Here's the third entry in Claudia Mills's charming middle-grade series. Mason Dixon survived the school choir. He survived adopting his now-beloved dog named, uh, Dog. But now he faces his biggest challenge yet: joining the local basketball team. Not by choice, of course. Not only do his parents encourage it, but his dad even volunteers to be his coach. Now, with his best pal Brody and a team of misfits even worse at basketball than him (if that's possible), Mason must try to rally to beat his arch-rival, the school bully Dunk. Just another day-in-the-life of a disaster-prone fourth grader.

Here's the second entry in Claudia Mills's charming middle-grade series, that finds the lovably sardonic title character starting the fourth grade, which he's dreading because everyone in fourth grade is expected to join the school choir. And sing. In front of everyone. Mason can't think of many things he enjoys less than singing--but performing in front of other people might come close. Mason devises a foolproof plan that will keep him out of the spotlight on concert night. Of course, in the world of Mason Dixon, there is no such thing as a foolproof plan. There is only disaster.

Nine-year-old Mason's parents keep trying to get him a pet, but until he and his best friend Brody adopt a three-legged dog, he is not interested.

The quest to save the words of a dying language - and to find the words to save what may be a dying friendship - lies at the heart of this exquisite verse novel. Sixth grader Betsy is the one who informs her best friend, Lizard, that thousands of the world's languages are currently threatened by extinction; Betsy's mother is a linguistics professor working frantically to study dying languages before they are lost forever. But it is Lizard who, gripped by the magnitude of this loss, challenges Betsy, "What if, instead of WRITING about dying languages, like your mom, you and I SAVED one instead?" As the girls embark on their quest to learn as much as possible of the near-extinct language of Guernésiais (spoken on the Isle of Guernsey, off the coast of France), their friendship faces unexpected strains. With Lizard increasingly obsessed with the language project, Betsy begins to seek greater independence from her controlling and charismatic friend, as well as from her controlling and charismatic mother. Then tragedy threatens Betsy's life beyond what any words can express, and Lizard does something unthinkable. Maybe lost friendships, like lost languages, can never be completely saved. An NCTE Notable Verse Novel A Charlotte Huck Recommended Book A Mighty Girl Best Book of the Year A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon Book! A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Here's the second entry in veteran author Claudia Mills' charming middle-grade series, which finds the lovably sardonic title character starting the fourth grade, which he's dreading: everyone in fourth grade is expected to join the school choir. And sing. In front of everyone. Mason can't think of many things he enjoys less than singing. But performing in front of other people might come close; Mason devises a foolproof plan that will keep him out of the spotlight on concert night. Of course, in the world of Mason Dixon, there is no such thing as a foolproof plan. There is only disaster.

Offers facts about the highest landmarks and mountains, the deepest depth of the seas, what countries are shaped like food, ocean inhabitants, and capital location changes.

Features the electronic book "Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army's Response" by Mary Ellen Condon-Rall of the Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. Discusses a plane crash and massive fire at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, that killed or injured more than 100 paratroopers in 1994.