How can we make the world a better place? This inspiring resource for middle-grade readers is organized as a dictionary - each entry presents a word related to creating a better world, such as ally, empathy, or respect. For each word, there is a poem, a quote from an inspiring person, a personal anecdote from the authors, and a "try it" prompt for an activity.
American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever to serve in the US Congress. Learn about her young life, her work as an activist, and her career in the House of Representatives.
Create a filter, dress up a photo, share it with your friends! Beginning coders learn solid skills while they build their own filters. Page Plus links to hands-on coding activities are included. These project-based titles are created in partnership with Vidcode, a rigorous and creative online coding platform designed for grades 4 and up that appeals as strongly to girls as to boys.
Thirteen-year-old Satoshi Matsumoto spent the last three years living in Atlanta where he was the star of his middle-school baseball team—a slugger with pro potential, according to his coach. Now that his father's work in the US has come to an end, he's moved back to his hometown in rural Japan. Living abroad has changed him, and now his old friends in Japan are suspicious of his new foreign ways. Even worse, his childhood foe Shintaro, whose dad has ties to gangsters, is in his homeroom. After he joins his new school's baseball team, Satoshi has a chance to be a hero until he makes a major-league error.
During the Middle Ages, your position in life was based on birth. This position would follow you throughout your life. To make it easy for others to know your social class, rules about what you could wear—or not wear—were created. Such rules, called sumptuary laws, determined colors of clothing, types of fabric and trims, length of garments, types of sleeves, and types of furs. The laws also regulated shoe lengths and height, hat height, types of buttons, and even the number of buttons you could wear. People were to dress according to the class in which they were born. In this way, just by looking at someone, you could tell if they were important or not.
A heartfelt story that sensitively tackles the everyday inner turmoil of growing up and staying true to oneself. Twelve-year-old Agnes hates everything about her life: her name, her parents' divorce, her best friend's abandonment, her changing body . . . . So while staying with her dad over the summer, she decides to become someone else. She tells people she meets that her name is Chloe, she's fourteen, her parents are married, and she's a dancer and actor—just the life she wants. But Agnes's fibs quickly stack up and start to complicate her new friendships, especially with Fin, whose mysterious relative runs a local raptor rehab center that fascinates Agnes. The birds, given time and care, heal and fly back home. Agnes, too, wants to get back to wherever she truly belongs. But first she must come to see the good in her real life, however flawed and messy it is, and be honest with her friends, her family, and herself.
A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers. If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents—professors at the local college—are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he's actually met, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been convicted of being communist spies, and they're slated to be executed in two months. Marty just wants everything to go back to normal, but that's impossible thanks to the rumors that his parents are traitors. As his friends and teammates turn on him and federal agents track his every move, Marty isn't sure what to believe. Is his family really part of a Red Menace working against the United States? And even if they're simply patriotic Americans who refuse to be bullied by the government, what will it cost them?
Scott Schroeder dreams of a day when he and his father can have a home of their own. Following an accident that took his mother's life eight years before, doctors discovered Scott was suddenly deaf. Blessed with being an accomplished gymnast and skilled at signing and reading lips, Scott's biggest challenge is convincing others he is able to do all the same things as those in the hearing world. Picking up on conversations he observes along the way, Scott figures out a big family secret concerning his father and uncle and makes his mind up to play a part in their reconciliation.
Growing up on Chicago's South Side, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson loved school and her family. Driven by her parents' passion for education and her own desire to succeed, she graduated first from Princeton and then Harvard Law School and landed a job at a prestigious law firm, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Barack Obama. While raising their two young daughters, Michelle Obama committed herself to public service. She kept that commitment as her husband's political career soared and worked hard to continue serving the public when her family landed in the White House. Follow Obama's journey from Chicago school kid to history-making First Lady and beyond as she continues to make her mark as an inspiring speaker, bestselling author, and agent for positive change.
On December 18, 2019, Donald Trump became the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was later acquitted by the Senate. Earlier that summer, Trump held a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. An unknown whistleblower raised concerns about the call, claiming that Trump had improperly pressured Zelensky to get involved in US politics. Over the following months a dramatic impeachment inquiry unfolded. Fraught hearings played out on television while Democrats and Republicans traded interpretations, arguments, and even insults. Faced with suppressed information and conflicting accounts, the nation tried to discover the truth. In over two hundred years Congress has gathered only a handful of times to debate what makes an impeachable offense. What events led to Trump’s impeachment? How does the impeachment process work? What other presidents have been impeached, and why? Learn the history, mechanics, and milestone events behind impeachment, and discover how the most recent one may affect US politics for years to come.
Follow the spectacular shots, thrilling comebacks, and monumental moments of basketball's most exciting games. Readers learn about the history and greatest players of the NBA (National Basketball Association) and WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) Finals.
Fuel up for an exciting look at Formula 1 racing! Readers will learn about the history of the sport, some of the most well-known racers, and more with the aid of exciting photos and thrilling facts!
Enter the thrilling world of stock car racing! Readers will discover the history of stock car racing, what a typical race day looks like, who the hottest racers are, and more.
Start your engines and get in gear! Exciting photos and facts will have readers turning the pages to discover the history of drag racing, what a typical race day looks like, and more about the sport.
Center Joel Embiid racks up points for the Philadelphia 76ers. Readers will learn how this All-Star National Basketball Association (NBA) player stays at the top of his game and how he spends his time off the court.
At the Olympics, the best athletes in the world compete for the gold medal. No matter the event, there are sure to be surprising moments. Someone who has never placed first can soar past the competition to win the top prize. Learn about the biggest upsets in the history of the Olympic Games!
Sometimes, a baseball team with an average season record can go on to win the World Series! Experience the thrill of professional baseball's biggest upsets, from unexpected wins to shocking errors made on the baseball diamond.
Anything can happen in a hockey game! A player can race through a field of opponents, scoring a goal just as the buzzer marks the end of the game. Explore some of professional hockey's biggest surprises and history-making moments, from memorable plays to Stanley Cup upsets.
Explore the excitement of the Summer Olympics through stories of the greatest gold-medal moments in the history of the event, from Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10.0 gymnastics score to barefoot marathon runner Abebe Bikila's surprising triumph.
Explore the future of fun! With virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, and even digital smells, technology is already changing the world of entertainment. What other innovations will emerge to help people have fun?
Discover the different uses for redstone ore in the hit game Minecraft. Readers will learn all kinds of tips and tricks! STEM sidebars connect game play to real-world applications.
Explore the ins and outs of making and using maps in the super popular game Minecraft. Tips and tricks help game-lovers master the craft while sidebars that highlight STEM and coding round out the experience.
Explore how your body works through interactive augmented reality experiences! Oozing stomach acid. Booming belches. Stinky farts. These revolting reactions happen during the digestion of food. Once you’ve chewed up and swallowed a meal, your body turns it into energy, water...and poop. Find out about all the nasty things that happen deep inside your belly—and learn why they sound, smell, and feel the way they do. Through close-up pictures, interactive augmented reality experiences, and lots of disgusting facts, you’ll learn all about the gross science behind your body’s functions.
Doctors and scientists work hard to find ways to keep people healthy. Discover the innovations in medical technology that will help them in the future, from watches that track your body's processes to gene editing.
Seventh grader Derrick's "Dead Max Comix" are such a hit in the school paper that he and Max start an advice column. Derrick and Doug should have asked for advice before they started a band without inviting Kim and Keisha to join. To get even, Kim challenges the guys to come up with awesome costumes for Comic-Con and enter the upcoming Battle of the Bands. Will the Battle of the Bands mean the end of Derrick and Kim? More importantly, who will win? Book 2 in the series
