Meet the Carters: Mr. and Mrs. Carter, 10-year-old daughter Keisha, five-year-old Razi, baby Paolo, and Grandma Alice. Together, they run Carters' Urban Rescue, the place you call when you've got an animal where it shouldn't be. In their first adventure, there's a baby alligator at the city pool, which will seriously interfere with opening day, especially Keisha's cannonball practice. So it's up to the whole family to figure out what to do with the poor guy who has no business hanging around Michigan. Luckily for all of them, and thanks to some serious ingenuity from Keisha, the answer is closer than they ever could have imagined. Sue Stauffacher turns to her first series effort with Animal Rescue Team. With compelling plots based on actual events in her community, Sue has created a lovable cast of characters of boys and girls, young and old, who feel like people you'd meet at your neighborhood block party. Written in an accessible and engaging style meant to appeal to those independent readers looking to be excited and entertained, and with subplots about friendship, siblings, the environment, and animal conservation, along with plenty of humor, these will be a hit with teachers and librarians, and parents, as well as kids themselves.

Chaos ensues when Keisha's father brings an escaped alligator home to Carter's Urban Rescue, but it gets out of the bathroom while Grandma is guarding it.

Chaos ensues when Keisha's father brings an escaped alligator home to Carter's Urban Rescue, but it gets out of the bathroom while Grandma is guarding it.

Chaos ensues when Keisha's father brings an escaped alligator home to Carter's Urban Rescue, but it gets out of the bathroom while Grandma is guarding it.

It's autumn in Grand River, and that means getting ready for Halloween. As Keisha and her pals prepare for the school's annual Halloween parade, the Carters are getting ready for trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, though, the phone rings one morning and a young deer has a plastic pumpkin stuck on his head. He was enjoying the birdseed treat inside when his antlers got caught. What's a deer to do? And how do you get a plastic pumpkin off a deer's head when you can't catch it? The Carters' have another problem to solve in this third installment of Animal Rescue Team! Also available: Animal Rescue Team #1: Gator on the Loose! Animal Rescue Team #2: Special Delivery!

When Tillie Anderson came to America, all she had was a needle. So she got herself a job in a tailor shop and waited for a dream to find her. One day, a man sped by on a bicycle. She was told "bicycles aren't for ladies," but from then on, Tillie dreamed of riding—not graceful figure eights, but speedy, scorching, racy riding! And she knew that couldn't be done in a fancy lady's dress. . . . With arduous training and her (shocking!) new clothes, Tillie became the women's bicycle-riding champion of the world. Sue Stauffacher's lively text and Sarah McMenemy's charming illustrations capture the energy of America's bicycle craze and tell the story of one woman who wouldn't let society's expectations stop her from achieving her dream.