New Social Studies Activity Book

Elections in the U.S.A. - Isabelle McCoy

Elections in the U.S.A. helps students learn about the democratic process with activities created just for them!

• Loaded with historical information, arts, crafts, games, recipes and more
• Detailed instructions and material lists simplify lesson planning
• Experiential activities include mock elections, speechmaking and tracking popular and electoral votes

New Books

The Calder Game - Blue Balliett
When seventh-grader Calder Pillay disappears from a remote English village--along with an Alexander Calder sculpture to which he has felt strangely drawn--his friends Petra and Tommy fly from Chicago to help his father find him.

Trainstop - Barbara Lehman
In this wordless picture book, a young girl takes a train and makes a stop at a most unusual place where she has an important task to perform.

Autopsies: Pathologists at Work - Gary Jeffrey
Pathologists interpret what the dead are saying using post-mortem examinations. Three stories of actual crimes solved via autopsies are presented here in comic form. Includes overviews of how a crime is investigated and of how a post-mortem exam is conducted.

New Dinah Zike Books

Big Book of Math (K-6)
Features instructions for 34 manipulatives, with approximately 200 full-color photographed examples, thousands of topic-specific ideas for teaching math using Foldables with black-line art examples on every page, and 80 pages of reproducible graphics.

Big Book of Science (K-6)
Features instructions for 35 graphic organizers, with approximately 270 full-color photographed examples. Fifty pages of Earth, Life, Astronomy, and Physical topic lists give thousands of ideas for using Foldables when teaching science. Along side each topic list there are approximately 4 blackline art examples of science Foldables. The back section of the book consists of 55 pages of reproducible science graphics that can be used with various Foldables.

The Earth Science Book: Activities for Kids
Easy-to-understand information, hundreds of illustrations, and dozens and dozens of activities that explain basic Earth science facts and important environmental issues. Using simple materials, these activities show you all about the planet Earth: How it was formed, its composition, its place in space, its atmosphere, the oceans, the crust, volcanoes, earthquakes, plate tectonics, life on Earth, matter molecules, elements, and much more.

Big Book of Science for Middle School and High School
Features instructions for 29 manipulatives, with approximately 100 full-color photographed examples. Science topics are divided into four categories, Physical Science/Physics, Astronomy, Earth Science, and Life Science/Biology. The book contains thousands of ideas for teaching science using graphic organizers, as well as five black-line art examples per page.

Big Book of Books and Activities
Illustrates how to make hundreds of manipulatives and teaching aids using inexpensive materials found in the classroom or at home. With over 400 black and white photographs and illustrations, this easy-to-use visual guide takes you through the steps for making each student/teacher project that will help convert your classroom into a student oriented learning environment. Gives specific examples of their use over a wide range of subjects.

New Activity and Idea Books

Internet-Based Student Research: Creating to Learn with a Step-by-Step Approach, Grades 5-12 - Jacqueline Keane
This project-oriented, hands-on guide to developing research projects with upper elementary and middle school students gives teachers and school library media specialists the steps they need to teach researching skills to students in a meaningful and comprehensive manner. Projects are broken into four phases, called the CIDE Process: Concept, Investigation, Design, and Execution. Lead students through their research to produce meaningful, quality, learning products.

Mini-Lessons for Teaching about Nonfiction - Diane Farnham
Features strategies for such reading skills as building background knowledge, learning new vocabulary, and distinguishing between fiction and nonfiction.

Once Upon a Time - Jane Heitman
Use fairy tales in the library and classroom to increase student's proficiency in story structure, reading comprehension, writing, and speaking skills, and to foster collaboration with teachers.

New Reader's Theater Books

Reader's Theater: Philosophers to Astronauts - Grades 3-4
Contains ready-to-go reproducibles, comprehension and vocabulary activities, and family characters and stories related to famous inventors and scientists.

Reader's Theater: American History - Grades 3-4
Contains ready-to-go reproducibles, comprehension and vocabulary activities, and family characters and stories related to U.S. and Latin American history.

Reader's Theater: Fables and Folklore - Grades 1-2
Includes ready-to-go reproducible comprehension and vocabulary activities, familiar characters and stories based on traditional fables and folklore.

Reader's Theater: Fairy Tales - Grades 1-2
Contains ready-to-go reproducibles, comprehension and vocabulary activities, and family characters and stories based on traditional fairy tales.

New Award Books

November Blues - Sharon M. Draper
A teenaged boy's death in a hazing accident has lasting effects on his pregnant girlfriend and his guilt-ridden cousin, who gives up a promising music career to play football during his senior year in high school. Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor book

Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali - Charles R. Smith
A brief biography in verse of boxer Muhammad Ali. Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor book

New Children's Books

The Secret Olivia Told Me - N. Joy
Olivia shares a secret with her best friend who then lets it slip to someone else, and soon everyone knows about Olivia's secret. Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Honor Book

Garmann's Summer - Stian Hole
As the summer ends, six-year-old Garmann's three ancient aunts visit and they all talk about the things that scare them.

New Teaching Aids

Elections in the U.S.A. Photo Activity Cards
This set of 8 cards focuses on presidential elections in the United States. Each card contains suggestions for classroom activities.

Children Around the World Photo Activity Cards
This set of 8 cards pictures children from Africa, China, the Arctic, Mexico, Japan, Germany, India, and Peru. The reverse of each card offers suggestions for large-group and small-group activities, as well as a brief decsription of the country.

Habitats Photo Activity Cards
This set of 8 cards pictures various habitats around the world: forest, desert, grassland, ocean, pond, rain forest, Arctic tundra, and swamp. The reverse of each card offers large-group and small-group activities as well as a description of the habitat.

Seasons Photo Activity Cards
This set of 8 activity cards contains 2 cards for each season: spring, summer, fall (autumn), and winter. The reverse of each card offers suggestions for large-group and small-group activities, as well as factual information about each season.

Transportation Photo Activity Cards
This set of 8 cards pictures different modes of transportation: bicycle, bus, car, airplane, ship, subway, train, and truck. The reverse of each card offers suggestions for large-group and small-group activities, as well as a brief description of each mode of transportation.

New Children's Books

My Friend, the Starfinder - George Ella Lyon
A child relates some of the wondrous tales told by an old man who once found a falling star and stood at the end of a rainbow.

The Brothers' War: Civil War Voices in Verse - J. Patrick Lewis
J. Patrick Lewis breathes new life into the speeches of Lincoln, the letters of Grant and Lee, and the moving human drama of our country's Civil War. Lewis' poignant poetry gives young readers a vivid insight into the brutal conflict that tore America apart. The author draws on primary-source books and articles to inspire each poem, bringing the ordinary and extraordinary voices of the Civil War to light. The book also includes a note from the Photo Editor on the authentic period images used throughout. Readers experience history directly as it was lived by Americans in the 1860s.

I, Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer - Carole Boston Weatherford
The life of Matthew Henson from the port of Baltimore to North Pole.

Old MacNoah Had an Ark - Sally Lloyd-Jones
After building his ark and loading it with animals, Old MacNoah must deal with mealtimes and their aftermath on the high seas.




Wild Fibonacci: Nature's Secret Code Revealed - Joy N. Hulme
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34... Look carefully. Do you see the pattern? Each number above is the sum of the two numbers before it. Though most of us are unfamiliar with it, this numerical series, called the Fibonacci sequence, is part of a code that can be found everywhere in nature. Count the petals on a flower or the peas in a peapod. The numbers are all part of the Fibonacci sequence. In Wild Fibonacci, readers will discover this mysterious code in a special shape called an equiangular spiral. Why so special? It mysteriously appears in the natural world: a sundial shell curves to fit the spiral. So does a parrot's beak...a hawk's talon...a ram's horn...even our own human teeth!

Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum - Robert Andrew Parker
The story of the young Art Tatum, who became one of the all-time greats of jazz piano.

New Art Books

Art Up Close: From Ancient to Modern - Claire d'Harcourt
Invites the reader to search for tiny details hidden in famous works of art, providing information about each painting, the techniques used to create them, and how the artists and movements helped art to develop through the ages. Answer key features lift-up flaps.

Louvre Up Close - Claire d'Harcourt
This oversize, colorful companion to Art up close examines 24 reproductions of art housed in the Louvre accompanied by magnified details which readers can locate within each reproduction (answers are provided in the back, along with further information about the artist or artistic media).

New Music Books

Freddie the Frog and the Thump in the Night - Sharon Burch
Freddie the frog introduces readers to the treble clef, which serves as a map of where he lives.

Freddie the Frog and the Bass Clef Monster - Sharon Burch
Freddie the frog introduces readers to the bass clef, which serves as a pictorial outline of his scary dream during hibernation.

New Language Arts Books

From the Words Are Categorical series by Brian Cleary:

Under, Over, By the Clover: What Is a Preposition?

Slide and Slurp, Scratch and Burp: More About Verbs

Quirky, Jerky, Extra Perky: More about Adjectives

A Lime, a Mime, a Pool of Slime: More About Nouns

Lazily, Crazily, Just a Bit Nasally: More About Adverbs

I and You and Don't Forget Who: What Is a Pronoun?

Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What Is an Adverb?

How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? What Are Homonyms and Homophones?

Stop and Go, Yes and No: What Is an Antonym?

Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What Is a Synonym?

New YA Books

Before Green Gables: The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables - Budge Wilson
An authorized prequel to L.M. Montgomery's classic series about the irrepressible red-haired orphan follows Anne's early years before her adoption by the Cuthberts.

The Boy Who Dared - Susan Campbell Bartoletti
In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Geronimo - Joseph Bruchac
Geronimo is coming to the end of his life. His grandson visits him where he is imprisoned, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1908. From this comes the story of Geronimo's life.

Codebreaker - Stephen Pincock
Codebreakers reveals the complexity and near unparalleled ingenuity of the codemaker's craft. This book teaches the principles behind many different code systems and gives the reader the opportunity to solve several codes themselves.

When the Black Girl Sings - Bil Wright
Adopted by white parents and sent to an exclusive Connecticut girls' school where she is the only black student, fourteen-year-old Lahni Schuler feels like an outcast, particularly when her parents separate, but after attending a local church where she hears gospel music for the first time, she finds her voice.

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street - Jeanne Birdsall
The four Penderwick sisters are faced with the unimaginable prospect of their widowed father dating, and they hatch a plot to stop him.

Lawn Boy - Gary Paulsen
Things get out of hand for a twelve-year-old boy when a neighbor convinces him to expand his summer lawn mowing business.

The Hour of the Outlaw - Maiya Williams
Rowan, Nina, Xanthe, and Xavier are reunited for their first solo time travel trip, venturing to Bloomington, Illinois, in 1856 in search of an unhappy teen whose decision to run away from his father seems to have changed history.

The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd
When Ted and Kat's cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together--Ted with his brain that is "wired differently" and impatient Kat--to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.

William Shakespeare's King Lear - retold by Gareth Hinds
Adaptation of King Lear in a graphic novel format.

New DVD

Stand and Deliver
Story of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School, who pushes and inspires 18 inner-city Hispanic students who were struggling with math to become math whizzes.

New Children's and YA Books

The Littles to the Rescue - John Peterson
A family of tiny people experiences a crisis when a baby is born during a snowstorm.

A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sara Crewe, a pupil at Miss Minchin's London school, is left in poverty when her father dies but is later rescued by a mysterious benefactor.

Substitute Groundhog - Pat Miller
Too sick to perform his once-a-year job, Groundhog interviews other animals to come out of his hole on Groundhog Day.

Where Do I Live? - Neil Chesanow
Part of being a child is wondering. This charming book uses easy words and color illustrations to explain to children exactly where they live. Crenshaw starts with a child's room, in his or her home, neighborhood, town, state, and county-then moves out to the planet Earth, the solar system, and the Milky Way. From there, children trace their way home again.

Community Helpers from A to Z - Bobble Kalman
An alphabet book introducing occupations oriented to the community, including emergency workers, medical workers, the service industry, and business.

The History of Gospel Music - Rose Blue
What is Gospel music? -- The roots in Africa -- The roots in slavery -- Music goes to war -- Gospel goes to church -- Negro spirituals -- The minstrel show -- From Ragtime and the Blues to Jazz -- Modern Gospel in America

Those Amazing Musical Instruments - Genevieve Helsby
Contains facts and stories about the history and construction of the individual instruments that make up an orchestra, including strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and keyboards, with discussion of the voice, electronic instruments, and the conductor, and features musical examples on CD-ROM.

Christy Miller Collection, Volume 1 - Robin Jones Gunn
Presents books one through three of the popular Christian fiction series featuring Wisconsin farm girl Christy Miller as she learns about Christianity and life. Contains Summer Promise, A Whisper and a Wish, and Yours Forever.

Christy Miller Collection, Volume 2 - Robin Jones Gunn
Presents books four through six of the popular Christian fiction series featuring Wisconsin farm girl Christy Miller as she learns about Christianity and life. Contains Surprise Endings, Island Dreamer, and A Heart Full of Hope.

Christy Miller Collection, Volume 4 - Robin Jones Gunn
Presents books ten through twelve of the popular Christian fiction series featuring Wisconsin farm girl Christy Miller as she learns about Christianity and life. Contains A Time to Cherish, Sweet Dreams, and A Promise Is Forever.

Chosen, Book 1 of The Lost Books - Ted Dekker
As the land of the Forest Dwellers is increasingly decimated by the Horde, Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard, choses four sixteen-year-old recruits for a special mission--to find the seven lost Books of History that have power over the past, present, and future.