When Rennie's dad, the Major, goes overseas on assignment, he enlists his mother-in-law to babysit Rennie. Babysit! A guy who's about to turn fifteen! But Grandma is no surrogate drill sergeant. She has fun on her mind. That means ditching school and heading to avalanche country for a surprise ski trip. Nothing can ruin Rennie's vacation, not the lodge owner, who turns out to be Grandma's geriatric long-ago boyfriend, not the annoying backcountry guide or the crooked park ranger or the pushy businessman from Mumbai, not even the explosions. And definitely not the most beautiful girl in the world, whom he meets while stumbling onto a murder plot. In this hair-raising prequel to Close to the Heel and From the Dead, the loyal, smart and observant Rennie heads to avalanche country.
Fourteen-year-old Taz knows one thing for sure: she's a perfect disaster in the kitchen. Every time she tries to cook, chaos ensues. After fires, toxins and more than one minor injury, Taz will be happy if she makes it through her food-science class in one piece. But when the class enters a competitive race for a coveted program and Taz is put in a group that expects to win, the pressure is on. As the competition heats up, Taz is desperate to hold her own and not let her team down.
Until a few hundred years ago, people were embarrassed to buy bread in a store. Families took pride in making almost everything they owned. These days, many people take pride in buying as much as possible - new clothes, a speedier bicycle, the latest phone. But each year, humanity uses resources equivalent to nearly one and a half Earths, and we're still not meeting everyone's needs. Around the world, people are questioning consumerism, leaning toward more sustainable lifestyles and creating a whole new concept of wealth. What if you could meet all your needs while getting to know your neighbors and protecting the environment at the same time?
Hailey McEwan has many interests - soccer, field hockey, animation. She'd probably never have started singing if her best friend, Crissy, hadn't persuaded her to take singing lessons and join her choir. No one had any idea that Hailey would be such a natural, least of all Hailey herself. A shared love of music from pop to opera has been a big part of the girls' friendship, but when the two face off in a competition for a role in a production of The Marriage of Figaro, their closeness turns into a bitter rivalry. Hailey will have to make a tough decision. Is opera as important to her as it is to Crissy? And is landing a role worth losing her best friend?
Declan's life in small-town Quebec is defined by his parents' divorce, his older brother's delinquency and his own lackluster performance at school, which lands him with a tutor he calls Little Miss Perfect. He likes his job at the local ice rink, and he has a couple of good buddies, but his father's five-year absence is a constant source of pain and anger. When he finds out the truth about his parents' divorce, he is forced to reconsider everything he has believed about his family and himself.
Thirteen-year-old Chris and his family are setting up a bungee jump in his backyard. It's a real large-scale bungee jump off a bridge that connects his backyard to a small island owned by his family. Not only is it going to be the coolest attraction around, but it also provides Chris with an opportunity to watch a real engineer in action. Chris would be excited about it if things didn't keep going wrong. The rumors of hauntings on the island, once the site of a hospital for children with leprosy, are getting out of control. And there are mysterious mishaps on the bridge. Chris worries that all of these problems will keep customers away. And if the bungee jump isn't a success, his family will lose everything.
Adina has always wanted to be a part of the annual fashion show at her school for the arts. Now that she's finally in the ninth grade, she and her friends can audition. She knows their act could be perfect. They've got great music, gorgeous costumes and wicked dance moves. But Willow is being her usual flaky self, and Sandra's getting touchy. Maybe even a bit mean. Luckily, Seth remains steady and reliable. Their biggest competition is the annoyingly perfect Prima Donnas, who are doing everything they can to undermine Adina and her friends. Adina is used to working hard at everything she does, including her violin, art, drama and singing classes. But her friends are getting sick of her ordering them around. They just don't get what a huge deal this is. When one of the Prima Donnas gets injured during their audition, minutes after Sandra storms off in a huff, the two groups realize that in order to succeed, they may have to work together.
Many people think that Charlotte Brontë loosely based Jane Eyre on her own life and experiences. See how Brontë tells her story through the eyes of Jane Eyre. Even though Jane was orphaned at an early age and forced to live with her evil aunt, Mrs. Reed, she still managed to be happy. Read along as Jane travels to Lowood School and eventually to Thornfield Hall where she meets Mr. Rochester, the only true love she ever knows.
Some playful fairies decide to make mischief with unsuspecting humans. Can true love overcome all obstacles? Two young Athenian couples are put to the test. Comedy reigns in this enchanting fantasy about the nature of romantic love.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back in time, knowing what you know now? That is the story of a Connecticut Yankee who is magically transported back to King Arthur's time. But with the knowledge of modern technology. Will modern technology win out over the magic of Merline, the court magician?
The prime directive has been changed and four billion robots with atomic blasters are poised to take over the universe. Only Robbie Packford, Earth boy and grade six math nerd, can stop them. But when Robbie drinks the secret formula that is supposed to make him invincible, he turns into a mythical creature from the planet Kerbosky with a disturbing craving for raw meat. Will Robbie reach the nerve center in time to save planet Earth from destruction? And what do four billion not nice robots have to do with the chances of the Vancouver Canucks winning the Stanley Cup anyway?
Sheila, Rusty and Katie are on the road again. Fresh from their adventures in Barkerville, the trio is now in southern Alberta. Sheila has been anxiously anticipating her reunion with her father and is worried about how they will get along. Her fears are confirmed when they arrive at the Triple W Ranch and he is not there to greet them. When the police arrive, Sheila finds that her father is in big trouble. Developers want to take over his land to build new housing and a golf course, and when the night watchman at the development is shot, all the evidence points to Sheila's father. Sheila tries to help out, but the clues she finds only make things worse. Is Sheila's dad guilty? She doesn't think so and with help from the others sets out to prove it.
Rusty, Katie and Sheila are sent out of town with Rusty's grandparents to keep them out of trouble. This time the trio is in historic Barkerville, a gold rush town with a secret. After witnessing what they take to be a ghost in the night, the three friends find themselves involved in a mystery from the past that seems to have a few other people interested as well. New information has come to light about a fortune in missing gold, a centuries-old curse and a missing miner. While the three budding detectives try and figure out which of the aging prospectors they keep running into is actually a ghost, they find they are in a race against time to recover the gold and return it to its rightful owners to avert a tragedy. Will they find the gold in time? Or will they suffer the fate of Three Finger Evans, the missing miner?
The summer is off to a lousy start when Levi's bike is stolen from outside the corner store. He feels even worse because he didn't lock it. But when his best friend Riley's locked bike is stolen the very next day, the boys are determined to get both of them back. When they discover there has been a string of bicycle thefts in the area, the friends hatch several plans to find the culprit. There are so many potential suspects--Steve Morrow and his gang, the tattooed guy who sits at the bus stop, the owners of the secondhand-bike store. There's also Emily Grimshaw, Levi's childhood nemesis, who keeps popping up and showing a peculiar interest in the thefts. Does she really want to help or is she involved somehow? And will Levi and Riley ever see their beloved bikes again?
Melissa is waiting for the "new life" that her mother Sharlene has promised her since a fire devastated their family. But nothing ever seems to change. Melissa has difficulty making friends at school, they never have enough money and her little brother Cody is a brat. When Sharlene announces that they will be spending the month of August at a remote cabin on a wilderness lake, Melissa is less than thrilled. But there is more to do at the lake than she expected, and she is surprised to learn that her mother knows how to paddle a canoe, fish and make bannock and s'mores. On an island in the middle of the lake, Melissa meets Alice, a strange girl who is writing a fantasy novel. Alice shares her tree fort on the island with Melissa, and while at first Melissa is attracted to Alice's strong personality and her stories of her "perfect family," she becomes increasingly uneasy around Alice. As Melissa's relationship with her mother improves and her confidence increases, she is able to hold her own with Alice and start to appreciate her own imperfect family.
Readers will enjoy exploring hidden aspects of their personality as they discover what creature they are most like in this engaging quiz book. Written in the high-low format, this book has a HIGH interest level to appeal to a more mature audience but maintains a LOW level of complexity and clear visuals to help struggling readers along. Best Quiz Ever: What Creature Are You Most Like? includes fun questions to share with friends as well as trivia throughout the book. A perfect read for the classroom, library, sleepovers, or reading resource rooms. A table of contents, glossary with simplified pronunciations, and index all enhance comprehension.
This fascinating book provides a snapshot of the different forms of communication developed by various ancient civilizations. Engaging illustrations, detailed timelines, and fascinating information bring back to life the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Africa, China, and more. Read about Africa's hundreds of regional dialects, Mesoamerican folding-screen books, Egyptian hieroglyphs and how to interpret them, and Mesopotamian cuneiform writing.
The term "blog" was coined in 1997. Less than 10 years later there were over 150 million blogs. How did that happen? Who is responsible for their development? This book explores the role innovation and innovators had in the development of blogs.
Learn how to research, understand, and arrange information about your ancestors.
Infographics can pack a lot of information into a small amount of space with clever use of text and images. Readers will find out how to unpack, draw evidence from, evaluate, and integrate content presented in this visual format. They will also learn how to make purposeful, informative, and visually appealing infographics of their own.
This book teaches readers how to plan and write comic books. They will discover ways of brainstorming ideas for a comic book story, how to outline a plot using a three-act organizational structure, how to incorporate dialogue and descriptions, and how to write clear and detailed instructions for an artist to draw the accompanying illustrations. A variety of activities provide hints and tips along the way to support the process of planning, organizing, and writing the narrative of a comic book story.
This book teaches readers how to plan and write fractured fairy tales. They will discover what a fractured fairy tale is, how to prepare a plot outline, develop characters, revise and edit the story, and write a final draft of the narrative. A variety of activities provide hints and tips along the way to support the development of characters, clear event sequences, plot elements, and the overall creative writing process.
This book teaches readers how to plan and write lab reports. They will discover how to use the scientific method to perform experiments, how to collect and organize data, and how to present their findings in a clear and compelling way using temporal words and descriptive language appropriate to the task. A variety of exciting activities provide hints and tips along the way to help students introduce a topic, write using precise language, incorporate facts and details, and draw evidence from their data.
This book teaches readers how to plan and write memoirs. They will discover what makes an interesting life story, why details are important to creating an interesting story, and how to organize memories into a compelling narrative. A variety of activities provide hints and tips along the way to support the development of point of view, descriptive detail, logical organization, and the narrative as a whole.
Sometimes the clearest way to introduce a topic or provide important information is with a brochure. Creating digital brochures can also provide opportunities for students to practice writing informative texts to convey ideas and using technology to produce and publish writing. Readers of this book will discover how to plan, write, and publish their own digital brochures. They will also learn how to effectively introduce their topic, organize their ideas, format text and graphics, and edit their brochure.
