The boy knows that times are tough for his family. Every night, his father goes out hunting with their great coon dog, Sounder, to try to put food on the table. But even with the little they bring back, there is still never enough for the family to eat. When the boy awakens one morning to a sweet-smelling ham on the table, it seems like a blessing. But soon, the sheriff and his deputies come to the house and take the boy’s father away in handcuffs....

In winning a medal she is no longer there to receive, a tight-lipped little Polish girl teaches her classmates a lesson. Includes a note from the author's daughter, Helena Estes. "Wanda wears the same faded blue dress to school every day -- yet she says she has one hundred beautiful dresses at home, "all lined up." The other girls don't believe it, and when Peggy starts a daily game of teasing Wanda about the hundred dresses, everyone joins in. Maddie,...

With the end of the Civil War in 1865, Addy desperately hopes that her family will be reunited in freedom in Philadelphia, but the future may hold both happiness and heartache.

"Avid baker Zoe Washington receives a letter on her twelfth birthday from her biological father, who is in prison for a terrible crime"--

Chicago fifth-grader Simon, an aspiring rapper who lacks self-confidence, uses his rhymes to help bring his community together.

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

Thirteen-year-old Maddy Rollag struggles with prairie life on her aunt and uncle's farm in Dakota Territory, but on January 12, 1888, when a blizzard threatens to trap Maddy and her classmates inside their damaged schoolhouse, she finds the courage and strength to lead them to safety. Includes historical note, glossary, and discussion questions.

Addy and Harriet feud over everything, including fund-raising plans to help the families of freed slaves, but tragedy finally forces them to stop fighting and work together.

In the summer of 1968, after traveling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

As a thank-you from Merlin and Morgan, Jack and Annie are sent on what should be a vacation at a luxurious resort in Cozumel, Mexico, but is, by mistake, an adventure with ancient Mayans, instead.