Authors: Jeannette Sanderson.
Paperback, 64 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Reference
Publication Date: 2003-07-01


Reviews :

    The Giver by Lois Lowry is a favorite middle grade novel. This companion gives background on the author, including an interview, questions to guide reading, clues to themes, plot, characters, and setting of the book, a glossary, writing and other activities, and more. If you loved The Giver, you need this reading companion....

Authors: Suzanne Pavlos.
Paperback, 64 pages
Publisher: Cliffs Notes
Publication Date: 1999-06-15


Reviews :

    Jonas, the protagonist in Lois Lowry's novel The Giver, lives in what appears to be a safe, predictable, familiar community. Members of this utopia, which is void of disease, hunger, poverty, war, or lasting pain, have given up all emotions and memories of experience to attain Sameness and the illusion of social order. In the end, Jonas recognizes the hypocrisy on which the community is based and crafts a way to "free" everyone from this Sameness....

Authors: Marshall K. Hall. Sharon Creech.
Paperback, 43 pages
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006-12-06
Edition: Stg

Reviews :

    Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true.

Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle, proud of her country roots and the "Indian-ness in her blood," travels from Ohio to Idaho with her eccentric grandparents. Along the way, she tells them of the story of Phoebe Winterbottom, who received mysterious messages, who met a "potential lunatic," and whose mother disappeared.

Beneath Phoebe's stories Salamanca's own story and that of her mother, who left on April morning for Idaho, promising to return before the tulips bloomed. Sal's mother has not, however, returned, and the trip to Idaho takes on a growing urgency as Salamanca hopes to get to Idaho in time for her mother's birthday and bring her back, despite her father's warning that she is fishing in the air.

This richly layered novel is in turn funny, mysterious, and touching. Sharon Creech's original voice tells a story like no other, one that readers will not soon forget.

...

    Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle's mother has disappeared. While tracing her steps on a car trip from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents, Salamanca tells a story to pass the time about a friend named Phoebe Winterbottom whose mother vanished and who received secret messages after her disappearance. One of them read, "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins." Despite her father's warning that she is "fishing in the air," Salamanca hopes to bring her home. By drawing strength from her Native American ancestry, she is able to face the truth about her mother. Walk Two Moons won the 1995 Newbery Medal. ...

Authors: Peter G. Beidler.
Paperback, 258 pages
Publisher: Coffeetown Press
Publication Date: 2008-09-15


Reviews :

    Peter G. Beidler’s Reader’s Companion is an indispensable guide for teachers, students, and general readers who want fully to appreciate Salinger’s perennial bestseller. Now nearly six decades old, The Catcher in the Rye contains references to people, places, books, movies, and historical events that will puzzle many twenty-first-century readers. Beidler’s guide provides some 250 explanations to help readers make sense of the culture through which Holden Caulfield stumbles as he comes of age. It provides a map showing the various stops in Holden’s Manhattan odyssey. Of particular interest to readers whose native language is not English is the glossary of more than a hundred terms, phrases, and slang expressions. In his introductory essay, “Catching The Catcher in the Rye,” Beidler discusses such topics as the three-day time line for the novel, the way the novel grew out of two earlier-published short stories, the extent to which the novel is autobiographical, what Holden looks like, and the reasons for the enduring appeal of the novel. The many photographs in the Reader’s Companion give fascinating glimpses into the world that Holden has made famous. Beidler also provides discussion of some of the issues that have engaged scholars down through the years: the meaning of Holden’s red hunting hat, whether Holden writes his novel in an insane asylum, Mr. Antolini’s troubling actions, and Holden’s close relationship with his sister and his two brothers. Readers of A Reader’s Companion to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye will wonder how they managed without it before....

Authors: Lisa French.
Paperback, 42 pages
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006-08-05


Reviews :

    Struggling readers frequently lack basic reading skills and are not equipped with prior knowledge and reading strategies to thoroughly engage in the classroom literature experience. Give your students the background and support they need to understand and enjoy literature. With these reading guides, your students will practice reading comprehension skills, sharpen their vocabulary, and learn to identify literary elements....

Authors: Laurie Rozakis.
Paperback, 64 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Reference
Publication Date: 2003-07-01


Reviews :

    Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is a favorite middle grade novel. This companion gives background on the author, questions to guide reading, clues to themes, plot, characters, and setting of the book, a glossary, writing and other activities, and more. If you loved Where the Red Fern Grows, you need this reading companion....

Authors: Richard O. Peterson.
Paperback, 100 pages
Publisher: Cliffs Notes
Publication Date: 1999-12-15
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    One of Shakespeare's romantic comedies, this play is set in the seaport town of Messina, in Sicily. The drama concerns "the battle of the sexes" and focuses on the barbed wits and intrigues that two sets of lovers and their friends and family create. Brimming with wit and antagonism, the play has amused and provoked audiences for centuries....

Authors: Terry House.
Paperback, 42 pages
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006-08-05
Edition: Stg

Reviews :

    Struggling readers frequently lack basic reading skills and are not equipped with prior knowledge and reading strategies to thoroughly engage in the classroom literature experience. Give your students the background and support they need to understand and enjoy literature. With these reading guides, your students will practice reading comprehension skills, sharpen their vocabulary, and learn to identify literary elements....

Authors: Kyla Brown.
Paperback, 42 pages
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006-08-05

Authors: Susan Mulcaire.
Perfect Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Tween Publishing LLC
Publication Date: 2006-09-25
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Study skills, time management and organizational skills... The Middle School Student's Guide to Ruling the World!, is a fun and informative workbook for teaching students in grades six through eight basic work management and organizational skills for success in middle school. Just some of the skills and strategies addressed in this book are, organizing a Goof-proof binder, using a planner, working with a study bud, following up on matters that affect your grade, managing a group project, organizing a workspace that rocks, how 2 uz ur comptr 4 mor than im 's, following the Rules of Rubric Road, managing long term projects, detecting and correcting wasteful homework habits, goal setting for success in middle school -- it's all in here! Don't start middle school without it! Supplemental podcasts help your school student get organized for success in middle school and beyond!...