Dear Gram and Grampop, Please do not address yours truly as California anymore, California Morning Whipple being a foolish name for a duck much less a girl. I call myself Lucy now. I cannot hate California and be California. I know you will understand. California doesn't suit Lucy Whipple -- not the name, not the place. But moving out West to Lucky Diggins, California, was her mama's dream-come-true. And now her brother, Butte, and sisters, Prairie and Sierra, seem to be Westerners at heart, too. For Lucy, Lucky Diggins is hardly a town at all -- just a bunch of ramshackle tents and tobacco-spitting miners. Even the gold her mama claimed was just lying around in the fields isn't panning out. Worst of all, there's no lending library! Dag diggety! So Lucy vows to be plain miserable until she can hightail it back East where she belongs. But Lucy California Morning Whipple may be in for a surprise -- because home is a lot closer than she thinks... When California Morning Whipple's widowed mother uproots her family from their comfortable Massachusetts environs and moves them to a rough mining camp called Lucky Diggins in the Sierras, California Morning resents the upheaval. Desperately wanting to control something in her own life, she decides to be called Lucy, and as Lucy she grows and changes in her strange and challenging new environment. Here Karen Cushman helps the American Gold Rush spring to colorful life, just as she did for medieval England in her previous two books, Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice, which won Newbery Honor status and a Newbery Medal respectively.

"New ways to teach reading, writing and the love of literature"--Cover.

1. Character -- 2. Setting -- 3. Plot -- 4. Expanding the reading and wrting experience.

In a small village in medieval England, a young homeless girl acquires a home and a new career when she becomes the apprentice to a sharp-tempered midwife.

Promote fiction-reading across the middle school curriculum! With more than 160 booktalks and 330 book suggestions at your fingertips, this invaluable resource makes it easy to pick just the right books for your students. Designed to fit curricular studies, the book is organized by subject area:^L ^DBLUnited States History^L ^DBLWorld History^L ^DBLSocial Studies^L^DBLLanguage Arts and Literature^L ^DBLMathematics^L^DBLScience^L^DBLThe Arts^L ^DBLPhysical Education and Sports^L Extra chapters include booktalks that foster critical thinking and deal with humorous titles. Carefully chosen based on appeal, age-appropriateness, and positive reviews, each book is designated with suggested grade and reading levels. All of the booktalks are accompanied by learning extensions that can be used as assignments or as starting points for further discussion. Complete bibliographic information and short annotations are provided for each title. You'll select and prepare terrific booktalks in no time-and your students will listen with enthusiasm.

"You can probably think of a lot of things in your life that you’d like to celebrate...but your skin?! Most teenage girls can point to a couple things about their skin that they’re unhappy with (and certainly wouldn’t want to celebrate!). That’s because the world around you has convinced you that your physical skin is what’s most important. But it goes so much deeper than that... In Celebrate the Skin You’re In, you’ll find out what it means to celebrate, accept, love, and care for the “skin” that really matters—the skin that holds together all your invisible pieces like your passions, thoughts, identity, ideas, dreams, beliefs, fears, and more. Crystal Kirgiss will help you see that God not only created you, but that God also understands you. Every teenage girl deals with some degree of insecurity, fear, and overwhelming emotions—whether it’s about their physical skin or just life in general. You’re not alone. And if you and your friends can find the reasons to embrace who you are on the inside, think of the celebration you could have!"

Developing Arts Loving Readers is based on the premise that children can and do learn a great deal about the arts and their own abilities innately. Involvement and immersion author Nan. L. McDonald argues, are the ways in which children may feel welcome to write, move, create, draw, and otherwise express ideas about art and music directly. Teaching suggestions are offered to classroom teachers and other non-specialists, so that classroom-reading activities may be extended into group discussions, co-operative learning-arts projects, and creative performances. Appended are extensive resource lists for further integrated arts teaching in the classroom.