his gang. This money, and the ability to print more of it, would enable the Confederates to buy arms, food, uniforms, and army supplies, or to print a flood of fake bills and make inflation worse in the North, or to purchase gold and trade with European countries sympathetic to the South. Livy grows up fast and clarifies her own values in this Civil War story. 4640 PRINTER’S DEVIL (171 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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FAITHFUL TO THE CAUSE

By Julianne S. Condrey

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ichmond, Virginia, 1861. Sixteen-year-old Southern belles Sarah and Felicity are cousins, loving family members, and beautiful—blonde Sarah quietly so, auburn-haired Felicity well-aware of her attraction. Their opinions and values about society, politics, slavery, war, and young men are poles apart. Felicity does not question the “right” of slavery or the belief that the South will win the war. And her heart beats with a romantic pulse for a young gentleman officer who is her cousin’s beau. She is also suspicious of Sarah’s relationship with her slave Peachy. Sarah, involved with her father’s medical practice and an avid reader, has a wider frame of reference about the human condition. She questions the rationale of war and feels that the South’s economics rest on the forced servitude of the majority of its people. Her concerns are the realities of the war, not the romanticizing of it. All lives are important, even those of Union soldiers. Peachy is Sarah’s slave, but more accurately, her friend. The young women are the same age. Taught to read, Peachy has been intellectually exposed to more than her plantation life, and she posNovel Type sesses a greater depth of knowledge about the consequences of actions than just common sense. As the History, Relationships, Romance war reaches into the heart of Richmond, it is Peachy who tells Sarah about the slaves’ planned rebellion and her fears for their well-being. Primary Audience Girls Sam, a twenty-something, handsome, and magnetic Union soldier enters Sarah’s life as the Union Interest Level troops move into Richmond. He is one of a group of Union soldiers banging on Sarah’s front door 12-15 yrs searching for food and water. Later, he reappears at her home as a wounded soldier under the care of her father. The good doctor’s compassion and medical purpose drive him to treat wounded Union soldiers, in spite of the clear danger to himself and his family if his actions are discovered. As her father’s assistant, Sarah ministers to Sam, and sparks fly between them. Somehow, when the war is over, they will be together. In the end, it is Sarah’s plan that gets the wounded Union soldiers safely out of her father’s clinic in the nick of time. Peachy combines common sense with insight about relationships. Felicity is suspicious and molded by the Southern credo. Sarah embraces life as it unfolds. The war goes on around them. Faithful to the Cause takes place in one household and represents differing points of view about the war by family members and their extended family of slaves. Sarah and Peachy are the hope for the future.

4039 FAITHFUL TO THE CAUSE $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Phyllis de la Garza

CHARISSA OF THE OVERLAND

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t’s 1862, Missouri. Set against the action of Quantrill’s Raiders, westward expansion, Indians, and unrest over the Civil War, Charissa of the Overland tells the amazing story of Charissa Pankhurst, a.k.a. Charlie Pankhurst. Charissa’s parents die of typhoid. Southern zealots force her much older husband and her to hide out and live in caves in the Ozarks. Her husband is mercifully shot when he contracts rabies, and the young, wounded Union soldier Charissa meets while living in the caves is hunted down and hanged by Quantrill’s Raiders. Feeling it her duty to tell the young man’s parents, she risks her life to get to their farm. This is Charissa’s journey of change. At the farm, needing to take control of her life, she vows to kill Quantrill. There, 16-year-old Charissa clips her hair and casts aside her calico skirts to morph into Charlie, a young man with freedom a woman could never know, and then she strikes out for an adventure-filled life on the rough frontier. Charlie’s relationships with men and women exhibit humor as she perfects her walk, tobacco chewNovel Type Historical, ing, and spitting expertise. They reach memorable proportions when squaws capture Charlie spying on Relationships, their ceremony and prepare to castrate her, only to discover her secret. The women collapse laughing, Action/Adventure and Charissa makes her escape. Later, Charlie becomes very close to her freight-hauling boss and is cerPrimary Audience tain that he knows she is a woman when he announces that he has a proposition to put forth. Sure that he Boys/Girls will propose marriage, Charissa buys a velvet dress for her unveiling. But she is mistaken. His proposiInterest Level tion is an offer to Charlie for half of the business. Those who had met Charlie early and recognized that 12 yrs & up: she was a girl in disguise kept the secret, did not question her motivation, and offered suggestions for appearance improvement. Charissa listened well! Phyllis de la Garza’s works have been reviewed as “Grassroots at its best...thorough and commendable...a delicious sense of humor...both sympathetic and even-handed....” She is a member of Western Writers of America and a SPUR Award finalist.

3709 CHARISSA OF THE OVERLAND (284 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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H I S T O R I C A L

A FEW DAYS’ JOURNEY

By Linda Miller Wilson

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Novel Type History, Action, Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 11 yrs & up

N O V E L S

n 1868, 14-year-old Mattie is bored with her life in the Smokey Mountains. When her aunt invites Mattie to accompany her to Texas to visit the aunt’s sons and daughter-in-law expecting her first child, Mattie seizes the opportunity. Their plan is to travel by train to Memphis, Tennessee, and from there by stagecoach across Arkansas and Indian Territory into Texas. However, by the time they reach Nashville, Aunt Martha, suffering from motion sickness and done in by the smoke and ash, decides to turn back. But Mattie cannot accept so quick an end to her adventures. Strong-willed and short on patience, she determines to continue the trip alone and reminds her aunt that it will be only a few days’ journey. In the days that follow, Mattie survives the harshness of stagecoach travel, is saved from a tornado by hiding in a “fraidy hole,” and is captured by a ruthless outlaw...twice! She paints vignettes of a variety of unique stagecoach passengers for the reader and joins in discussions with her fellow travellers about the news of the day, which includes Ulysses S. Grant and the railroad west. She spends quality learning time with a caring Choctaw family and meets a relay station manager and a retired general. Michael Rutledge, a handsome fellow passenger, is a young man whose smile gives her flutters in her stomach. Linda Miller Wilson is the author of Summer Spy, and Mattie is Mathilde, sister of Jonathan and Nathaniel of that Civil War story. 4020 A FEW DAYS’ JOURNEY $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 TEXAS LEGENDS: FROM THE BIG RED TO THE RIO GRANDE

By Jackye Havenhill

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Novel Type History, Legends Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 10 yrs & up

exas has two histories: its written history of valiant victories and settlers’ adventures, and its oral stories or legends, often told in the evening to wide-eyed listeners. Many of these stories of incidents that took place long ago are steeped in mystery and the inexplicable. These stories have passed from generation to generation. Sometimes they have been changed a little in the telling by the individual storyteller’s own creative style, by fill in of a detail only hazily remembered, or by exaggeration to add emphasis. It is even possible that two versions of a tale might coexist. The folklore of Texas represents every geographic section of that state. Texas Legends captures the reader in the magical web of 29 legends from the High Plains, the Rolling Prairies, the Gateway from the North, the Woodland Lakes, the Brazos Valley, the Coastal East, the Border Tropics, the Hill Country, the Pecos Frontier, and the Towering West. For the reader wishing to learn more, Jackye Havenhill supplies her own comprehensive bibliography as a starting point. 3547 TEXAS LEGENDS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

SECRETS OF THE PECOS: MYSTIC RIVER OF THE WEST

By Jackye Havenhill

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erie events on the Pecos River made for many an uncomfortable night for men along its banks. There was much to explain and few good explanations-—the stuff that generates enduring legends, retold by Jackye Havenhill, gripping stories of the supernatural. Novel Type History, Legends

5617 SECRETS OF THE PECOS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 10 yrs & up

Historical Novels

THE HOMESTEADER SERIES Novel Type American History, Family Relationships

By Esther Allen Peterson

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he Homestead Act of 1862 changed the world with its offer of free land. Millions of people immigrated to America seeking their fortune. Thousands came from Norway to the empty Primary Audience prairies of the Dakota Territory. Boys/Girls The Esther Allen Peterson stories are not true, but they are real. The things that happen to Interest Level Trygve and his family happened in everyday life to most homesteaders in the 1860s. Esther 10-14 yrs first got interested in the lives of the original homesteaders when her minister husband, Donald, served four churches in Fairdale, North Dakota, 30 miles from Canada. She says: “The people were wonderful. They still had that pioneering spirit—that is, they felt a responsibility to look out for and help one another. The older members of our congregations were born in those sod houses, and their parents built those square white farmhouses that sat on almost every 160-acre parcel. When we arrived, those big old two-story houses were being torn down, and the grandchildren of those pioneers were building modern houses.”

“Reading the Homestead Series is an opportunity to experience the struggles of pioneer life with the family and community as a focal point for strength and growth.” —Marilyn Broding, MLS (librarian), Battle Lake, Minnesota “The Homestead Series provides adventure to readers of all ages. The books are easy to read and have high interest as the reader learns about the hardships and adventures of our immigrant ancestors. A must-read for readers of all ages.” —elementary teacher Kirsten Olson, Brainerd, Minnesota “The Homestead Series presents quickly readable tales to help young readers understand the intense struggles faced by new settlers just after the Civil War as the railroad moved west. The historic insights are combined with worthy illustrations of how cherished friendships yielded solutions to severe struggles without bitterness and failure. Proven faith-based solutions are described in appealing ways to help young readers in their personal struggles with varying kinds of diversity.” —JSC, Muscatine, Iowa “Many of my students hear the voices of their parents and grandparents in the Homestead Series. However, the message of hope in these books and the resiliency of the human spirit appeals to all students. With authenticity, Peterson pulls us back to our roots.” —Toni Gredensky, Wahpeton High School, Wahpeton, North Dakota A LONG JOURNEY TO A NEW HOME riven by grinding poverty in the 1860s, the Ytterhorn family of sharecroppers in northern Norway sells their furniture to pay for passage and the promise of a better life in North Dakota. With their scant belongings and determination against all odds, they typify the migrants’ experience in a moving and vivid story. And it is a very long journey, beset by tragedy and hardship. During the sea voyage, young Ma Ytterhorn dies from childbirth fever, and her husband doubts his decision to submit his family to such a perilous undertaking. He, the new baby, and his other children call upon his wife’s best friend to come out and join them. They then face the winter trek overland by wagon together. Along the way, they encounter plenty of helping hands and, eventually, land to cultivate, a new homestead, and a new beginning. 4702 A LONG JOURNEY TO A NEW HOME $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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WILL SPRING COME? he second volume traces the Ytterhorn family through its first year on the new land. Arriving in May, they claim land, build a cabin, break sod, raise a garden, and grow wheat for bread. They seem to be winning the race to provide sufficiently to survive the harsh winter. In September the Olson family arrives from Norway to claim the adjoining plot of land. The Ytterhorns immediately aid their new neighbors in their struggle to prepare for winter. A third family claims two plots of land, but they have arrived so late that their preparations are makeshift. Despite the uncertainties and harsh conditions, the three families develop a community, begin a school and a church, and seem to be thriving when disease and tragedy strike. By spring, all has changed.

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7680 WILL SPRING COME? $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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THE HOUSE THAT CARED H n the third book, the Ytterhorn/Olson families another year of challenges and opportunities on Ithe North Dakota prairie. The achievement of face the year is building a frame house with windows to I replace the sod houses that were their initial dwellings. Weather, illness, new neighbors, and greed all their well-being—and indeed their capacity to keep the house. Hard work, cooperation, and S threaten loyalty to one another help the families survive in very difficult circumstances. T 5051 THE HOUSE THAT CARED $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 THE REFORMATION OF GRANDMOTHER HULDA O n the fouth book, the Ytterhorn/Olson families barely receive news of Grandmother Hulda’s immiarrival before she is at the railroad station waiting to be picked up. The prairie has been good R toInent those members of the family who have survived; they have been transformed from poor tenants in into prosperous farmers cultivating their own land in the Dakota Territory. Now Hulda is arI Norway riving with her reputation of being mean, and worse, with her is unmarried daughter, Ingaborg, who for bossing around the young Olson children. How will the New World remake them C isintoremembered new people? 4856 THE REFORMATION OF GRANDMOTHER HULDA $9.99 Special: $7.99 A THE PRAIRIE BLOOMS L n the fifth book, The struggle of the combined Ytterhorn/Olson family for survival on the Dakota Iprairie continues with new threats, including a prairie fire, and additional setback in the form of an

N O V E L S

October blizzard. Signe and Elna go to school in McCauleyville and both are encouraged to take the test early to become teachers. Just after their fifteenth birthdays, they find themselves being vetted to become teachers in the small neighboring communities. Soon they each will have to prepare lessons, maintain a school, keep unruly children in line, and teach them to read and write and do arithmetic. And they will have to do it all alone, without anyone to help them, except, of course, for the local bachelors looking for wives. Trygve meanwhile is earning good money as a carpenter in McCauleyville, and the family’s hard work on their land continues to produce an abundance that enables them to live so much better than they had in Norway just a few short years earlier. 4856 THE PRAIRIE BLOOMS $9.99 Special: $7.99 HOM4 HOMESTEADER SERIES Set of five novels: $30.00

JOURNEY TO A NEW WORLD

By Myra Saturen

IMMIGRATION • AMERICAN/JEWISH HISTORY

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yra Saturen has based her novel on the notes that her grandfather, Joseph Hyman, wrote in pencil on little tablets of paper about his family’s immigration to the United States from Russia in the early 1900s. The novel tells the story of Joseph and Ruth and also Nathan and Frieda. Their parents, in the late 19th century, made the difficult decision to leave Russia and come to America to Cincinnati. During that time period, many Jews left their homes in Poland and Russia and migrated to America. The Goodman family is part of this migration; their adventures are at once unique and compelling and at the same time very like the experiences of millions of other families. More than anything else, they stick together, depend upon the children working to make ends meet, and pay a huge price in so Novel Type American-Jewish many ways for the freedom and prosperity they find in America. Together they form an essential part History of the making of modern America. Primary Audience Myra Saturen says that on reading her grandfather’s notes after he died, she was “overwhelmed Boys/Girls by the beauty and humor of the writing. It gave me a real picture of what my grandfather’s, and even Interest Level my great-grandparents’, lives were like.” She says she wanted to preserve the story of her family for 10 yrs & up her own two children, who are now adults. “The younger generation doesn’t know them at all,” she says. “They weren’t around to hear their voices and smell the foods they cooked.” This is her second novel for older readers. Her first was Julietta; set in medieval France, it is about a young woman who overcomes prejudice against race and gender to become an herbalist physician. 4948 JOURNEY TO A NEW WORLD $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

A CHARM OF SILVER New York Public Library Choice, Books for the Teenage Reader

By Cameron Ferguson

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et in the thriving mining city of Butte, Montana, in the spring of 1889, and involving its Irish, Cousin Jack (people from Cornwall, England), and Chinese cultures, this novel underscores the tensions and cultural interactions of the period and accurately depicts mining methods and atmosphere through its underground action sequences. Molly Harrington lives with her upper-class, widowed, maternal grandmother Cattie in a fancy house in the fashionable section of Butte. Molly’s mother has died, and her father, a miner, has broken off all contact. Grandmother has no use for the poorer shanty Irish or any other cultures and has given Molly no information about her father. But Molly is now 15, and her tension over Grandmother’s strict control is forcing her to break from Cattie and try to find her father. By putting bits of remembered and overheard pieces of information together, she determines that her father is a Cousin Novel Type Jack. Her search enables her to mix with the townspeople and learn about them and the mines. She Historical, Adventure, cleverly follows a supply delivery to her father’s mine, where she discovers him stealing silver from Social/Family Relationships an adjoining Cousin Jack tunnel. Even so, she begs for a reconciliation, which he rejects. Primary Audience Girls Back at Grandmother’s, after hearing that the Cousin Jacks have discovered the theft of their Interest Level silver, Molly again sneaks into the mines to warn her father to escape with his freedom. Determined, 12 yrs & up he now commands her to stay with him until his business is done, but she flees through the tunnels. Topside, there is news of a coming battle: the Cousin Jacks have accused the Irish miners of stealing their silver. Molly feels that she must now tell what she knows to the Cousin Jacks’ mine superintendent to stop an underground battle. She returns to the mines with the superintendent’s son to find him, but it is too late. The fight is on. She and the son are separated, and Molly is on her own. For a fleeting moment, she confronts her father again, and their relationship is forever changed. Events occur rapidly, and with a surprise twist, the battle is defused. Cameron Ferguson deftly mixes history and characterization. His characters’ personalities develop mainly through their reactions to events. Their actions and conversations drive the plot.

“... the plot’s fast-moving excitement will provide enjoyment for readers. Additionally, the portrayal of the conflict between the Irish and Cousin Jack populations in the American West is fascinating, and the lessons on the price of prejudice, ethnic conflict, and racism make the book useful for classroom discussions.” —Booklist. 1641 A CHARM OF SILVER (189 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

FOR THE LOVE OF GOLD Kansas State Reading Council Choice

By Janelle Diller

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olorado, 1896. Keziah Fursman hurries home alone after school. Hairless Henry Stokes, an oddball miner, follows her and warns her that her father had better stop taking his gold. Her family does not understand the message. Some months later, the family gains full ownership of a mine that Daniel Fursman, Keziah’s father, grubstaked veteran miner Jeb Rowley to. Jeb died under curious circumstances. Daniel would prefer selling the mine to mining it. Two fires destroy the town. Although Daniel is tempted to mine the vein he’s found, since he’s the town’s best carpenter, he’s overwhelmed with work in rebuilding Cripple Creek. The family’s gold fever is put on hold. A neighbor, Mr. Schmieder, does strike a rich vein and immediately buys a huge house with all its accouterments. Keziah and her family are jealous. It appears that mining has made a better life for the Schmieders. So Daniel decides to reopen his mine, but promising veins play out quickly, and the family finds itself in debt from the mine’s expenses. They begin to see that Novel Type Mystery, Adventure, all is also not well with the Schmieder family. Keziah faces the truth: the Schmieders were poor Values, History and unhappy; now they are rich and unhappy. Fortunately for the Fursmans, Ethel Blake agrees to Primary Audience buy their mine as payment for their debts at her supply store. Girls Keziah and Daniel return to the mine once more to collect his tools. Henry Stokes kidnaps KeInterest Level ziah, still believing that Daniel was stealing his gold—just as Jeb Rowley did. Keziah reasons with 12 yrs & up him. To check her story, Stokes returns to Cripple Creek and later releases her unharmed. Keziah finally understands that the most precious gold is her family. The novel has richly developed characters, and it is filled with historical atmosphere. A teacher’s guide is available.

“...a good lesson in the telling.” —The Provident Bookfinder 2680 FOR THE LOVE OF GOLD (221 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 4241 TEACHER MANUAL $5.00

Historical Novels

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H I S T O R I C A L

GOING FOR THE GOLD

By Norma Lewis

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n the depression that began in 1893, people had no unemployment insurance or welfare programs. The promise of gold lured them all, and by 1897, “Ho! For the Klondike!” rang out across the land. North America’s last gold rush had begun. Few of the adventurous schemers and dreamers had any idea of what they were getting into. The Klondike River was just a name to them, and the fact that the gold lay buried 50 or 60 feet in permafrost meant nothing to the uninitiated. Sailing through Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage, with stinking chickens, sheep, and pigs, then crossing either the White Pass at Skagway or the Chilkoot Pass at Dyea jolted most into the reality of the hardships of their quest. The Northwest Mounted Police allowed no one to enter Canada without enough food and supplies to last a year. That meant at least a half ton to transport. Most stampeders moved their own outfits, 50 to 75 pounds, 5 to 10 miles, cached it, then returned for the next load. Icelock and mudlock were often the only rewards for endurance. The gold was not there to grab and run with. This book is an entertaining compendium of an amazing period, built on painstaking research and short-story biographies. The vivid portraits are full of details and include an exciting cast of characters: George Carmack and Skookum, Jim Mason, Belinda Mulrooney, Mike Mahoney, Soapy Smith, Martha Purdy, Jack London, Ed Jesson, Stroller White, Klondy Nelson, Felix Pedro, Jujira Wada, Fannie Quigley, and Wyatt Earp. There are period photos and author’s notes to bring the stories to conclusion, as well as an extensive bibiliography.

Novel Type History, Gold Rush, Biography Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 11 yrs & up

N 327X GOING FOR THE GOLD $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 O V JOSH “Josh is an expertly crafted, engaging, entertaining, and E recommended story for young readers. —The Children’s Bookwatch L By Eileen Ross 1879. Orphaned 11-year-old Josh and his five-year-old sister Maribelle have come from S Colorado, St. Louis to a small farming town to live with childless Aunt Abigail and Uncle Caleb. Josh brings with him the shame of his father’s past and his own guilt that he is ashamed of the father he feels he is supposed to love. Josh also fears that someone will find out about his father and think that he, Josh, will grow up to be just like him. Inside, Josh wonders if he will. He dearly loves little Maribelle, from whose innocence and love he draws strength. Uncle Caleb expects hard work and offers little praise. Aunt Abigail is all kindness. He wants to send the children to a foundling home in Cheyenne. She points out that it is not Christian to punish the children for their father’s deed. Widow McClendon, intelligent, respected, and obviously once very beautiful, employs Josh to do “chores.” He enjoys being around her. She speaks with him, understands him, and because she, too, has a secret—she is the sister of the town’s historic, infamous outlaw—she knowingly counsels him about freedom from family guilt. Josh’s days are filled with thinking that his every action is universally scrutinized, trying to please Novel Type his uncle on the farm and his teacher in school, and dealing with the aggressive school bully Harlow. Social/Family Relationships, Josh’s mettle and kind spirit are apparent throughout the story: his concern for his sister’s well-being, Self-Esteem his rescue of a puppy from certain death by freezing in the river, his concern for sick Uncle Caleb and Primary Audience his ability to handle both Caleb’s farm chores and his own, and his rescue of Harlow from a raging fire. Boys While sitting with sleeping, sick Caleb one night, Josh writes to him from his heart about his feelings. Interest Level Later, unable to find time to complete a homework assignment for Thanksgiving, he submits the letter— 8-12 yrs a letter of hope to God from a child. All is resolved in time for Thanksgiving. Josh’s “paper” is read at the town meeting as the best assignment, and the teacher deems his work the village’s Thanksgiving theme: looking back on the blessings of the past year and ahead to blessings that await us. Uncle Caleb recants; the children can stay. Harlow extends a hand of friendship. This is a superbly crafted story balancing action and contemplation.

1048 JOSH (93 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

BREAKER AT DAWN

By Paul Sullivan

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Novel Type History, Child Labor Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 10 yrs & up

his is a novel of the American coal industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is told from the point of view of Paddy O’Grady, a 12-year-old working in a Pennsylvania mine in the breaker, where boys below the age of 14 sorted through rapidly moving streams of coal, picking out rocks and shale from the anthracite on the way to the rail siding. Miners and their families came from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Italy. The mine owners allowed the differences of national origin and ethnic rivalries to keep the workers separate and relatively powerless, and the mining towns were divided by ethnicity. Mining families were poor, and Paddy O’Grady was not unusual for going to work in the breaker at the age of eight. The law said that children under the age of 12 were not allowed to work, but the O’Grady family desperately needed the income that Paddy could bring in, and documents could be manufactured as needed. The boys who survived the 12-hour days in the breaker could go down into the mines and earn more money whey they became 14. But the work was dangerous, the overseer harsh, and Paddy had years to go before he could become a miner—an occupation that was killing his father. 2567 BREAKER AT DAWN $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

UNSWEPT GRAVES

By Robert Black

T

ravel back in time to the 1890s. Unswept Graves is a gripping story that starts in the present day in a small Nebraskan town about to celebrate its annual Founders’ Day. The founders were said to include young Jasmine Wu’s great-great-grandparents, Charlie and Hannah Fong. Jasmine and her friend Oz get to find out the Fongs’ story when they are suddenly and magically transported by her ancestors’ mysterious pendant back in time to the Chinatown of San Francisco in the late 1890s. The children find out that it was a dangerous, brutal time to be Chinese, especially for young girls. Jasmine is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Oz has to dress as a boy to rescue her and get her to the shelter of the Mission Home. They meet Charlie Fong, and somehow they have to make sure that the future happens. In the end, the founders and ancestors are honored as they should be, and Jasmine discovers her heritage. The title of this book refers to the traditional Chinese festival of Ching Ming, or “Grave Novel Type American-Chinese History, Sweeping Day,” when families pay tribute to their ancestors and tend to their family gravesites. Adventure Author Robert Black says his purpose is “to give readers a taste of what life used to be like—and Primary Audience an experience of being there. I hope too they will learn the same lesson that Jasmine learns during Boys/Girls her trip to the past, about the challenges and hardships people had to face and the determination it Interest Level took to survive all that.” 12 yrs & up Black’s research into the life of Chinese immigrants reveals shocking anti-Chinese prejudice in the U.S. at the time, and also the dangerous work of rescuing slave girls by the Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco. The home still exists on Sacramento Street. It is now Cameron House, a Chinese community center. Robert Black’s previous novel is Liberty Girl. Set in Baltimore, it is based on his grandmother’s diaries about growing up part German at the end of World War I. There is a supporting website (www.rablack.com) showing contemporary photographs and footage of Chinatown, as well as a bibliography for further reading. 9035 UNSWEPT GRAVES $9.99 Special Price: $7.99


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CHARLIE BOY

By Kim Delmar Cory

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etroit in the 1890s. In bicycle shops around the city, men are experimenting with the internal combustion engine in an effort to make horseless carriages. It is the crucial time in the growth of Detroit as the automobile center of the world, and this books brings to life the excitement and individual nature of the early development of the automobile. A bicycle shop owner named William Metzger was one of the pioneers of the auto industry. Into his shop comes 12-year-old Charlie O’Brien, a boy with an astounding ability to draw and to make automobile ideas come alive. Charlie moves into Metzger’s shop, and together they work toward the development of the automobile. They ride with Charles King in the first car to drive the streets of Detroit. They spend evenings with the Dodge brothers working on ideas. They also do not miss baseball at Bennett Park, which would later be called Tiger Stadium, and many of the Novel Type other attractions of Detroit in the 1890s. The novel is very accessible for young readers, who are American History drawn into Charlie’s world. Primary Audience Charlie is a fictional character, but Will Metzger was a real Detroiter who opened the first auBoys tomobile dealership in Detroit in 1890s. He was the M in EMF cars (an early competitor of Ford), Interest Level built cars for Pierce Arrow, and was a founder of the Detroit Athletic Club and of the American 10 yrs & up Automobile Association. 4969 CHARLIE BOY $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

LILLY’S WAY

By Kim Delmar Cory

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uskegon, Michigan, 1891. Twelve-year old Lilly works in her mother’s inn, along with teenage brother Gaston and teenage sister Lu. The family has been fatherless since just before Lilly’s birth. Father deserted them. The inn was a gift to Lilly’s parents from her father’s wealthy parents early in the marriage to help settle their son’s gambling, irresponsible nature. It didn’t work, but it has provided shelter and a modest income for the family. Now, money is tight, and changes have to be made. Their mother Beth wants to make the inn into a resort by sprucing it up and marketing some of its specialties, particularly orchard-fresh foods and tours. Gaston wants to join a lumbering outfit to make extra money. Lu, artistic and a wonderful seamstress, works part-time at the Muskegon paper and wants to look fashionable and marry well. Lilly, more than anything else, wants to know that her father loves her, and to attend college and become a writer. Rich and powerful businesswoman Grandmére Claire Marie never approved of her son’s Novel Type marriage and broke ties with the family when he left it. In town for a Chamber of Commerce Family Values Historical Adventure meeting, a chance sighting of Lilly’s flaming red hair, unmistakably the same as her son’s, revives Primary Audience her thoughts of the family and the past. Her own red hair is not lost on Lilly, who sees her across the Girls street and immediately knows who she is. Interest Level Later, when Gaston is in an accident during a logger’s contest with $1,000 prize money, Lilly 9 yrs & up runs into town to Grandmére to fetch a doctor because she is sure a good one will respond to her grandmother’s call. They arrive at the accident site to find Gaston already in the care of Dr. King. On the way, Grandmére begins to heal the family rift by accepting Lilly as her grandchild. When Lilly tells Beth about Grandmére’s words, Beth realizes that she and Grandmére really never took the time to listen to each other. Duncan Christie arrives to woo Beth. Gaston appears to have won the $1,000, to be used on the inn. And Lilly determines that Dr. King is the right man for her mother, particularly after she overhears that Duncan is an embezzler. He has been courting Beth because one of her orchards is supposed to contain bank robber’s gold. Meanwhile, Grandmére has been quietly maneuvering to help the family. The $1,000 Gaston got from the logging company was from her, as was a well-meaning letter to Beth. As the family begins to clear the orchard of dead trees, they find a willow filled with gold coins. Thoughts now turn to building a proper dock for a ferry landing, indoor plumbing, telephones, and college. The novel closes with Lilly coming to terms with herself about her father, who has been in town and has left at his mother’s mansion letters for the children and one for his mother, who personally delivers the children’s and apologizes for the missed years. Lilly reads that he loves her. She needed to know that, but now, more importantly, she realizes that she has always been her mother’s daughter, and she prepares to get on with the things she has to do. Lilly’s Way is at once a beautiful novel of family values and an accurate historical picture of the juxtaposition of Michigan’s lumbering and tourist industries. 3636 LILLY’S WAY $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

JANINE

By Evelyn Sanders

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an Francisco, California, 1906. Janine Harper is a young journalist who goes to San Francisco to find out more about the mysterious death of her father, a writer who had been collecting information for a series on night life in the Barbary Coast area for a New York publisher. Janine resolves to finish his work using her own writing skills to expose the “City of Sin” to the rest of the world. Janine finds employment as a companion to a wealthy elderly lady who lives with her civicminded grandson. In Janine’s lively imagination, Blake looks more like a daring sea captain or a swashbuckling pirate than an architect. She does not know, at first, that he is involved in an attempt to uncover government fraud and official collusion with lawless elements in the city. In the evenings, he frequents disreputable establishments in disguise, knowing nothing about Janine’s night-off activities. When their paths cross in a waterfront saloon, sparks fly. Janine’s protector, a young, simple-minded giant who had furnished transportation and other assistance for her father before his death, always accompanies her on trips to the seamy Novel Type side of the city. When Blake accosts her with an angry outburst at seeing her in the saloon, History, Relationships, Romance, /Mystery Freddie decks him. Janine is sure she will get fired, but Blake’s grandmother, who has grown quite fond of Janine, intervenes. Primary Audience Girls Blake doesn’t like what Janine is writing about his city and wants to show her its other side, Interest Level but there are complications. He is engaged to be married to a San Francisco socialite, and Janine 12 yrs & up finds herself falling in love with him. The 1906 earthquake and fire bring resolution to all of the emotional complications. Evelyn Sanders presents history in a vibrant context to young adults using protagonists their age. Janine is her third novel. 4446 JANINE (189 pp.) $ 9.99 Special Price: $7.99

SISTERS UNTO DEATH

By Michele Torrey

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Novel Type History, Relationships, Mystery, Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

an Francisco, 1905. After their father is washed overboard during a storm at sea, beautifully exotic Eugenia, 16, and Inda, 12, seem doomed to live with their hateful Aunt Mable in a cold Nob Hill mansion filled with criticism and prejudice toward their Calcuttanese-American heritage. Having stumbled upon a young aunt’s diary, they find diversion in reading its secrets: her lust for life, her beauty as perceived by herself and others, her loves, and her family relationships. Since Aunt Mable is supposed to be in Italy, they find her room and try on her exquisite clothing, then plan a fun evening on the Barbary Coast to relieve their boredom. They narrowly escape the clutches of a brothel owner and, returning home, receive severe reprimand. Returning to the diary, they learn of the aunt’s slow murder by poison by the very woman who hates them, and they now know that their older aunt’s prejudice and meanness toward them is really the best side of her they’ll ever see. The girls report their reading to the police, but they have no evidence. Terrified by Aunt Mable, they accept the help of a family friend, who apparently also hates Aunt Mable and believes the girls, but he takes them to Spider Jack, the brothel owner. Now they must escape into the even harsher outside world of the Barbary Coast. Fate lands them in a well-run orphanage, where they are happy and safe, but they are returned to their aunt by well-meaning officials who see her only as their wealthy provider. But the tale is not over until the girls once again have their freedom and take charge of their father’s ship, the Apenea. It is clear that they intend to hire a worthy captain, restore the ship and crew, and head out to sea as mistresses of their father’s cargo ship, their home. 3717 SISTERS UNTO DEATH (222 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99


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THE GHOST MEMOIRS OF ROBERT FALCON SCOTT

By Ken Derby

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Novel Type History, Adventure, Biography Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 12 yrs & up

he ghost of Robert Falcon Scott must tell his story before he is allowed to pass into the beyond. He tells it to “CyberRat” through the Internet. His quest for the South Pole is compelling and sheds light on the motivations of all explorers. Scott (1868–1912) was a dreamer. Since childhood, he wanted to join the French Foreign Legion and be an explorer. His family instead cast him into their mold of the Royal British Navy. Robert was determined to make the best of the situation. Family bankruptcy and his father’s death put the family’s total support on Robert’s shoulders, so he accepted the offer of Sir Clements Markham, president of the Royal Geographic Society, who was organizing and equipping a British Antarctic expedition to the South Pole. Through the Internet dialogue, the reader learns about both of Scott’s expeditions. The first, lasting from 1902 to 1904, failed to reach the South Pole. Conditions were miserable. Scott’s team survived, and he returned to England to become famous for his trek for as far as it went. In 1910, he was determined to win the prize of success for the British Empire, so he began his second expedition. It was a disaster from the beginning. The motor-driven sledges broke down, and blizzards wrecked havoc on his timetable. His team arrived at the Pole to find a note from Norway’s Roald Amundsen, and on the torturous way back, Scott’s team froze to death in agony. The technique of the ghost purging himself of his story allows all details to be revealed. 5523 THE GHOST MEMOIRS (99 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Robert Black

LIBERTY GIRL

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et during the last year of World War I, 1918, in Baltimore, Maryland, seventh grader Eleanor Blizzard and her mother have moved from their home in Indiana to be with Mr. Blizzard. Eleanor father is doing essential work for the Allies in the Great War against Germany. The family will remain in Baltimore as long as the war lasts. Not yet enrolled in school and with no one her age around, Eleanor’s and teenage Maggie, the African-American housekeeper of the building, begin a friendship that transcends the differences in their social and economic positions and their cultures. In an environment of war hysteria, the great influenza pandemic, and the racial divides of 1918 Baltimore, Eleanor attempts to do what she knows to be right. Once in school, Eleanor is singled out as dangerously different and is Novel Type made the object of bullying. Classmates, led by Boy Scout Billy Blake, believe that she lived in History Relationships a log cabin in Indiana and that her studying German in school makes her suspect for espionage. Before the Great War was really over, an erroneous French report of armistice spread Primary Audience Girls worldwide over the wire services. Historically accurate, Liberty Girl captures that glorious Interest Level moment and the jubilation that the peace announcement brought. The novel also explores the 10 yrs & up empty feeling in the hearts and minds of the neighborhood residents as the mistake comes to light. In addition, the Spanish influenza epidemic also involves the characters in varying degrees of difficulty. Robert Black has created this novel out of his grandmother’s memories of growing up in wartime Baltimore, and he paints a visually vibrant canvas of the period. His characters face believable situations and speak believable dialogue. 4894 LIBERTY GIRL $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Joyce Esely

OIL FIELD BRATS Novel Type

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History & Family n 1927 the oil field towns of the Texas Panhandle had no roads, houses, or schools. The riggers and their families lived in tent camps in a treeless land- Primary Audience Boys/Girls scape, and had to cope with snakes and mice, the constant smell of oil, the Interest Level bootleggers and ruffians, dust storms that lasted a week and mudslides when it 9 yrs & up rained. The resourceful Peterson children were ‘oil field brats’ who collected bottles and gave rides in mud-sleds to contribute to the family ‘house fund’ with which they hoped to move into a proper house with walls one day. Their papa had sunk the money into gushers that didn’t gush or which caught fire and took days to extinguish. Betty Lou had once seen a tap dance class and the height of her ambition was to be in a place where she could learn to dance. That was her dream amidst the dust and danger and the itinerant lifestyle of the oil field pioneers. 5297 OIL FIELD BRATS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

TENDING BEN’S GARDEN

By Kim Delmar Cory

his is the story of a big sister’s fierce love for her younger brother. Set in Michigan during the T Great Depression, Kate and Ben’s family do not think that they can do the best for little Ben, an uncommonly bright child, and they allow him to go to a foster home.

Kate will not accept the situation, and she gets their brothers to help her tend Ben’s garden through all the seasons of his absence. The garden was important to Ben, so the garden is important to them. But Kate has to face some unpleasant realities, even while hanging on to her dreams Novel Type of getting Ben back. She rides the railroads with the hobos in search of him and Family, nearly loses her life. American History Through all the difficulties the Depression brings to her family, eventually Ben is returned. At the Primary Audience end of the book, there is a poignant scene in which it is Ben’s turn to look after Kate as an old women. Boys/Girls Kim Delmar Cory’s other children’s books, Lilly’s Way and Charlie Boy, are meticulously reInterest Level searched historical novels and are frequently used in fourth-grade curricula for the study of Michigan 10 yrs & up history. 7789 TENDING BEN’S GARDEN $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

THE DAY MRS. ROOSEVELT CAME TO TOWN

By Anne Buckley

he Day Mrs. Roosevelt Came to Town was inspired by an overnight visit Eleanor and Franklin T Roosevelt made to Lancaster, Texas, in 1936, prior to attending the Texas Centennial. The novel, a work of historical fiction, traces the efforts of a young African-American woman, Olive Johnson, as

she moves beyond her station of maid and creates a new life for herself. Olive is empowered by Mrs. Roosevelt’s words and spirit. Olive learns about Mrs. Roosevelt by reading her work aloud to her employer, Ethel Wilson, whose untimely death sends Olive to the home of Louise and Bill Andrews as a maid. Abusive treatment from Louise prompts Olive to consider other work. The opening of Madam C.J. Walker’s College of Beauty Culture in Dallas, a school for Colored cosmetologists, answers her dreams. After Novel Type working for the Andrews during the day, Olive commutes to school nightly on the electric trolley (the History, Adventure Interurban). Tuition is a strain, but her mother, Bessie Mae, helps her work it out. A young African- Primary Audience American porter, Lewis Bonner, becomes intrigued with Olive and her determination. He helps her Boys/Girls overcome her apprehension about the big city and school. Usually shy, Olive warms to him. Bessie Interest Level Mae and Pastor Simpson of the Free Will Baptist Church favorably measure Lewis’s character, and 12 yrs & up with their approval, romance develops. Louise Andrews, hating to lose a good maid, tries to derail Olive’s education by loading her down with impossible household chores. But Olive perseveres because she needs the money. Olive’s moments of joy and laughter come from little third grader Lily, Louise’s daughter, and Lily’s grandmother, Ella. They forge a deep and caring relationship. Events take a tragic turn when Olive’s mother dies in a tornado. Overcome with grief, Olive retreats within herself, rejects Lewis, and finds solace only in her beauty training. She struggles to cope with the devastating change in her life. Eleanor Roosevelt’s written words echo in Olive’s mind, and when Mrs. Roosevelt finally arrives in town and speaks to the crowd gathered at the train station, Olive’s inner soul knows that Mrs. Roosevelt’s speech is for her. Mrs. Roosevelt’s words about being afraid herself in life, race, immigrant families, and an individual’s spirit empower Olive. Lewis is the porter on the Roosevelts’ railroad car. Heeding her inner soul and inner strength, Olive steps forward to join him and begin her new life. Anne Buckley has been a freelance writer, journalist, and publicist. Winner of the Anita Cole Memorial Scholarship, University of North Texas Centennial Literary Festival, Anne is also an active member of Women in Film/Dallas and the Dallas Screenwriters Association. 4586 THE DAY MRS. ROOSEVELT CAME TO TOWN (186 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

GROWING UP AS A GREEK AMERICAN

By Dr. John Kallas

T

hese stories will forever define the Greek-American experience in the 20th century. They are just the way you’d want them—warm, funny, loving, and accurate. This is life as it was lived in Greek-American households all over the country. These are the triumphs and sorrows of a strong people in a land where diversity was not Novel Type Growing Up, Humor, always welcome. Autobiography The author of computer books and software, as well as a number of Primary Audience plays, John Kallas was also the President of the Greek Writers Guild of America. He is an Boys, Girls, & Their Parents excellent storyteller and a very funny man. Interest Level 12 yrs & up

Historical Novels

0130 GROWING UP AS A GREEK AMERICAN $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

81



By Michael Hagen

KLAUS

T

he setting is Munich, Germany, November 8, 1923, Hitler’s failed putsch. Fourteen-year-old Klaus is celebrating his birthday quietly with his father in their simple apartment. His father had been a captain in the German Army during World War I, and his heartfelt gift to his son is the pocket watch that had saved his life in battle. Now Germany is in a time of economic disaster and political turmoil, a time when a pound of bread cost billions of marks and revolution is more probable than not. Although adolescent Klaus is aware of the political instability and feels danger for his father, who works for the head of the Social Democratic Party, which is hated by Novel Type the members of the Nazi Party, he naively hopes that his father’s past military service and his affirmaHistory, Adventure tion of nationalism might be a buffer to danger. Primary Audience For young Klaus, Germany’s problems are still external. His good friend Fritz knows everything, Boys especially about cars, and has a sister, Anna. Klaus is learning English from watching Tom mix movInterest Level 11-14 yrs ies, and he wants to go to America to become an actor. Wondrously, Klaus has just watched a stage rehearsal of Hedda Gabler. But on the way home from the rehearsal, his life changes abruptly. He is caught in a wild cross fire and is wounded during Hitler’s attempted putsch. Later, Hitler’s brown-shirted Storm Troopers break into the apartment looking for his father. With his own life threatened, Klaus knows that he must lie to save his father, but he is afraid to open his mouth for fear of bungling the job. Innocence is left behind in yesterday’s youth. Michael Hagen writes with a fluidity and beauty that make Klaus an unforgettable story for teenagers. Mr. Hagen also has authored the historical novels Sail to Caribee and The African Term. 0955 KLAUS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Leslie J. Wyatt

RIVER RATS

T

he novel is set in 1940s rural Missouri, with World War 2 about to shatter lives forever. The story is told in the authentic voice of 12 year old Kenny, who roams the countryside with his older brother and friends, hanging out together in the bottoms of the Chariton River. Trouble comes with the arrival of a new boy, Henry Nichols, who is “a thin stick of a person, looking like a half-starved hound...and not like us.” Can he join the River Rats? Kenny’s big brother, Jim, is a bully and tries everything he can to humiliate and hurt the newcomer who doesn’t even go to school he so poor. Kenny has to risk losing the friendship of his own brother by doing what, deep down, he knows is right. In the midst of the rough and tumble of the boys’ day to day lives, the story tackles head-on the dilemmas and choices he must face about loyalty, friendship and right and wrong. Author, Leslie J. Wyatt learned first hand from someone who grew up in the Chariton River bottoms. “Listening to his stories was like stepping into a bygone age. I began to wish I could capture them for my children and all the other children in the world who would never get to live that life.”

Novel Type Bullying, Growing-up Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 9 yrs & up

3789 RIVER RATS $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

ONLY THE BIRDS ARE FREE: THE STORY OF A WAR CHILD IN GREECE

By Anna Christake Cornwell

B

orn in the United States to Greek parents, Anna Christake Cornwell is trapped in Greece during the Nazi-fascist occupation in World War II. Her mother and father had returned to Greece to educate their young son Tasio and their daughter Anna in the mother tongue and to visit the homeland. But in 1940, in spite of the growing danger of world war, her father opts to return to the United States. Alone. Mother often rues his selfish decision. She is left to protect her two young children from the Nazis for the next five and a half years. The horrors of war bring Anna, Mama, and Tasio to know hunger and the constant threat of starvation, disease, exposure to the elements, and enemy bullets. Constantly on the alert for raids, the refugees often run to the mountains to hide, abandoning what little of their belongings remain. Anna is fired up by the countrywide struggle for freedom. She becomes active in the youth liberation movement. Later, emerging into womanhood and self-realization, she becomes a freedom fighter, a leader risking her life for her ideals of independence and freedom. Only the Birds Are Free is a story of action and emotion; the characters are robust, and the descriptive passages are unforgettable. Anna’s story was originally published in Greek; this is the English translation. 5728 ONLY THE BIRDS ARE FREE (380 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Novel Type Historical, Relationships, Autobiography, Adventure Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 13 yrs & up

Historical Novels

MONDAY

By Garlyn Webb Wilburn

I

t’s 1943 on a small farm near Parkerville in central Texas. Jeff has failed English. Given the option by his strict fourth-grade teacher either to complete all assignments sent home during the summer or to attend summer school, which she will be teaching, Jeff’s parents feel that a visit to his grandparents’ farm might be just the thing to help him buckle down to work and to change his attitude. They warn him that if he does not do the reading and spelling work with Grandma, he will be brought home to go to summer school. Treated on the farm as a responsible member of the family, Jeff is given chores to do. Usually he is paired with Monday, a strong-willed donkey that Jeff believes is “the most cantankerous donkey that ever lived.” Jeff knows what he needs to do, and what he needs Monday to do. Monday knows what Jeff thinks he should do; it is seldom what Jeff has planned. Readers will laugh at some of the situations Jeff and Monday get into as the summer wears on. The observant reader will sense Jeff’s shifting attitude as he reminisces about his adventures with Monday, and Novel Type he credits the donkey not only with stubbornness, but also intelligence and bravery in running Humor off wolves. Primary Audience Toward summer’s end, Jeff is on time with his reading and spelling, and he builds a cart for Boys/Girls Monday to pull him in. He leads them both into a place where Monday clearly does not want Interest Level to be. Too late, Jeff realizes that it is past time to turn around and go home. While he is at a 8-12 yrs stream getting a drink, a blood-curdling scream from Monday mortifies him, and he turns to see the damage a panther is doing to Monday’s back, neck, and shoulders. Monday’s survival becomes paramount for Jeff, and so is the donkey’s presence in his life. Jeff’s attitude toward Monday has come full circle; he would like to buy Monday when he grows up! Among other things, Jeff has learned that along with Monday’s stubborn nature comes many admirable traits. Garlyn Webb Wilburn lives in China Spring, Texas, where he spends his time raising donkeys and writing for young readers. 6260 MONDAY $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

MOUNTAIN SONG

By Elizabeth Janoski

W

est Virginia, 1942. Fourteen-year-old Jedadiah struggles to provide for his family since his father’s death. To keep the farm going, he must find a way to gather coal for the winter and slaughter the hogs. He also worries that his mother, once a schoolteacher, will send him away to high school, into the world beyond the mountain that he loves. Jedadiah’s legacy is in the barn, a stack of chestnut lumber that has been waiting for a craftsman to make it into furniture to sell. Jedadiah is too small and too young to use the tools. To gather the coal, Jedadiah needs the help of Rhys Maddox, new mine manager at Salt Lick. To butcher the hogs, he needs the Slocum boys. Rhys is interested in the mountain’s timber and coal, as well as providing jobs and needed fuel for the war effort. He labors to bring the Salt Lick mine back into production. Although he is interested in Jedadiah’s mother, Jedadiah believes that Rhys only wants the farm in order to expand the mine. The Slocums are thieves interested in the chestnut lumber. They try to steal the lumber, and as Jedadiah chases them off Novel Type the property, the barn and house catch fire and are destroyed. Jedadiah’s mother accepts Rhys’s History, Adventure, Coming of Age offer of a home and a teaching job in Salt Lick and moves the family into the mining camp, Primary Audience where Jedadiah feels caged and useless. He looks for a job to earn money. He believes that the Boys/Girls family will be trapped by Rhys’s kindness, and he seeks revenge on the Slocums for the fire and Interest Level for their poisonous moonshine stills. 10-14 yrs After a bitter argument with his mother and Rhys, Jedadiah heads for the mountain, where he stumbles upon another still—and the Slocums ready to do him in. But Rhys has come looking for him and intervenes. Jedadiah escapes, but Rhys suffers the consequences: entrapment in an abandoned mine tunnel. As the miners and mountainfolk try to save Rhys, Jedadiah realizes that he himself is the one responsible for much of his own misery and the predicament that Rhys is in. He must save Rhys. And as he shares in Rhys’s ordeal, he discovers that he never has to leave the mountain permanently, but in order to steward its resources properly, he must gain an education. Mountain Song is the story of a boy’s journey toward manhood and the understanding that he must accept full responsibility for the consequences of his actions. 6287 MOUNTAIN SONG $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

83



GYPSY PRINCE: WAR HORSE

By Tom Townsend

G

ypsy Prince was born small, the last foal of an old German war horse that had survived World War I. The stablemaster expected that because of his small size, the horse would end up pulling a beer wagon. But it is the late 1930s, and the Reich needs every horse for the conflict to come. It also needs all the expertise it can find to care for the horses, and so Gypsy Prince and Hans, the stable boy who looks after the horse, end up in the same unit of the German Army, paired for the duration of the conflict. They go into battle on the Eastern Front as part of the invasion of the Soviet Union. Together they make it as far as Stalingrad, where, with the Russians encircling the Germans, Gypsy Prince is turned loose rather than be turned into a stew for the hungry troops. With extraordinary luck, he makes it through enemy lines back to the German forces, where he is once again pressed into the war effort. This time he is shipped to the Western Front, where Novel Type History, Relationships, he is taken and used by the French Resistance after the invasion at Normandy. Eventually, Action, Horse Story the horse finds himself loose and travels through France to Germany. He crosses the Rhine Primary Audience at Remagen just ahead of the American troops and continues to make his way across the Boys/Girls countryside until he reaches the farm where he was born. Interest Level Through the eyes of the horse and the perspective of his interactions with humans, kind 10-16 yrs and unkind, Tom Townsend has provided a very basic and comprehensible history of the Second World War. This perspective is superb for allowing youngsters to see the values of the participants in the war without being didactic or preachy. 4349 GYPSY PRINCE $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

HITLER’S WILLING WARRIOR

By Henry Gutsche

I

Novel Type History, Relationships, Action, Autobiography Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 13 yrs & up

t is the Nazi Era in Germany. Historians now debate the guilt of the German people. Some argue that all Germans were a party to the evils of the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the execution of nine million people in Germany’s concentration camps. Others argue that only a small number of Germans were really guilty—that the vast majority had no choice but to follow, themselves victims as well. Henner Falk, 17, grows up anti-Nazi during the Nazi Era and naively expresses his political views. For these views, he is imprisoned and tortured. He escapes and then is hunted for years by a Gestapo agent with a personal vendetta. Henner’s hiding place is in the thick of battle, fighting in the Luftwaffe against the Allies in Russia, Africa, and Italy. He does not desert; he does not surrender; he endurs and hides, turning down rank promotion to remain inconspicuous in the corps of pilots and to remain alive. In 1945, Henner becomes a prisoner of war, yet he feels free. In time he is repatriated back to a different Germany to finish his formal education and to resume his life as best he can with the family and friends he has left. This is Henry Gutsche’s real-life story. He later became a leading research scientist in the field of silicon computer chips in the United States. Was Henner a henchman or a victim? 5205 HITLER’S WILLING WARRIOR (190 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Order on Our Website: rfwp.com 84

Historical Novels

NADIA OF THE NIGHT WITCHES

By Tom Townsend

N

adia of the Night Witches is an action-packed story of courage, determination, and romance; it is the story of young women at war in unprecedented aerial combat during World War II. There is dramatic fighting action, a superb story line, and character development. Although the book is a work of historical fiction, the Night Witches were very real. Following the German invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941, the Soviet Government authorized the formation of three squadrons of female pilots. One of these, the 588th Night Bomber Squadron, became known as the Night Witches. Equipped with obsolete, open-cockpit biplanes built in the 1920s, they flew some of the most daring combat missions of World War II. During the past half-century of the Cold War, their story has, for the most part, remained untold outside of the Soviet Union. Seventeen-year-old Nadia Tarachinko has just graduated from flight school, and for whatever short time she believes she has left to her life before being killed by the advancing Germans, she wants to kill Germans—nothing else matters. The action begins immediately. In a flashNovel Type back, we see Nadia’s family farm being bombed, her family being killed, and a near-crazed and History, Adventure bloodied Nadia being rescued from two German soldiers by Lilly, who swoops out of the air in a Primary Audience PO-2 and flies the girl, sitting on the body of her bloodied and dead back-cockpit navigator, to the Boys/Girls safety of the Night Witches base. Missions, battles, and innermost thoughts of the fighting young Interest Level women play from the pages. Although this is Nadia’s story, it is also a riveting look at patriotism, 12 yrs & up love, and war through the eyes of young women at war. Those in battle are afraid to care for anyone because death is so eminent. Yet Townsend shows us love in various combinations: Lilly and Nadia (both Night Witches pilots), Shenya (Nadia’s navigator) and Nicholai (a Russian flight captain), Nadia and Misha (a tank command sergeant), and the Night Witches barracks’ (all ranks) compassion for a surviving young German boy who they are determined to keep incognito and hand off to the safety of the Allied forces as soon as they can at war’s end. This is the time of Stalin and Mother Russia and the Young Communists League. All Russians fought. The opencockpit PO-2 biplane was simple enough for peasant girls to fly, and cheap to build and repair. And training women for air battle freed up the men to fly the more important missions of the Great Patriotic War. Nadia of the Night Witches is dedicated to the memory of all those pioneer women, both Allied and Axis, who flew military aircraft in World War II. Tom Townsend is a noted historian with more then 20 books to his credit. He has won literary and video awards and has worked on significant made-for-television and big-screen films. 2737 NADIA OF THE NIGHT WITCHES (158 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

CASSIE’S WAR

By Allan M. Winkler

“...an excellent book.” —Ohioana Library Association

I

t is just prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941, California. Like so many others, Cassie’s family has left a home and lifestyle hampered by economic depression and moved here to find work in the defense plants and to live in a housing project. It is a long way from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. School is on double session, with 40 children in each section of the fifth grade. There, Cassie and Miko, a Japanese-American, find each other and become best friends. Miko’s family owns and lives on a farm, but being Japanese carries problems for them that Cassie at first cannot understand. Seeing the war as the key to his dreams, hating the Japanese, and bigoted toward Italian, Spanish, and Jewish people, Cassie’s father undermines their father-daughter relationship by ordering her to end her friendship with Miko. He also forbids Cassie’s mother to work, even though she is lonely, homesick, and suffering from boredom. Novel Type History, With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Cassie’s life changes: her father is drafted, goes off to war, Relationships and is killed; Miko’s family is sent to an internment camp in Utah; her mother goes to work; and Primary Audience Cassie assumes more home responsibilities and learns about rationing, coupon books, and the Black Girls Market. She builds a new friendship with Maria, a quiet, sensitive, Spanish classmate. Through Interest Level Miko’s letters, she glimpses life in the internment camp. The Atomic Bomb becomes a reality. 10 yrs & up At the war’s end, Miko returns to a strained reunion with Cassie. Understanding Cassie, their own friendship, and Cassie’s guilty feelings about distancing Miko, Maria sparks the rekindling of Cassie’s and Miko’s friendship. Although things have changed, they have somehow stayed the same. Now there will be a friendship of three. 1064 CASSIE’S WAR (94 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

85



GROWING UP IN AMERICA BEYOND THE YELLOW STAR TO AMERICA New York Public Library 1996 Choice, Books for the Teenage Reader Kansas State Reading Circle Choice, 1996/97 Yavner Award from The New York State Dept. of Education, 2000 Ellis Island Award, 2000

“This is a first-rate, moving autobiographical account of life as a refugee and what it takes to step beyond past pain and create a meaningful life.... A truly wonderful complement to The Diary of Anne Frank.” —VOYA Magazine. “...simple, deeply effective prose...students studying the Holocaust will benefit from Inge’s perspective and empathize with her experiences. Recommended for junior high school students.” —KLIATT Magazine

By Inge Auerbacher

I

nge Auerbacher’s first book, I Am a Star, Child of the Holocaust, won the coveted Merit of Educational Distinction from the International Center for Holocaust Studies of the B’nai Brith Anti-Defamation League. This deeply moving autobiography covered her childhood years up to age 11 and her internment in the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia, ending with the Allied Liberation in 1945. Beyond the Yellow Star to America carries the reader into Inge’s world of an immigrant in America, at once dealing with her own psychological and physiological growing up and the real, external world of being an outsider to American culture. With vibrantly clear images, Inge tells her story through a series of sequential vignettes, reinforced by many photographs from her collection. Following a brief historical background, we arrive with Inge in New York Harbor in 1946 aboard the Novel Type Marine Perch, an American troop transport ship, and travel with her through her life’s turning points against History, Self-Esteem, the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s settings of New York’s East Side, Brooklyn, and Queens. We revisit Europe with Social/Family her. The hot and cold factions of her Americanized relatives, the resolve of her parents to achieve in the Relationships, American economic mainstream in spite of the odds against them during their first steps to independence, Autobiography and Inge’s private, ongoing physical nightmare fill the reader with pride in the positive qualities of the human Primary Audience spirit and its determination to survive. Girls But Inge’s American years are not just survival years, as is often the story of Holocaust victims. Her Interest Level resulting personal, psychological fuel from the past drives her dynamism and ideals of today for the better12 yrs & up ment of people everywhere. She is an activist for humankind. She is both an esteemed chemist/medical researcher and an accomplished motivational public speaker for brotherhood through education and communication against bigotry and other manipulative tactics that divide humanity into isolated groups.

2524 BEYOND THE YELLOW STAR (200 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

RUNNING AGAINST THE WIND: A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL OF MARY AND MARTHA DESAUSSURE Novel Type Biography, Sports, Black History

“A wonderful story.... ” —Children’s Literature By Inge Auerbacher

I

t’s 1945, Brooklyn, New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant. Post WWII euphoria, nostalgia, the PAL, and interracial relations as they really were, as told by the pioneering Black track stars. Primary Audience This is the warm story of Mary and Martha Desaussure’s religious home life (Papa was a minister), their Girls “mixed” neighborhood, their athletic triumphs and heartbreaking defeats. This a story of the realities of postInterest Level WWII racial prejudices, the pride of the girls’ immediate neighborhood, and the vulnerability they learned to 9-15 yrs feel when they ventured outside of it. Mary and Martha’s immediate neighbors and shop-owner friends, fixtures in their growing-up years, were a wonderful mix of Black, Jewish, Irish, and Italian people. The twins relate personal stories about each, and because they were children, it is striking how many of their remembrances have to do with food or candy. (The girls insisted that their story contain an appendix of the recipes that have become a part of their lives!) The twins’ story is also the story of the Police Athletic League and how the sisters, Black sisters, helped to reshape it. The PAL gave them the psychological boost to achieve, to believe. It opened very real doors. And it changed things forever for women because of them. The PAL story picks up from the first race that Mary won at the 13th Regiment Armory Regional Track Meet (but received the silver medal because she was Black, and the white German favorite had to get the gold). It includes the successes of “firsts” the twins shared in the first Black PAL girls track team in BedfordStuyvesant and the first integrated PAL AAU women’s track team in New York City. Their scrapbooks are filled with photos and medals. And the panorama shows the white canvas of female athletes and spectators that first greeted them. Today, Mary and Martha are leaders in their interest areas. Both rose in the ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention; VARANA, the Volta Region Association of North America; and the Women’s Africa Committee of the African-American Institute. Mary retired from the Elmhurst Hospital Center as Administrative Executive Secretary to the Director. Martha pursued politics and became the first Black administrative secretary in the New York Supreme Court and then the first Black legal administrative secretary to work in the Appellate Division. She has been a team with Justice William C. Thompson for more then 30 years. 4373 RUNNING AGAINST THE WIND $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

THE SUMMER OF MY FIRST PEDIDDLE

“...an engaging story.... Teenage readers will relate ...would work well in a unit on prejudice.. .” — VOYA Magazine By Steven Moiles

D

avid Thatcher is a 14-year-old whose father, a Washington, D.C.-based Army colonel in charge of a supplies office, has been subpoenaed to appear before Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee. The story revolves around David’s reactions to “McCarthyism” and his confused feelings about his father’s case. We follow David through the most important three months of his life as he grows up and begins to process information and think for himself. He begins to build an accurate values system as he separates reality from appearances, recognizes how facts can be distorted by twists or by omissions to lead to incorrect conclusions, understands the workings of guilt by association, becomes aware of the manipulative powers of the media through reporting emphasis and its ability to project innuendo as more, and sees how dramatic presentation techniques can misuse television in presenting “live” coverage of events to viewers. David learns that friendship, loyalty, love, and truth are paramount. Two subplots further explore the concept of love. Its romantic viewpoint is expressed through David’s relationship with Joy. She is an intelligent, beautiful, open-minded, sensitive teenager. Family love with the purpose of manipulation is epitomized by his softspoken, seemingly genuine grandfather. 1226 THE SUMMER OF MY FIRST PEDIDDLE (190 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Novel Type Family Relationships, History, Values Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

WE HAVE TO ESCAPE

By Judit Makranczy

T

welve-year-old Andras is the best soccer player on his school team. But his teammates, jealous of this new arrival on the scene with such natural abilities, tease and harass him mercilessly. When he decides to quit the team, Jennifer, the sister of one of the players, intercedes and offers him the kind words and support he needs to open up and tell the amazing story he has kept secret. Andras begins with the terrifying night when the Hungarian Secret Police arrested his father and mother in his hometown of Budapest, Hungary. He tells the poignant story of his family’s daring and frightening journey to the United States. Knowing they will be shot if captured, Andras and his family plan their escape, obtaining the forged documents needed to leave their shattered city for freedom in America. With his parents, grandfather, and three sisters, he encounters terrifying situations as the family heads for the border. His once-boyish hopes for adventure turn into abject fear of those life-threatening events. The little group must survive the terror of bullets, boarder guards, prison, and dangerous crossings as they begin their journey to freedom and acceptance in a strange land. We Have to Escape is a true story of an exciting and terror-filled escape to America and how, once here, life for Andras seemed to be unjustly chaotic as he tried to fit into a strange culture.

Novel Type History, Adventure, Biography Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 10 yrs & up

Judit Makranczy was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her novel depicts the events of her family’s triumphs and tragedies as they fled their war-torn country. 3733 WE HAVE TO ESCAPE (185 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99


87



WHERE A WHITE DOG SMILES

By Demetra Mihevic

I

t’s 1952, Greece. Elinohori is a mountain village on the northern part of the Peloponnesus, far removed from civilization. Nine-year-old Maria lives here with her mother, bossy aunt, grandmother, and pet dog. Father was a World War II casualty, as were most of the other men in the village. Therefore, her unmarried aunt has little hope of finding a husband and is in disgrace in the eyes of tradition. Life centers around picking grapes and making bread. When Uncle Dimitri, in America, offers to have Maria live with his family, the women agree that Elinohori offers Maria no opportunity. Soon she is on her way to America. This is the story of Maria’s passage from her home and family and orthodox Greek tradition to a strange family, school, language, and way of life.

Novel Type History, Social/Family Relationships, Autobiography Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 8-12 yrs

Girls will bond with Maria from the beginning of the book—crying with her and smiling with her through a variety of “girl” experiences that transcend miles and time. From the first, the reader sees Maria as strong, observant, intelligent, sensitive, introspective, and brave, yet looking to her mother for direction. Her mother knows the reality of their situation and lovingly nudges Maria into a new world of hope and personal possibility.

We smile at Maria’s joy and befuddlement about such things as taking a shower, skyscrapers, elevators, hot dogs and mustard and ketchup, cookies, and her first snowstorm. And we appreciate her problem-solving abilities as she wills her mind to work like a high-powered magnet, pulling in vocabulary at home and at school because she knows that mastering English is the key to friendships and success. She will meet the children who mock her accent and play vocabulary tricks on her on their own ground! Eventually one special youngster’s animosity, aroused by Maria’s growing popularity and determination, is defeated and replaced with friendship and admiration. In her new home, Maria finds the love of her uncle and aunt. Above all, she finds a friend for life, a friend with whom to share all her hopes and fears—a white Samoyed, Petie. Demetra Mihevic is also the author of When a Barred Owl Calls, the sequel to Where a White Dog Smiles. 9848 WHERE A WHITE DOG SMILES (175 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Douglas C. Horn

MOVES

M

oves is the story of Hiro, from Nagoya, Japan, who comes to a small town in Montana when his father is sent to run a company-owned cattle ranch. Hiro quickly becomes the favorite target of the school bully, but he feels he cannot talk about his problems with his parents, who are already discussing sending him back to Japan and feeling their own individual problems with American society.

Novel Type Social/Family Relationships Primary Audience Boys Interest Level 8-11 yrs

A source of comfort to Hiro, in the privacy of his own room, is his Aikido equipment and training. He quickly adapts to Judo lessons taught by a Black sensei, who is as sensitive to Hiro’s needs as much as he is strong. Hiro’s Judo lessons catapult him to peer acceptance and help him to establish an important first friendship. He learns to confront his problem, but with temperance and understanding. He understands, too, the psychological pressure on his father, whose concept of leadership is colored by his social separation. His mother suffers from loneliness and boredom until she takes an active role in seeking a friend—in spite of the language barrier. Douglas Horn calls upon his experiences living in Japan and the American West in creating Hiro’s world. The Judo scenes in the novel reflect his familiarity with Judo and the related discipline of Aikido, which he teaches in his free time. Mr. Horn is a writer and consultant. 1501 MOVES (189 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Novels

THE AFRICAN TERM

By Mike Hagen

I

n 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps as a governmental agency whose aims were to raise living standards in developing countries and to promote international friendship and understanding. Peace Corps projects were established at the request of the host country, and volunteer personnel usually served two years. Addis Ababa, 1962. Tom Berk, a 42-year-old accountant-turned-teacher, has answered the Peace Corps call. There are 32 male students ranging in age from 12 to 24 occupying 16 double wooden desks in his gray, non-windowed classroom. A single 60-watt bulb hangs from the center of the ceiling. All of the students wear shorts and white shirts. Some do not wear shoes. Beck wears a business suit. Here, schooling is a great honor; the students are outwardly most respectful. All eyes are on the new teacher from America who will teach English, but one pair cannot mask its dislike. Fifteen-year-old Sahle Kifle is filled with mistrust of the American; he is clear about his reasons in his conversations with his friends. However, he is one of the fortunate to go to school, so he must abide by Berk’s rules. He is not impressed by Berk’s ability to write in Ahmeric and to speak his language or by Berk’s preference to live among the local inhabitants. But as his friends begin to appreciate the teacher’s efforts to teach with understanding and in a friendly atmosphere, Sahle begins to soften, much against his own wishes. By the time Berk must leave, prematurely, to go to his sick father’s bedside back in America, an understanding friendship has developed between the two; Berk appreciates Sahle’s intelligence, and Sahle trusts Berk.

Novel Type History, Autobiography Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 13 yrs & up

Mike Hagen handles Berk’s world in Addis Ababa outside of the classroom brilliantly. Unforgettable are Berk’s trek to get there, his house boy’s antics, the foods, the smells, the grit of the dirt, and the sound of the bugs. The school hierarchy and the punishment it doles out for minor infractions is striking. And Sahle’s home life and family relationships are related as naturally as if the reader was a casual eavesdropper in the kitchen. An accomplished stage actor and screenplay writer, Mr. Hagen has also authored Klaus and Sail to Caribee. He was in the Peace Corps. 3687 AFRICAN TERM (81 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

HOLD ON TIGHT

By Heather Klassen

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t’s the 1960s, a time when America and families were being torn apart by the Vietnam War. When Suzanne’s elder brother Bobby is drafted, Suzanne’s mother wants them all to move to Canada, but Bobby enlists to fight. Suzanne and her mother join the protesters against the war, but Suzanne’s father thinks patriotic Americans should support the war the way they did when he fought in World War II. The divisions in the family reflect the divisions in the country when differences about the war played a major part in formenting hostile confrontations throughout the land. Against a background of box hockey games, the first landing on the moon, and the music of Bob Dylan, Suzanne not only has to contend with missing her brother, but also has to watch her mother’s pain and her parents grow distant from one another amidst their resentment. This novel provides vivid insights into the era and into the disagreements that defined a decade that brought tragedy to so many. Novel Type Heather Klassen is a writer for children and young adults. She has more than 400 short Sixties America stories published, including award-winning pieces in Highlights for Children. One of her stories Primary Audience was reprinted in Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II. This is her second novel. Through her Boys/Girls writing, she is particularly interested in trying to influence young people to think about social Interest Level issues, particularly those of peace and justice. 11 yrs & up As a child in the ‘60s, Klassen was greatly affected by the Vietnam War, but Hold on Tight is a fictional account. She says Suzanne’s voice “just came to me. It was easy to let her tell her story, influenced so much by the love she had for her older brother.” Heather Klassen is married with two grown children and lives in Lynnwood, Washington. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and a Master’s Degree in Child Development. She is an instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature. 7161 HOLD ON TIGHT $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Historical Novels

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H I S T O R I C A L

MY LEE COMES TO AMERICA

By Elmira K. Beyer

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Novel Type History, Relationships Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 8-10 yrs

y Lee Comes to America is written for the eight- to ten-year-old elementary school student who is in an English as a Second Language program, is a student in a school housing an ESL program, or is a student in a school that has a number of students from other-than-English-speaking homes. The story is about a Hmong family recently arrived in America whose traditions and way of everyday life are drastically different from the ways of their new home. Moving into a mixed neighborhood and enrolling the children in a school with an ESL program begins the family’s adaptation to new ways while maintaining their own traditional ethical and moral values. The problems of being accepted into the neighborhood are explored, as are male/female roles and expectations, the family view of education in general and for girls in particular, and the problems involved for the children and the adults by not speaking English. The reader’s perspective is that of little My Lee, who acts for us as a bridge between the two worlds of her family. Intelligent and respectful, her experiences and her thoughts about them show us problems in the making and their thoughtful resolutions. While demurring to her older brother and his role, she is very concerned with making friends and participating in school activities that in America are normal for all students but are frowned upon for girls in her family’s culture. She desperately wants to learn to play a musical instrument, the violin. 0440 MY LEE COMES TO AMERICA (74 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Jill Max

A C C O U N T S

STRANGERS IN BLACK

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ambodia, 1975-1979. Mok is nine years old when he first becomes aware of the fierce, black-clad guerrilla soldiers, the Khmer Rouge, who come from the mountains and overthrow Cambodia’s Republican Army government. His family believes that finally peace and rebuilding will come to the country. Instead, the barbaric soldiers loot and evacuate Mok’s farmland village and force the people to march to a distant work camp with only what they can carry. There they will grow rice, and everyone will share in the plentiful crop equally. Such will be the benevolence of Angka, the new government. On the long, brutal journey, food runs out. Exhaustion, starvation, and malaria become the family’s deadly companions, forcing them to forage for food and live on snakes, bugs, rats, and grubs. At Novel Type War, Survival, the work camp, they receive only watery rice soup. Dysentery is rampant. Anyone who does not work Relationships is killed. Spies are everywhere, hoping to trade information for food. And Mok’s family is hiding Primary Audience multiple identity secrets, including their connection to the Republican Army. Boys/Girls Rice-planting season finds Mok in the fields, overworked and starving, barely surviving. Suffering Interest Level from malaria and an infected snake bite, he is dumped in the hospital to die. A family friend alerts his 12 yrs & up sister and cousins, who now works in the kitchen of the labor camp. They rescue him and nursed him back to health, only to have him taken away to another boy’s work camp. Older and wiser, Mok plays the part of the buffoon. Not wanting to associate with him, the army guards and the other boys ignore him. Eventually, Mok escapes to a small Khmer village and blends in. Upon hearing of the Vietnamese invasion, the Khmer army guards desert, and Mok is free to find his way back to Battambang, where the family is reunited. War continues to rage between Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese. The peaceful farmland the family had known is gone forever. They had to make the perilous journey to the north, to Thailand, where there was food, medicine, and peace. The tranquil greenbelt waits beyond the rusted barbed-wire, beyond the crossfire between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese soldiers, beyond the cratered gray mile of minefield littered with broken, blood-speckled bodies that will be the family’s stepping stones to freedom. This is a true story. An epilogue adds information about the family and Cambodia. There is also a glossary and a bibliography. 6171 STRANGERS IN BLACK $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

By Brian Crawford

THE WEAVER’S SCAR

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Novel Type his is a story from the Rwanda of 1994. Survival, Life was difficult enough in Rwanda for a boy in the early 1990s, and FausRelationships tin’s father did not make it any easier with inexplicable rules and dark secrets. Teachers at school began to emphasize the division between the Tutsis and Hutus, Primary Audience Boys/Girls a division that even made its way to the soccer field. Interest Level As the terrible events of the genocide unfold in 1994, Faustin discovers the se13 yrs & up crets of the past and of his father’s disability, the cruelty of his schoolteachers, the full horror of neighbor against neighbor, and how only his running and the courage of one friend can possibly save him. 4779 THE WEAVER’S SCAR $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Historical Accounts

WHAT COLOR IS NEWTON’S APPLE? PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD LEARNERS

By Jamie C. Smith

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major instructional source to help children discover their world, this book includes more than 50 carefully structured lessons for ages two to eight. Each lesson has nine parts: purpose, thinking skills, vocabulary, prerequisites, materials, introduction, continuation, closure, and learning check. The focus of the thinking skills are analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The science problem-solving skills include problem finding, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis testing, data collecting, solution finding, solution testing, and communication of solution. In this substantial curriculum, the lessons are fully developed and easy to follow. A wonderful resource for homeschoolers and head-start programs. 1057 WHAT COLOR IS NEWTON’S APPLE $14.99 Special Price: $12.99

ANIMAL KINGDOM: SCIENCE THEMES FOR GIFTED PRIMARY CHILDREN

By Dr. Kathryn T. Hegeman

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ased on Bloom’s Taxonomy, the student book gives young investigators 10 units—one for each month of the school year. The animals include the whale, cat, kangaroo, deer, horse, elephant, lion, robin, turtle, and ladybug. The book is designed to foster independent work. Sheets take the child through an activity’s plan, focusing on the animal’s food, habitat, and adaptations. An animal record sheet allows students to record important facts, vocabulary, and habitat. There is a page to draw the family portrait. Comparisons are encouraged by a life span chart, an animal adaptation survival chart, a “My Favorite Animal” sheet, and an “Imagine You Are an Animal” sheet. The teacher’s manual is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide for each of the 10 units. 0301 ANIMAL KINGDOM STUDENT BOOK $7.99 Special Price: $5.99 031X ANIMAL KINGDOM TEACHER’S MANUAL $10.00

By Michael J. Spear

LIFE SCIENCE: ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

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his is a text for junior high life science. The contents are: Measurement, Collections, Instruments, Seawater, Cells, Simplest Cells, Protists, Fungi, Plants, Animals, Nutrition, Disease, Testing for Nutrients, Introduction to Systems, Skeletal and Muscular Systems, Digestive System, Circulatory System, Respiratory System, Excretory System, Endocrine System, Nervous System, Plant Growth, Animal Behavior, and Ecology. It includes extensive appendices, a glossary, and an index, as well as lots of detailed illustrations. 5346 LIFE SCIENCE STUDENT BOOK $15.00 Special: $10.00 each for 10 or more copies 5354 LIFE SCIENCE TEACHER’S MANUAL $5.00

By A.J. Barrett

QUIZ ME! QUERY ME!

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ere is a fun glimpse at science with an English approach. Continuing the aural/oral methodology so popular with students in Stories with Twists and Math Verses with Twists, this little book of 23 activities uses narratives and poetry of science-based content, with a question about each one, to motivate students to sharpen their listening skills and knowledge of science. More than half of the query activities include a teacher’s note for an extension English lesson based on the grammar, usage, vocabulary, or research skill used to solve the query. 3505 QUIZ ME $5.00

Science

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S C I E N C E

S C I E N C E

SCIENCE DR. DAVE’S TEACHING MANUALS (WITH CDS)

By David Purvis, PhD

How to teach, involve and excite children in science. THE CELL THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM CHEMISTRY ELECTRICITY OUR SOLAR SYSTEM PHASES OF MATTER THE OCEANS

“Based on his years of experience as a classroom science teacher and now as a mentor and instructor to budding science teachers, Dr. Purvis has written one of the most comprehensive, creative and useful manuals for teaching science it has been my pleasure to read. His devotion to constructivist pedagogies and love of science as a way of knowing and understanding the world is evinced on every page. All science teachers, whether just beginning their careers or seasoned educators, will derive great benefit from Dr. Purvis’s meticulous and innovative approach to a wide range of topics.” —Marc A. Meyer, PhD. Associate Head of School, Brown School, Schenectady, New York “Teaching science to a classroom of children can be the most wonderful and exciting experience. But knowledge is not enough for success; what a teacher really needs to know is how to engage students in hands-on, inquiry-based science.” —Dr. David Purvis Dr. Dave’s full-color, practical, teaching manuals give Grades 2-6 teachers: • visual and eye-catching activities to impart simple scientific concepts • safety, clean-up, and how-to-save money tips • verbal jokes that appeal to children and help them remember • experiments, projects, and artwork that enables children to discover and construct knowledge for themselves • classroom-based advice on how to deal with potential disruptions and diversions Buy Dr. David Purvis is a university academic and a practicing classroom teacher. th 7818 The Cell $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 and e set of only 7 7756 The Digestive System $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 pay books $ for 21 6 7801 Chemistry $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 Ord 0 $1 e 7763 Electricity $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 r cod 8 e: PU 0 7787 Our Solar System $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 R7 7794 Phases of Matter $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00 7770 The Oceans $40.00 SPECIAL PRICE: $30.00

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PHILOSOPHY

30 WAYS TO BRING PHILOSOPHY INTO EVERY CLASSROOM AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR HOMESHOOLERS

By Dr. Jerry Chris

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he simple activities described in this book give homeschool parents a potent means to begin philosophical discussion. The first section of the book includes: • Truth—Theory of Knowledge • Man in Society—Political Theory • Nature of Mankind • Ethics • Logic • Power • Beauty • Philosophy of Life The second section is comprised of two appendices. Appendix A is a short reference to the basic fallacies of correct reasoning. This is needed for some of the activities involving logic. Appendix B consists of summaries of the thinking of 39 philosophers. (This appendix is truly a marvelous basic reference for parents!) The philosophers studied are Aquinas, Aristotle, Augustine, Bacon, Bergson, Berkeley, Confucius, Croce, Descartes, Dewey, Epictitus, Epicurus, Han Fei Tzu, Hegel, Hobbes, Hsun Tzu, Hume, James, Jaspers, Kant, Kierkegaard, Locke, Machiavelli, Marx, Mencius, Mill, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Nietzsche, Plato, Reid, Ross, Rosseau, Santayana, Sartre, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Spinoza, Lau Tzu, Chung Tzu, and Mo Tzu. “As our students venture out into the 21st-century information superhighway, we must never allow them to forget the difference between knowledge and wisdom. ...as educators seek bridges within an increasingly diverse society, the international language of philosophy seems ever more significant. ...amid the innovations of student teaching programs and the rhythmic swings of the pendulum, only one universal methodology remains intact which crosses all disciplines―philosophical inquiry.” Jerry Chris is an NBC Crystal Apple winner and has been chosen as both Orange County Creative Teacher of the Year and California Teacher of the Year for Gifted Students. 4500 30 WAYS TO BRING PHILOSOPHY INTO EVERY CLASSROOM $20.00 Special Price: $15.00 CLASSICAL ETHICS IN THE MODERN CLASSROOM By Dr. Jerry Chris hat have the classical philosophers to say about being a good citizen? How relevant are they today? Easily adaptable for homeschool, this up-to-date new book by award-winning teacher Dr. Jerry Chris explores the thoughts of the classical philosophers, discusses modern scenarios, engages in Socratic Dialogue and illustrates each debate with examples from literature and Shakespearean quotations. The chapters cover the big issues that have occupied the minds of the greatest philosophers since antiquity and which still resonate with those who care about ethics and right behavior today: Motive vs. Consequence Absolute vs. Relative Moderation vs. Extremism Acceptance of Fate vs. Change Fate Egoism vs. Common Good Dr. Chris tackles each topic in the light of classical philosophy and to find guideposts that teenagers can use in modern situations. The real-life Socratic Seminar examples are intended to promote critical thinking, and the references to classical literature provide the basis for interdisciplinary connections between philosophy and literature to help deep-thinking students toward further reading of the classics. “The acceptance of one major premise is necessary for complete enjoyment of this book. It is not a new premise. In fact, it was made famous by Plato, although the ancient Chinese, such as Confucius, had long been promoting it. The premise is fairly simple: good citizens and correct behavior are the direct result of knowledge and understanding.” —Dr. Jerry Chris 3956 CLASSICAL ETHICS IN THE MODERN CLASSROOM $30.00 Special Price: $15.00

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Philosophy

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P H I L O S O P H Y

S U L L I V A N N O V E L S

THE NOVELS OF PAUL SULLIVAN

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he novels of Paul Sullivan are marked by several qualities. First, they are compelling stories; Sullivan is a gripping, factual storyteller. Second, they share a sense of connectedness between man and nature. Sullivan has a belief in the importance of the care and preservation of the natural world by humans—and of the devastating consequences of human failure in this regard. Third, Sullivan has the capacity to weave his story and his sense of values into a tale that brings the reader to the inescapable conclusion that nature’s hierarchies are the only reasonable values. One of the most attractive characteristics of Sullivan’s novels is their range of appeal. His novels are accessible for advanced pre-teen readers; they are equally for adults.

KEEWATIN

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Novel Type Adventure, Nature Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

his is the compelling story of a man alone trying to survive in the Arctic as the weather is closing in. Jake Quinn can fly an airplane, but he is not a hunter. When his plane develops carburetor trouble, he puts down on a frozen river, only to see the ice break up and the plane disappear into the water. His thoughts for survival are to keep from freezing and to reach civilization. He has a rifle with two cartridges, a few matches, a parka, and a blanket. He does not have a map or a compass. Soon he is stalked by a large white bear. He knows that his rifle offers him little protection against the bear. He recognizes that he is an alien in this frozen land, which belongs to the stalking white bear. Jake has always admired the bears’ strength and awesome beauty. Although he has seen many bears from the window of his plane, this one is the biggest by far. In this story of man’s place in Nature’s North, the bear is relentless; the man is persistent but humble. Jake is equally careful and respectful of the wolves he runs across. The special dangers and problems of surviving in the far North become very clear to any reader during the course of the novel. This is a spectacularly good adventure and psychological story—simple, compelling, clear, and very engaging. 2540 KEEWATIN (123 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

LEGEND OF THE NORTH

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t was a white man’s gun that killed Kivvik, and the man took the hide from his body. And later it was a wolverine who ate the flesh and broke the bones to suck out the marrow. But they did not take the spirit of Kivvik, the great white wolf. Kivvik’s spirit avenges and cleanses the land of Ross, who hunts from airplanes for sport, and of the wolverine, the reckless killer. Kivvik’s spirit gives strength and direction to his grandson, Amitok. Amitok, once the runt of his litter, is rewarded for his intellect, curiosity, and obedience to the code of the land and his clan. At one with his spirit, Amitok grows from a bewildered pup into a great white wolf able to follow Kivvik. It is when Amitok and Kivvik come to interact with the men who inhabit this barren land that their story becomes a Legend of the North.

This is a mighty fable, a major legend of the Inuit that Sullivan’s command of the weight and tempo of precise words orchestrates into epic clarity of inner thoughts and external visuals. Novel Type Adventure, Nature Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

“The wolf’s narrative is so skillfully written that readers easily suspend disbelief.... An exciting, satisfying, read for that special young adult.” —Booklist goes on to call the novel “...good character development...exciting action...the plot itself is well-crafted ...effect of talking animals works; readers will become immersed in Amitok’s adventure.” —VOYA Magazine 3083 LEGEND OF THE NORTH (156 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Sullivan Novels

S U L L I V A N

THE NOVELS OF PAUL SULLIVAN

THE UNFORGIVING LAND

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ntukk had a vision when he was a boy, and if it had not been for this, the people would not have settled to hunt the land and sea of the place later known as Hewitt Sound. But under the influence of the white man’s greed for hides, the people broke the covenant with nature, and the land became empty. Three quarters of a century later, Matthew Hewitt arrived to find information about an uncle who had disappeared. He had no Arctic experience for the long trek to Hewitt Sound, but he did have the aid of an old Inuit hunter. Together, the two men go to the brink of death as Matthew pieces together the story and comes to understand the mysteries of the land—myth twisted in truth, and truth twisted in myth. The Unforgiving Land is told in a double narrative as the past and present intertwine in a perfectly balanced novel of white man’s greed, the temptations of modern conveniences, Inuit transgressions, and nature’s ultimate revenge. Sullivan, through his extraordinary talent, draws his readers into his stories to experience the tales as they unfold. The grandeur of his language and emotion warm us as we stand out in the frozen stillness beside the great white bear, the white wolf, and the Inuit. We come to know the heartbeat of the land that “respects few who challenge it, none of those who do not understand it, and challenges all who enter it.”

Novel Type Adventure, Nature Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & up

2567 THE UNFORGIVING LAND (220 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

THE SPIRIT WALKER

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ll things are connected. The Earth to the Sun. The Moon to the Earth. Man to the land he walks on. All creatures to the wind, to the sky, to a blade of grass. Each bound by a spirit within. All connected to one hearing, one voice, one breathing. Through the wings of a butterfly a man can hear the earth in motion. He can hear, if he listens. If he learns to listen.” So speaks Masuka, the African. The Spirit Walker is a haunting novel of the feelings of man and beast, multiple perceptions, and stunning imagery. The author deftly crafts a story about the web of nature and man’s uneasy fit into it. An old elephant, more than 50 years and an honest seven tons, has survived a poacher’s bullet lodged close to his heart, but the wound is slowly killing him. He recalls the family unit of his youth, its bloody slaughter, and the stench of man—one particular man. Now the old one is on the trail of Teich, the man who caused him such pain. Teich is unkempt, undignified, and has no respect for any living thing. He carries a leg injury from the old elephant and is consumed with finding and finally killing him for revenge and for his huge ivory tusks. The Spirit Walker touches the reader’s mind and heart. It is a tribute to nature and the African elephant, the largest and most powerful land animal, which Sullivan portrays with incredible insight and beauty.

Novel Type Adventure Primary Audience Boys/Girls Interest Level 9-12 yrs

3938 THE SPIRIT WALKER (169 pp.) $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Sullivan Novels

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N O V E L S

M A T H E M A T I C S

PROBLEMOIDS: MATH CHALLENGE PROGRAM

By Bill McCandliss and Dr. Albert Watson

One of the great programs

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he Problemoids program was created for students advanced in math. It is based in gifted education on the scope and sequence of state math curriculum guides. The program requires ◆ An excellent means to higher levels of thinking than the typical curriculum. It is designed for grades 4, 5, and 6. deliver advanced math Problemoids focuses on learning and using problem-solving strategies, not on memproblem solving for gifted children orization or operations. The hints and solution sheets are designed to introduce, teach, in the regular classroom and reinforce 19 problem-solving strategies. Problemoids is grounded on the problem◆ solving work of George Polya. Ideal for journal writing ◆ The Problemoids program provides students with means of self-checking the most Designed to deliver without difficult part of their work. major commitment of teacher time Problemoids has three components: student workbooks called Challenge, which include 50 problems and several levels of strategy-based hints for each problem; a separate solution sheet for each problem, with strategies for solving the problems illustrated in detail so the students can check their work; and a teacher manual called Mentor, which explains the program and which contains the answers to the problems. The manuals and solution sheets are designed to minimize the instructor’s preparation time. Problemoids is for students who excel in math and can work at their own pace. When the student completes a problem, the instructor merely checks the answer and gives the student the solution sheet. The student can compare his or her method of solving the problem with those presented by the authors. Both the hints and the solution sheets emphasize strategies for solving problems. Problems utilize sets, number and numeration, operations, geometry, measurement, algebra, and probability and statistics. The mentor book for each level contains a grid that shows which problems within the level deal with each concept and whether that concept receives primary or secondary focus in the problem’s solution. Problemoids Grade 4 188X TEACHER’S MANUAL & SOLUTION BOOK $20.00 1898 STUDENT BOOK $9.99 Problemoids Grade 5 0441 TEACHER’S MANUAL & SOLUTION BOOK $20.00 0336 STUDENT BOOK $9.99 Problemoids Grade 6 0395 INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL & SOLUTION BOOK $20.00 0387 STUDENT BOOK $9.99 Special Price: $7.99 For Each Student Book

SUPPLEMENTAL MATHEMATICS FOR THE CURIOUS: NUMBER THEORY & NUMBER SYSTEMS

By Bryan Dawson, Ph.D.

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esigned for the gifted self-learner who has completed Algebra I, this supplemental high school text is ideal for summertime or other independent study. Careful exposition of the topics and well-developed examples with ample comments guide the student’s thinking, while answers to odd-numbered exercises provide feedback on the student’s progress. The topics chosen form an introduction to the rich field of number theory. Among others, they include divisibility, the Euclidean algorithm, prime numbers, figurate numbers, recursively defined numbers such as Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, modular arithmetic, the Chinese Remainder Theorem, and an appendix on sets. Applications are made to calendar systems, UPC and ISBN codes, and more. Side notes are provided to spark further interest or exploration on such topics as digital signals, the history of mathematical symbols, and numerology. Throughout the text, students are guided to think carefully about mathematics itself, including learning the roles of definitions and proof. Such study can be an invaluable aid in maximizing a student’s understanding of high school geometry. 4311 SUPPLEMENTAL MATHEMATICS: NUMBER THEORY $25.00 Special Price: $15.00 4328 SUPPLEMENTAL MATHEMATICS: NUMBER SYSTEMS $25.00 Special Price: $15.00

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Mathematics

EDUCATIONAL PLAY: MATH

By Deborah Valentine “A rich treasure-trove of resources for parents and teachers....” —David Feldman, Ph.D., Director, Graduate Studies, Eliot-Pearson Dept. of Child Study, Tufts University

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his book provides more than 100 activities and games to play with children to enhance their ability in math. It is designed especially for parents who are uncomfortable with math but who want to raise children who are not, and it helps prepare children for upper-level math courses. There is even a special section of math games to play on car journeys. It is particularly for elementary and middle school levels. 1405 EDUCATIONAL PLAY: MATH $14.99 Special Price: $9.99

INTRODUCTORY GEOMETRIES

By Dr. Larry Wiley

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fresh approach to geometry for the gifted! This book offers a complete treatment of Euclidean geometry using an axiomatic approach based on transformations of the plane. Students begin with symmetry to develop an understanding of the basic transformations needed for the axiomatic treatment of geometry. Initial chapters provide a comprehensive, elementary introduction to those concepts of mathematical structure and structure-preserving transformations, which are crucial in any modern approach to mathematics. It then offers an ample overview of the content and importance of the plane geometries of Riemann and Lobachevsky and includes a brief treatment of the basic ideas of area and volume. Final chapters provide an introduction to all of the essential ideas of plane trigonometry. This year-long introduction is full of activities designed to help students enhance their higher-order thinking skills.

“This book is a true departure from the traditional geometry text. Teachers who should consider this text are those who think an honors geometry course should be more than the standard course made more rigorous. Only by examining this book can you appreciate its uniqueness.” —mathematics teacher 0654 INTRODUCTORY GEOMETRIES STUDENT BOOK $15.00 9989 INTRODUCTORY GEOMETRIES TEACHER MANUAL $15.00

CHI SQUARE, PIE CHARTS, AND ME

By Dr. Susan Baum, Dr. Robert K. Gable, and Dr. Karen List

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his book is for teachers who are anxious to take their students beyond report writing and reference skills into the real world of research and statistical methodologies. It will help you guide your students toward changing their negative attitude about research, help them understand “real world” research and report writing, clarify and elaborate on the different kinds of research and the specific steps necessary to conduct a research project, instruct them in simple statistics and data analysis, provide ideas and formats for conducting research, provide presentation strategies, and present resources. It is so simple and clear that you can present the material to children as early as the fourth grade. 1715 CHI SQUARE $19.99 Special Price: $14.99

MATH VERSES TO STRETCH MINDS Volumes I, II, III, & IV

Example: Hi Ho the Merry-O The farmer in the dell Was singing merrily, Working in the hayfield While the wind was blowing free. The autumn scene was picturesque With the hay stacked row on row. He had been working from early dawn Until the sun was getting low. As he came to 1¼ haystacks, And nearby 1¼ again, He added them together. What was his total then?

Mathematics

By Sidney Levine

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his text presents 25 verses in each volume for divergent thinking and creativity in math. A variety of logic puzzles, conundrums, math problems, and story problems will challenge and entertain your students. For grades four and up, it sharpens listening skills, as well as math/verbal problem-solving skills. Interdisciplinary fun! The teacher reads the poem to the class. They listen. As a group, they must discuss the math problem and solve it. Results of the activity are heightened auditory acuity, increased attention to spoken details, and practice for the mind’s eye to play with math. 100S4 MATHE VERSES TO STRETCH MINDS Four-Volume Set $15.00

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G R O W I N G U P

HIS DATE FOR THE DANCE WAS HIS SCIENCE PROJECT

By David Kenneth Mull

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is Date for the Dance was his Science Project is a comedy/adventure tale of Gilbert O’Shay who is a genius, but so inept in social skills that he has to scientifically create a date for his school dance. Or so it would seem. Gilbert O’Shay is mercilessly persecuted for his eccentric appearance and character, but Charlie discovers his secret and hilarious project for getting even with the bullies. The school is agog with rumor, the denouement suitably satisfying. The author says: “The purpose of the novel is to encourage boys and girls, from upper elementary grades through high school, to read. There is also a thread of values that runs through all my books. They deal with acceptance, tolerance, and open-mindedness, on many levels.” Novel Type This is the first of a series of short novels, based on the adventures of a “military brat”, Elmo Relationships, Bullying Reginald Burfoot II, nicknamed: Charlie Cliché’. He is a boy who has to travel with his parents Primary Audience all over the world and has had to learn how to fit in at new schools without being bullied or ridiBoys/Girls culed for his birth name. The best method he has found is to become a storyteller. Interest Level So much of being bullied stems from not being able to take control of the situation and stu12 yrs & up dents feel helpless and frustrated. In a book like this students begin to realize there are options and solutions but they must be a part of that process. There is more than one way to take control and often humor is “the best medicine.” This is a book about kids and for kids in today’s world where we all need “a little help from our friends.”

N O V E L S

3710 HIS DATE FOR THE DANCE WAS HIS SCIENCE PROJECT $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

CHARLIE’S ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH SCHOOL

By David Kenneth Mull

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t was a great year, that year Charlie went to high school in the Denver area. Novel Type Relationships, Action He had a turn at playing football for a legendary coach, and he made very, Primary Audience very good friends with a beautiful cheerleader. He had an extraordinary EngBoys/Girl lish teacher and got one of his stories made into a play, which was performed. Interest Level He made many good friends, but he encountered unexpected problems. 11 yrs & up The football coach was abusive, and he did not like the English teacher. The cheerleader and her family were loyal to the football coach, while Charlie preferred his English teacher, and divisions grew into wide chasms. 3949 CHARLIE’S ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH SCHOOL $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

OLD BONES

By Willard Helmuth

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Novel Type Growing up/Boys Grandparents Primary Audience

Boys

ld Bones is Jeremy Arkwell’s new step-grandfather. He is an embarrassment, to say the least! Coping with him is more than Jeremy bargained for. But wait. It turns out he is something of a mechanic, and he is able to turn a pile of junk into a home-made ATV. And he is not beyond an adventure or two when they can get out of the sight of responsible adults. Living in the country might not turn out so badly after all....There’s an intriguing mystery and a lot of fun to be had with the old man. Dr. Helmuth is a pediatrician, currently the medical director of the Union County (North Carolina) Health Department. Hhis duties there are to be in charge of the programs for immunizations and infectious disease. He also has a high-risk pediatric clinic there for economically deprived children.


4955 OLD BONES $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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Growing-Up Novels

THE HORSE LADY

By C. Ellen Culverwell aggie Forrester, who has gone to Vermont to live with her grandfather after her parents’ death, has to adjust to a new life. She has been told by her contemporaries that a neighbor, known as The Horse Lady, is weird, so naturally she cannot resist finding out for herself. Maggie encounters a kind woman who looks after horses taken from people who had abused or neglected them. Maggie soon finds herself welcomed into a richly rewarding world of caring for the horses, a world that is unexpectedly threatened. This is a vivid and moving novel about horses, about the complexity and value of human relationships, and about a girl growing up with different generations.

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7239 THE HORSE LADY $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

Novel Type Horses Growing up Primary Audience Girls Interest Level 12 yrs & Up

BLIND HORSE BLUFF

By C. Ellen Culverwell

“H

orses are just like people,” says Claire Westfield, otherwise known as The Horse Lady. Young Maggie Forrester, an orphan who lives with her grandfather, and Claire, who she helps in her work with abused horses, spend their summer at St. Michael’s, a facility for the blind and handicapped. Here they have to deal with damaged teens as well as damaged horses. They have students who have a variety of disabilities and who cope in a variety of ways. All appreciate the activity and confidence that riding can give them—all except Jeremy, who is blind, privileged, emotionally deprived, resistant, and uncooperative. Claire has the idea that a blind horse could help him…especially if Jeremy is not aware that the horse is blind. Everyone, including Claire and Maggie, has much to learn in this sequel to C. Ellen Culverwell’s first novel, The Horse Lady.

Novel Type Horses, Growing Up Primary Audience Girls

“...a thoughtful, uplifting story, highly recommended for young adults.” — The Midwest Book Review, Children’s Bookwatch, May 2012


4832 BLIND HORSE BLUFF $9.99 Special Price: $7.99

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G R O W I N G U P N O V E L S

R E S O U R C E S

DREAMERS WHO CAN: A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

By Dr. Jerry Chris

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he International Baccalaureate Learner Profile hangs in every Primary Years IB classroom. However, the ten qualities seen as essential to good learning often remain simply a list of fuzzy words to the students. What does “Risk-Taker” and “Principled,” really mean if they don’t have practical examples of children their own age exemplifying these qualities? This is the purpose of Dreamers Who Can, a collection of short stories about each of the ten qualities to make the words in the IB Learner Profile come alive. Dr. Jerry Chris writes in his Introduction: “If we, as teachers, were to gather in a room and describe ten qualities of an ideal student, chances are we could readily agree on at least eight of them. These qualities would not just be applicable to our present day classrooms, but rather would extend to the students’ next level of education, and then far beyond into the realm of the lifelong learner. In fact, were we to meet and attempt to design an ideal adult in a peaceful world, we just might agree on the same eight or ten qualities. Within the last decade, the International Baccalaureate community made such an attempt—to describe qualities that apply equally to the first grader, the sixth grader, or the twelfth grader, as well as the lifelong learner. These ten qualities form the IB Learner Profile: Inquirer, Knowledgeable, Thinker, Communicator, Principled, Open-minded, Caring, Risk-taker, Balanced, Reflective. Although some might think of additional qualities that they see as important, and some might choose a different word or two, debating the value of these ten would prove pointless. Not only do these ten provide a solid foundation for every classroom, but parents could only dream that their children would possess a majority of these attributes.” The ten short stories in Dreamers Who Can are intended to introduce primary-grade students to the Learner Profile and to illustrate how these attributes might be embodied in the everyday lives of these youngsters. It is hoped that the scenarios will encourage students to emulate the best qualities of the characters therein. It also is hoped that parents, as they read with their youngsters, will reflect on their own lives and perhaps even evaluate their own standing within the suggested values of the Learner Profile. The beautiful, color illustrations are by second grader, Lauren Lohmeier. 4632 DREAMERS WHO CAN $10.00 MAKING BAD STUFF GOOD

By Sandra McLeod Humphrey aking Bad Stuff Good was the result of Sandra’s more than 35 years of working with young people as a clinical psychologist and helping them through the years of growing up. We follow the conversations and experiences of a group of young people in a middle-school, after-school club, the No-Name Club, as they learn some strategies for dealing with problems, mistakes, and failures. We travel with them as they find out that meeting a challenge can be fun and that happiness is an attitude, not a condition! The main premise of the book is that how you respond to what happens to you is more important than what actually happens to you, and how you interpret what happens to you is, of course, determined by your attitude. Problems aren’t necessarily “bad.” They are a part of life, and dealing with them constructively can make you a stronger person. The six members of The No-Name Club learn through their weekly meetings more than they expected. They not only learn some problem-solving strategies, but they also learn that they can work together for the common good and that each of them can become stronger in the process. The questions and suggestions following each chapter can facilitate some great discussions both in the home and in the classroom.

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3796 MAKING BAD STUFF GOOD $12.99 Special Price $10.00

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Resources

OFF THE CHARTS: ASYNCHRONY AND THE GIFTED CHILD

By Christine S Neville, Michael M. Piechowski, Stephanie Tolan

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he editors have brought together 19 essays by renowned gifted education specialists (see below for the full list) to produce this important new publication for 2012. Off the Charts is an exploration of the effects of asynchronous development on gifted children and adults. It contains sections on Asynchrony and the Individual, Asynchrony and the Family, Asynchrony and Learning and chapters describe the nature of asynchrony, methods of dealing with the challenges of asynchrony, and recommendations for adapting education in a variety of settings. A Bibliography on Asynchronous Development provides extensive further reading. The contributors’ contention is that Gifted Education should be from a childcentered perspective, rather than from a ‘product perspective’ in which the emphasis is on achievement, competition and outer recognition. The child-centered approach concentrates on self-development and personal growth and fosters interrelatedness and wholeness. It is an important resource for parents, teachers, counselors, and others concerned with the optimal development of gifted to highly-gifted individuals. The book is dedicated to Annemarie Roeper (1918-2012) who before she died contributed a chapter. From the introduction: “Unusual intelligence, when understood, accepted, supported, allowed, and even celebrated, can lead, as it did for Annemarie, to a life experience of passion, accomplishment, service to the world, and deep personal meaning.” H3802 OFF THE CHARTS $30.00

CONTRIBUTORS:

Ellen D. Fiedler Shelagh A. Gallagher Patricia Gatto-Walden Barbara Mitchell Hutton Michele Kane Kathi Kearney Deirdre V. Lovecky

Elizabeth A. Meckstroth Christine S. Neville Michael M. Piechowski Annemarie Roeper Linda Kreger Silverman Stephanie S. Tolan John D. Wasserman

ABOUT THE COVERS

T

he front cover shows the side entrance to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, one of the country’s great historical homes. Jefferson designed the house with a central portion for family living, working, and entertaining. Service functions such as kitchens were relegated to distant side buildings and underground rooms where slaves performed the work. This entrance is one of the two service entrances. The building reflects not simply the aesthetic sense and architectural genius of Jefferson, but also is an indication of the importance the founding fathers placed on classical models for the structure of government they were developing as well as for the architecture of the buildings that would house it. The rear cover is a view of the Temple of Hephiastos taken from the Agora in Athens. The temple was one of several built in the extraordinary fifth century BC rebuilding of Athens after the Persians sacked the city in 480 BC. The variety and richness of that program is ample evidence of Athens’ prosperity and hegemony during the period. This was a great century in Athenian sculpture, architecture, theater, pottery making, philosophy, and democracy. Although the Parthenon and the Erechtheion on the Acropolis are better known, the Temple of Hephiastos is now the most complete Doric temple standing in Greece. It is a structure of exquisite serenity of proportion and beauty of line. It is a testament to the skill and devotion, the piety and determination of a civilization now long gone but certainly not lost to us. Photos by Dr. Thomas Milton Kemnitz Resources 101

R E S O U R C E S

O R D E R F O R M

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