"From the first morning with their odd new teacher fifth grade is full of shocking surprises for best friends Rip and Red"--

Marvin Miller became the first executive director of the newly formed Major League Baseball Players Association. He recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever and thereby raised salaries enormously. formed

Traces the development of modern collegiate and professional sports, explains how they reflect American culture, and looks at the role sports have played in Americanizing immigrants

"An interesting and informative look at the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that operated from 1945–1954.... A significant title." --School Library Journal, starred review

Middle school gets multiplied in this new series about twins Alex and Ava, whose father is the coach of a small-town Texas football team! When twelve-year-old twins Alex and Ava Sackett move from the East Coast to Texas so their dad can coach an elite high school football team, they have to get used to not only a whole new school and town, but also the fame that comes with being football’s first family. They’ve got a plan to make it through: stick together! Because even though Alex and Ava are total opposites, they’ve always stuck together. But then Ava cuts her hair short, and Alex fears that Ava wants a new town to mean a new start—as an individual. At the same time, Alex’s concern has Ava wondering if she’s no longer cool enough for her twin. Are Alex and Ava still the same dynamic duo they’ve always been, or are they headed down different paths?

So much has changed during the past decade in political campaigning that we can almost say "it's a whole new ball game." This book analyzes the way campaigns were traditionally run and the extraordinary changes that have occurred in the last decade. Dennis W. Johnson looks at the most sophisticated techniques of modern campaigning—micro-targeting, online fundraising, digital communication, the new media—and examines what has changed, how those changes have dramatically transformed campaigning, and what has remained fundamentally the same despite new technologies and communications. Campaigns are becoming more open and free-wheeling, with greater involvement of activists and average voters alike. But they can also become more chaotic and difficult to control. Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century presents daunting challenges for candidates and professional consultants as they try to get their messages out to voters. Ironically, the more open and robust campaigns become, the greater is the need for seasoned, flexible and imaginative professional consultants.

It's fifth-grade graduation time for Rip and Red, and as part of the celebration, Hoops Machine, the Harlem Globetrotters-like basketball team, is paying a visit. Rip has been chosen to perform with them, but before this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the boys need to finish their schoolwork--including taking their middle-school placement tests. However, when the students of Room 208 begin to question the assessments, a mini opt-out movement gains momentum. All of a sudden, Hoops Machine, middle-school basketball tryouts, and walking at graduation are all in jeopardy, along with Mr. Acevedo's job. But luckily for Rip, Red, their classmates, and their teacher, sometimes when you stand up for what you truly believe in, the people you've touched along the way rally to your corner.