The Quirks and the Freaky Field Trip

The Quirks and the Freaky Field Trip
Author: Erin Soderberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2015-11-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1619636697

It's a big week for the Quirks as twins Molly and Pen prepare for an exciting Halloween-inspired field trip to their local museum. Whichever fourth grade team creates the spookiest design wins an unusually fun prize. Meanwhile at home, everyone is ready for a visit from a certain Scottish guest: their Uncle Cork! He hasn't seen the twins since they were babies. At first, Uncle Cork seems totally normal, and Molly wonders if maybe she's not the only one in her family without a quirk. But then every time invisible Finn almost causes chaos, Uncle Cork is there to stop him. Molly can't believe it. It's like he has special vision or something.... Black-and-white illustrations throughout capture the surprises, spooks, and nonstop laughs in this fourth Quirks book that proves every family is unique.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened
Author: Jenny Lawson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2012-04-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101573082

The #1 New York Times bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of Furiously Happy. “Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—O, The Oprah Magazine When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives. Readers Guide Inside

The Quirks in Circus Quirkus

The Quirks in Circus Quirkus
Author: Erin Soderberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1619631571

Just as the Quirk family was settling into Normal, the circus comes to town! At school, Molly, Penelope, and Finn are all learning circus skills in gym class and solving a school-wide scavenger hunt. Meanwhile at home, they are putting similar skills to good use; it takes fancy footwork and stellar detective work to keep their nosy neighbor from snooping around and uncovering the Quirk family secrets. One thing's for sure: Life in Normal is a high-flying adventure!

Controlled Burn

Controlled Burn
Author: Erin Soderberg Downing
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 133877607X

From acclaimed middle-grade and chapter-book author, Erin Soderberg Downing, Controlled Burn is a story that blends family, friendship, fire, and the rocky path toward healing our deepest fears. Twelve-year-old Maia’s parents say she’s lucky she noticed something as early as she did. Lucky to have smelled the smoke, lucky to have pulled her sister, Amelia, out of their burning house. But is it really “lucky” when Amelia’s stuck in the hospital, covered in burns? And is it “lucky” when Maia knows it was her candle, left unattended, that started the fire in the first place? When she’s sent to spend the summer with her grandparents in Northern Minnesota while her sister heals, Maia discovers that her anxieties and demons are intent on following her wherever she goes...unless she can figure out how to overcome them. But what if she can’t? Maia barely knows her grandparents, she desperately misses her sister and home, and she’s not thrilled to be spending the summer with Grandpa Howard on his daily motorcycle rides out to the middle of the woods, where he spends all day keeping watch for forest fires. There are no kids her age in Gram and Pop’s small town at “the end of the road”—just the chatty nine-year-old neighbor who is intent on getting his Bear Scout badge at all costs, and a friendly, stray dog who’s been lurking around. But Maia will soon learn that nature is a powerful teacher, and sometimes our greatest strengths show themselves when we have to be there for someone else. As she begins to figure out how to face her guilt and paralyzing fears, she’ll discover there’s a fine line between fear and adventure. And when danger strikes again, Maia must summon all her bravery and overcome her self-doubt if she wants to save those she loves most.

Camp Fear Ghouls

Camp Fear Ghouls
Author: R.L. Stine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2013-01-22
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1442488387

Lizzy Caldwell is so excited when she’s asked to join the Camp Fear Girls. It sounds like such a cool club. Even though the clubhouse is on Fear Street—the spookiest street around. Even though the troop badges show coffins and hangman’s nooses. Even though the Camp Fear Girls are mysteriously vanishing…

The Great Peach Experiment 1: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie

The Great Peach Experiment 1: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie
Author: Erin Soderberg Downing
Publisher: Holiday House
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1645950344

Mix together a used food truck, a road trip that doesn't exactly go as planned, and a lot of pie, and you have the recipe for this sweet middle grade series starter brimming with humor, heart, and a family you'll fall in love with. Perfect for readers who gobbled down The Penderwicks and The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. Sweet summer has taken a rotten turn . . . After a tough year, Lucy, Freddy, and Herb Peach are ready for vacation. Lucy wants to read all of the books on the summer reading list. Freddy wants to work on his art projects (when he isn't stuck in summer school). Herb wants to swim every day. Then their dad makes a big announcement: one of the inventions their mom came up with before she passed away has sold, and now they're millionaires! But Dad has bigger plans than blowing the cash on fun stuff or investing it. He's bought a used food truck. The Peaches are going to spend the summer traveling the country selling pies. It will be the Great Peach Experiment--a summer of bonding while living out one of Mom's dreams. Summer plans, sunk. And there's one more issue Dad's neglected: none of them knows how to bake. . . . A perfect blend of humor, heart, and family antics, When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie is a delectable treat to be gobbled down or savored slowly. (Slice of pie on the side, optional, but highly recommended.) A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Named to the Iowa Children's Choice List Named to the Minnesota Maude Hart Lovelace List

The Truth About Alice

The Truth About Alice
Author: Jennifer Mathieu
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1596439106

Winner of the Children's Choice Book Awards' Teen Choice Debut Author Award Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback, Brandon Fitzsimmons, dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody. Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the "slut stall" in the girls' bathroom: "Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers" and "Alice got an abortion last semester." After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control. In this remarkable debut novel, four Healy High students tell all they "know" about Alice--and in doing so reveal their own secrets and motivations, painting a raw look at the realities of teen life. But in this novel from Jennifer Mathieu, exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end there's only one person to ask: Alice herself. This title has Common Core connections.

The New Sultan

The New Sultan
Author: Soner Çaǧaptay
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017
Genre: Turkey
ISBN: 9781350988972

"In a world of rising tensions between Russia and the United States, the Middle East and Europe, Sunnis and Shiites, Islamism and liberalism, Turkey is at the epicentre. And at the heart of Turkey is its right-wing populist president, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. Since 2002, Erdo?an has consolidated his hold on domestic politics while using military and diplomatic means to solidify Turkey as a regional power. His crackdown has been brutal and consistent - scores of journalists arrested, academics officially banned from leaving the country, university deans fired and many of the highest-ranking military officers arrested. In some senses, the nefarious and failed 2016 coup has given Erdo?an the licence to make good on his repeated promise to bring order and stability under a 'strongman'. Here, leading Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay will look at Erdo?an's roots in Turkish history, what he believes in and how he has cemented his rule, as well as what this means for the world. The book will also unpick the 'threats' Erdogan has worked to combat - from the liberal Turks to the Gulen movement, from coup plotters to Kurdish nationalists - all of which have culminated in the crisis of modern Turkey."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Author: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307420655

A memoir in bite-size chunks from the author of the viral Modern Love column “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” “[Rosenthal] shines her generous light of humanity on the seemingly humdrum moments of life and shows how delightfully precious they actually are.” —The Chicago Sun-Times How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways. An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.