 |
||
 Click image above for TeachingBooks link |
 Click image above for TeachingBooks link |
 Click image above for TeachingBooks link |
|
A young girl looks out her window, pondering the universe. A subsequent family trip to the planetarium gives her a lot to think about. Are humans the only beings who wonder if they are alone in the universe? Our sun is a star. In the night sky are all kinds of stars and orbiting those stars are planets like the ones in our own solar system. Are there other “Goldilocks planets” out there capable of sustaining life, planets that are “not too hot and not too cold, not too big and not too small, not too soft and not too hard” but “just right”? Could those planets have life like we do on Earth? Beginning with the insights of astronomers such as Lucretius and Giordano Bruno and continuing with the observations of a fictional young girl from the present day, this illuminating book examines the possibility of life on other planets. |
Hank Hudson is in a bit of trouble. After an incident involving the boy’s bathroom and a terribly sad book his teacher is forcing them to read, Hank is left with a week’s suspension and a slightly charred hardcover—and the attention of new girl Maisie Huang. Maisie has been on the lookout for a kid with the meatballs to help her with a very important mission: Saving her neighbor’s dog, Booler. Booler has seizures, and his owner, Mr. Jorgensen, keeps him tied to a tree all day and night because of them. Hank has autism, and he knows what it’s like to be treated poorly because of something that makes you different. But different is not less. And Hank is willing to get into even more trouble to prove it. Booler might not be the only one who needs saving. And being a hero can look a lot like being a friend. |
Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth's experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism erupted into Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and unleashed a wave of violence and forced arrests. Days later, desperate volunteers sprang into action to organize the Kindertransport, a rescue effort to bring Jewish children to England. Young people like Ruth David had to say good-bye to their families, unsure if they'd ever be reunited. Through the moving and often heart-wrenching personal accounts of Kindertransport survivors, Hopkinson paints the timely and devastating story of how the rise of Hitler and the Nazis tore apart the lives of so many families and what they were forced to give up in order to save these children. |
|
Interest Level: K-3rd Elementary |
Interest Level: 3rd-6th Intermediate |
Interest Level: 9th-12th High School |
