Love under trying circumstances One night out of the blue, Ratchet Clark's ill-natured mother tells her that Ratchet will be leaving their Pensacola apartment momentarily to take the train up north. There she will spend the summer with her aged relatives Penpen and Tilly, inseparable twins who couldn't look more different from each other. Staying at their secluded house, Ratchet is treated to a passel of strange family history and local lore, along with heaps of generosity and care that she has never experienced before. Also, Penpen has recently espoused a new philosophy – whatever shows up on your doorstep you have to let in. Through thick wilderness, down forgotten, bear-ridden roads, come a variety of characters, drawn to Penpen and Tilly's open door. It is with vast reservations that the cautious Tilly allows these unwelcome guests in. But it turns out that unwelcome guests may bring the greatest gifts. By turns dark and humorous, Polly Horvath offers adolescent readers enough quirky characters and outrageous situations to leave them reeling! The Canning Season is the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

The ultimate canning guide for cooks—from the novice to the professional—and the only book you need to save (and savor) the season throughout the entire year "Gardening history, 18th-century American painters, poems, and practical information; it's a rich book. And unlike other books on preserving, West gives recipes that will goad you to make easy preserves.” —The Atlantic Strawberry jam. Pickled beets. Homegrown tomatoes. These are the tastes of Kevin West’s Southern childhood, and they are the tastes that inspired him to “save the season,” as he traveled from the citrus groves of Southern California to the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts and everywhere in between, chronicling America’s rich preserving traditions. Here, West presents his findings: 220 recipes for sweet and savory jams, pickles, cordials, cocktails, candies, and more—from Classic Apricot Jam to Green Tomato Chutney; from Pickled Asparagus with Tarragon and Green Garlic to Scotch Marmalade. Includes 300 full-color photographs.

This is the story of 13-year-old Ratchet Clark, a lonely girl with a deformity on her shoulder blade, whose mother sends her off for the summer to stay with two distant relatives in a huge house in a remote place in Maine. They turn out to be 91-year-old twins, Tilly and Penpen, who provide a lot of amusement for Ratchet. She also gets to know another lonely teenager, Harper. The book is filled with dark humor and combines realistic and fantasy elements. Winner of a National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Ages 12 and up.

This theme unit introduces young readers to African American history through the life stories of real people. Written in a story format, these books focus on important events that show what kind of person the subject was and how he or she became famous. The Canning Season, a first-person account of living with racism, is also included in this theme unit.

When her friendship with Peggy begins to unravel because of racial prejudice, Peggie's sadness eases as she basks in the warmth of family love one day during the canning season.