chapter books, ages 7-10
GO AHEAD! KICK ME OUT OF SCHOOL!
by Mary Ann Kerl
98 pages
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Jeremy Pryor is fed up with classmates calling him dumb, stupid, and retard just because he hasn’t learned his multiplication tables. It’s hard to keep up in school when you’ve been abused and bounced around from foster home to foster home. He hopes his new foster parents will homeschool him.
But Mr. and Mrs. Daniels treat Jeremy so well he wonders if they are up to something. And their other foster child, a seventeen-year-old, teases Jeremy nonstop. Kent and his friends are bigger, so Jeremy can’t fight back. When they ask Jeremy to deliver a small white box to a guy on the corner, he does. Then he wonders if the white box might have contained drugs.
Should he tell the Daniels’ about delivering the box?
Will Kent get into trouble?
Or worse, will his new foster family send him back to the state home?
$17.99, hard cover
$12.99, soft cover
Reviews of Go Ahead! Kick Me Out of School!:
"A boy finds his real worth when he begins trusting his new foster family. This story brings insight into life, school, and social problems children experience, and offers answers for their parents."
Dr. Dona T. Mularkey, former college professor
"It is easy to understand how this compelling story is an award winner! I applaud Mary Ann for courageously capturing the feelings so many of us with challenges wrestled with in our own school days. A must read for students and educators!"
Dr. Debbie Smith, Education Faculty and Consultant
"A heartwarming story of a young foster boy who learns to overcome great difficulties in his life and learns to believe in himself. Kerl has written a story that is relevant to teens today who face challenging times and offers practical solutions."
April Everett, special education teacher
Pittsburg School
Pittsburg, Oklahoma
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BIGFOOT AND THE GOLD STAR KID
by Shelley Anne Richter
34 pages
Winner of the 2022 OWFI award for Best Published Juvenile Book
Heistin isn’t usually afraid of coming home to an empty house, even though he and his mom live next to a swamp. After all, he is twelve years old. But one evening, while waiting for his mom to get home from work, Heistin hears a noise outside. Someone is rattling the doorknob! When his neighbor comes over to check it out, he tells Heistin about a creature called Bigfoot and how the man-ape saved a soldier from a bear trap.
Could someone be playing a prank on him?
Or is it really Bigfoot?
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$14.99, hard cover
$9.99, soft cover
BILLY BOB FLYBOTTOM
by Susan Kite
32 pages
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Come on 'round and hear the tall tale of Billy Bob Flybottom from Hoop ‘n Yoller Holler. Billy Bob is as tough as a cedar tree and as strong as a team of mules. He can out-chop, out-plow and out-hoe anyone in the Appalachian Mountains.
When the tales of his incredible exploits travel to nearby Corn Pone Holler, bully Jimmy John Rockriler gets jealous. He wants to fight!
Billy Bob must get creative and outwit the bully from the neighboring “holler”!
A humorous folktale set in the Appalachian mountains.
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$14.99, hard cover
$9.99, paperback
KEEPERS OF THE SECRET CODE
by KJ Williams and Teresa R. Kemp
116 pages
Peter Farrow is a slave on Dover Plantation, South Carolina. He does small jobs and helps around the big house and the dairy. When he’s not working, Peter likes to play with the other enslaved children, or go fishing with the master’s daughter, Emily. His mother decides it’s time for Peter to learn his family’s secret: sewing patterns into quilts to warn, or give directions to, runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.
But at almost twelve years old, it’s time Peter learns a trade. The master has agreed for Peter to apprentice with Samuel, the plantation’s carpenter. John, the cruel overseer, has other plans. He wants Peter out in the fields, close enough to feel his whip and doing the backbreaking work of a grownup slave. So, when Peter comes between Samuel and the overseer’s whip, he makes a terrible enemy. He must now run away or be sold down south.
Based on a true story.
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$16.99, hard cover
$10.99, soft cover
CAMP NOT ALLOWED
by KJ Williams, illustrated by Dorothy Shaw
48 pages
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Bored with their usual summer games, Kat and Tanya want to play with the neighborhood boys. The boys a real teepee in their backyard! But they refuse, saying it’s for Native American boys only. The girls resort to desperate measures and blackmail the boys into including them. But “Chief” Randy isn’t ready to surrender. He creates three initiation tests for the sisters to pass.
Can the girls pull a few tricks from their sleeve and become tribe members in this boy versus girl war of the summer?
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$14.00, hard cover
$8.99, soft cover
STONE GIRL
by Susan York Meyers
96 pages
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At almost fourteen, Myra shops in the fat girl department. No one, least of all her mother, let’s her forget it. Except for Myra’s almost-imaginary friend, a statue of a girl out in the woods.
So when Myra finally finds a friend who wants to spend time with her, and doesn’t mind being seen with her, she wonders if it’s for real. Or will her new friend be like all the other kids, and make fun of her for being fat?
And who is answering the notes Myra leaves at the statue? Is the writer a friend or a foe?
She may have to choose between a longed-for friendship and doing the right thing.
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$14.99, hard cover
$9.99, soft cover
MY FRIEND, FRANK
by David Roper, illustrated by Adam Cobble
48 pages
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Herbie desperately wants a pet, but Mom won't let him keep the strays he brings home. So when he finds a green-skinned giant shivering in the alley, Herbie must come up with a plan to convince Mom to let him keep his new friend, Frank.
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$15.00, hardcover
$8.00, softcover
MILA DENTON'S WORST WEEK EVER!
First grader, Mila Denton thought she and Rosie would be best friends forever. But when Mila refused to fork over her oatmeal candy at lunch, Rosie dumped her. But losing her best friend was only the beginning of a week filled with bad luck and humorous mishaps.
Will Mila ever win Rosie back or will every week be like her worst week ever?
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$15.00 (hard cover) Ages 6-8
$9.99 (soft cover)
I thought it was great. I love that Mila is a strong, female character, but values friendship enough to be forgiving of others. She's tough, but sensitive. She makes a great role model. --E.B.
MILA DENTON IS AN APRIL FOOL!
by Sandra Byrd Lawson, illustrated by David Barrow
72 pages
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When Mila’s parents begin her day with an April Fool’s prank, Mila is determined to plan the best April Fool’s Day pranks ever!
But Mila quickly discovers it’s hard to come up with good ideas. And while she’s trying, everyone else is playing pranks on HER!
Will the day end before Mila figures out how to “April Fool” Tony Baloney, Rosie, and her parents?
Or will she have to wait another whole year to plan the best April Fool’s prank ever?
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$14.99, hard cover
$9.99, soft cover
THE BUFFALO TRAIN RIDE
by Desiree Webber
illustrated by Sandy Shropshire
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In the 1800s, the vast herds of buffalo that once covered the plains of North America were hunted almost to extinction. How were they saved? What started with a plea from Comanche Chief Quanah Parker to President Theodore Roosevelt ended with an 1800 mile train ride for fifteen buffalo to a wildlife preserve in Oklahoma Territory.
92 pages
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$14.99 (hard cover)
$9.99 (soft cover)
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I SPY SOMETHING WICKED
by Susan York Meyers
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Young Adult
222 pages
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Tessa has always believed in Andre. So when she inherits her uncle’s house, she goes back to Ama, Oklahoma, determined to solve the mystery of the man her uncle told her didn’t exist.
But when she arrives, Tessa finds more than one mystery. How did her uncle really die? And what do you do when you find the tall, dark and handsome man of your dreams, who even cooks and cleans?
Too bad he’s dead.
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$16.99 (hard cover)
$9.99 (soft cover)
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