Claudia Mills
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How Oliver Olson Changed the World is an irresistible chapter book from Claudia Mills, featuring lively illustrations by Heather Maione. Oliver Olson learns that before you can change the world, sometimes you need to change yourself.
Oliver Olson's teacher is always saying that one person with a big idea can change the world. But, how is Oliver supposed to change the world when his parents won't let him do anything on his own-not his class projects...
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Nine-year-old Chelsea's experiences, which include a fight with her best friend, making mistakes in the handbell concert, and saying goodbye to the only church minister she has ever known, help her to accept that things change and that people, including herself, are not perfect.
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The quest to save the words of a dying language - and to find the words to save what may be a dying friendship - lies at the heart of this exquisite verse novel.
Sixth grader Betsy is the one who informs her best friend, Lizard, that thousands of the world's languages are currently threatened by extinction, Betsy's mother is a linguistics professor working frantically to study dying languages before they are lost forever. But it is Lizard who, gripped...
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Amanda MacLeish might be the only student in Mr. Abrams's fifth-grade class who doesn't mind doing her homework. Now that her father has left home and moved into a motel, the only thing that brings Amanda any joy is writing her fictional diary entries about a young girl named Polly who lives amid the chaos of the Civil War. Polly would understand Amanda. With one brother fighting for the North and one fighting for the South, Polly knows just how it...
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The sequel to Losers, Inc.
Twelve-year-old Julius Zimmerman is the former vice president of the defunct organization Losers, Inc. Ethan Winfield, the former president, no longer feels like a loser. But Julius still does, maybe because his mother thinks of him that way. To "improve" him, Mrs. Zimmerman signs Julius up for a summer course in intensive French and for a part-time job baby-sitting three-year-old Edison Blue. She also sets a summer reading...
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A wise guy gets wise
The school year is almost over, and Alex Ryan still has plenty of pranks to pull and jokes to tell. Then his dad attends the meeting about the seventh-grade outdoor education trip. Alex knows nothing good can come of this, Mr. Ryan is a jester, too, and the butt of his funny stories is often Alex. Still, Alex is not prepared for the comment that mortifies him in front of pretty, popular Marcia Faitak, his friend Dave Barnett,...
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Dinah Seabrooke is in seventh grade and distraught at learning that the sun will vaporize the earth in about 5 billion years. Nothing matters anymore-not class elections, the school play, even her relationship with Nick. Then Dinah suffers her first loss and discovers the reasons to live fully even though nothing lasts forever.
8) Losers, Inc
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Ethan Winfield has never been an academic or athletic star like his older brother, Peter. But, does that make him a failure? Of course not. Still, Ethan and his best friend, Julius Zimmerman, decide that they qualify to found an exclusive club: Losers, Inc.
No sooner have they done this, however, than both boys fall in love with the new student teacher. Ethan knows right away that to impress Ms. Gunderson he has to excel. Instead of reading the shortest...
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Cooper's grandfather gives him and his little sister, Carly, deeds to square inches of land in the Yukon. Carly uses them to invent her own imaginary kingdom of Inchland-far away from the silence of their home, where their single mother stays in bed all day. When their mom comes out of her season of sadness bursting with sometimes frightening energy, Carly retreats into Inchland, while sixth-grader Cooper tries to control the chaos. But can Cooper...
10) Trading Places
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Todd and Amy Davidson may be twins, but they're complete opposites — Todd is organized and is the family "engineer," while Amy is outgoing and has been dubbed the "poet." So it would seem that for a fifth-grade economics project, Todd would come up with a master invention, and Amy would have a blast with her best friends as partners. To their surprise, Todd can't think of a single idea, and Amy gets stuck working with the class crybaby. Then Todd...
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Pretty is as pretty does.
Pretty, popular Marcia Faitak is not her usual self. Over the summer, she gained five pounds, and when school begins, Marcia, desperate for an invitation from Alex Ryan to the October dance, goes on a diet. In art class, she's supposed to bring a red apple to life on paper, but all she wants to do is eat it. Mr. Morrison doesn't like her work anyway: disdainfully, he calls her drawing of a beautiful girl "Barbie." Worse...
12) Lizzie At Last
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The sequel to Losers, Inc. and You're a Brave Man, Julius Zimmerman
As seventh grade begins, Lizzie Archer knows she can't endure another year of being derided as the class nerd. Maybe she can't stop being smart, does she want to? But at least she doesn't have to look so different. Out of her Emily Dickinson dresses and into Gap jeans she goes, and the effect is amazing. The girls talk to her; the boys tease her. But, her braininess remains an obstacle...
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Maggie McIntosh is crazy about her biology teacher and loves to impress him with her academic excellence. But when, the dreaded day of the first class dissection arrives, Maggie has to disappoint Mr. O. There's no way she can cut up a worm.
Maggie's best friend, Alycia, understands. Alycia is squeamish, too, and shares Maggie's moral outrage. However, she's willing to keep quiet and let her lab partner do the dirty work. Maggies' own lab partner,...
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Riley O'Rourke is writing his report on President Teddy Roosevelt in preparation for the fourth-grade biography tea, but he has a far more important goal: to get a saxophone so he can take instrumental music. His mother can't afford to rent him a sax, and he's sure he'll never save up enough money to buy one. But, as Riley learns more about Roosevelt's "bully" spirit, he realizes that there just might be a way to solve his problem after all.
Claudia...
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If Wilson Williams thought multiplication was difficult, he is finding fractions impossible. And, when his parents hire a math tutor for him, he is sure he's the only kid in the history of Hill Elementary to have one. Wilson is determined to make sure that no one finds out, not even his best friend, Josh. At least his pet hamster, Pip, is sympathetic. Pip is going to be part of Wilson's science fair project, because any project with hamsters in it...
16) 7X9 = Trouble!
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The two things that Wilson Williams likes best about 3rd grade are drawing and taking care of the class pet, Squiggles the hamster. What he likes the least are timed multiplication tests. Why think about all those numbers when he could be drawing pictures of Squiggles? With gentle humor, Claudia Mills works through a common childhood problem to a surprising resolution.
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Twelve-year-old Sonnet's family has just moved across the country to live with her grandfather after her nana dies. Gramps's once-impressive apple orchard has been razed for a housing development, with only one heirloom tree left. Sonnet doesn't want to think about how Gramps and his tree are both growing old, she just wants everything to be okay.
Sonnet is not okay with her neighbor, Zeke, a boy her age who gets on her bad side when he tries to...
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Holiday House
Pub. Date
2021
Description
-- Boogie Bass Praise for -- School Library Journal"Likeable Nixie creates a terrific recipe for winning back old friends and making lots of new ones." - -- Kirkus Reviews "Budding artists will appreciate the respect for and information about the comics process and relate to Vera's joy at immersing herself in her beloved pastime." --The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
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Series
Mason Dixon volume 3
Publisher
Random House Children's Books
Pub. Date
2012
Description
Here's the third entry in Claudia Mills' charming middle-grade series. Mason Dixon survived the school choir. He survived adopting his now-beloved dog named, uh, Dog. But now he faces his biggest challenge yet: joining the local basketball team. Not by choice, of course. Not only do his parents encourage it, but his dad even volunteers to be his coach. Now, with his best pal Brody and a team of misfits even worse at basketball than him (if that's...
Author
Series
Mason Dixon volume 2
Publisher
Random House Children's Books
Pub. Date
2011
Description
Here's the second entry in veteran author Claudia Mills' charming middle-grade series, which finds the lovably sardonic title character starting the fourth grade, which he's dreading: everyone in fourth grade is expected to join the school choir. And sing. In front of everyone. Mason can't think of many things he enjoys less than singing. But performing in front of other people might come close; Mason devises a foolproof plan that will keep him out...