Growing Library

In a touching, funny, and fearless conclusion to her sequence of novels about the beloved Three Rancheros, number one New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo tells the story of a character who will break your heart and put it back together again.

Jen did not want to leave the city. She did not want to move to a farm with her mom and her mom's new boyfriend, Walter. She did not want to leave her friends and her dad. Most of all, Jen did not want to get new "sisters", Andy and Reese. As if learning new chores on Peapod Farm wasn't hard enough, having to deal with perfect-at-everything Andy might be the last straw for Jen. Besides cleaning the chicken coop, trying to keep up with the customers at the local farmers' market, and missing her old life, Jen has to deal with her own insecurities about this new family.

Business is booming at Waggy Pup Tails, Summer's dog-walking and treat-baking business. She has new clients to walk and groom and plenty of orders for her homemade dog cookies. Summer loves working with pets, and she's hoping to go to animal camp with her best friend, Daisy. Daisy has her own business making cat toys, so the girls decide to become partners. If they work together, they might just earn enough money for camp. But the girls have different ideas about how to do things.

Clay is a quarterback's dream. When he zips across the field, arms outstretched, waiting for the ball to sail into his hands, there's no denying him the catch. Like most Texans, Clay is never more at home than when playing football. And his coach, a former star player for the Dallas Cowboys, is just like a second father. But as the football season kicks off, Clay begins to notice some odd behavior from his coach....

It was a dumb idea, but one of those dumb ideas that accidentally turns out to be brilliant - which, I’ve come to realize, is much worse than being dumb. My name’s Antsy Bonano - but you probably already know that - and unless you got, like, memory issues, you’ll remember the kid named the Schwa, who I told you about last time. Well, now there’s this other kid, and his story is a whole lot stranger. It all started when Gunnar Ümlaut and I were watching three airborne bozos struggle with a runaway parade balloon. That’s when Gunnar tells me he’s only got six months to live.

After Tyler's father is injured in a tractor accident, his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure. Tyler isn’ t sure what to make of these workers. Are they undocumented? And what about the three daughters, particularly Mari, the oldest, who is proud of her Mexican heritage but also increasingly connected her American life. Her family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty they left behind in Mexico. Can Tyler and Mari find a way to be friends despite their differences?

Lina Winterbock lives in the mountain strongholds of Solace. She's an apprentice to the archivists, the wise men and women whose lives are dedicated to cataloging, studying, and preserving the objects that mysteriously fall from the sky in the scrap towns.

Gabriel King is afraid of everything: spiders, the rope swing over the lake, and most of all, going to fifth grade. Frita Wilson, his best friend, decides Gabriel needs some liberating from his fears, so they make a list and plan to tackle each one. But one of the reasons Frita is so determined to help Gabe is that she needs his help too. Hollowell, Georgia, in 1976 isn't exactly the most integrated place, and Frita's the only Black student in school in a town with an active Ku Klux Klan.

Ten-year-old Katy Gordon loves baseball, and she's good at it, too. She tries out for the 1958 Little League season in the disguise of a boy, and she gets in easily. But when the coach finds out she's a girl, he forbids her from playing. "Since the beginning of baseball as an organized sport, it has always been the sole province of male athletes, and will remain so", says the Little League director. It's not fair, and Katy, who's also learning about the Civil Rights Movement in school, recognizes this as another societal injustice.

During a drought, the Logan family shares their well water with their neighbors, black and white alike. But David's brother Hammer finds it hard to share with Charlie Simms, who torments them because they are black. Hammer's pride and Charlie's meanness are a dangerous combination, and tensions between the boys build and build - until they explode.

When you think about the beginning of the American story, what comes to mind? Three ships in 1492, or perhaps buckled hats and shoes stepping off of the Mayflower, ready to start a new country. But the truth is, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists didn't arrive to a vast, empty land ready to be developed. They arrived to find people and communities living in harmony with the land they had inhabited for thousands of years, and they quickly disrupted everything they saw.

Ada Lace is building a new robot! She's determined to beat Milton in the upcoming robotics competition. But she's distracted - Ada finds her dad's art class impossible while Nina is the star of the class, basking in the glory of being Mr. Lace's star pupil. When Mr. Lace suggests that Nina put on an art show, Ada becomes jealous and loses her temper. Now Ada isn't speaking to her dad, she's falling behind in art class, and she still doesn't know how to fix her robot.

Washed up on a foreign shore, Tristan is lucky to be alive. As before, it seems to be a miracle - the Holy Grail the young Templar squire is protecting has saved his life yet again. But now he is lost in a strange land, and he doesn’t know if his friends, the fiery archer Robard Hode and the Saracen assassin maid Maryam, still survive. Tristan’s knack for getting into trouble is alive and well, though, and he quickly finds himself drawn into a conflict between a heretical band of Cathars and the oppressive King of France.

Benny Ramírez can see dead people.... Well, one dead person, anyway. A hilarious and heartwarming story about a boy who can suddenly see the ghost of his famous musician grandfather!

Marcelo Sandoval hears music no one else can hear - part of the autism-like impairment no doctor has been able to identify - and he's always attended a special school where his differences have been protected. But the summer after his junior year, his father demands that Marcelo work in his law firm's mailroom in order to experience "the real world."

All I wanted was to impress my best friend, Shona, and the other mermaids who live in the sea around Allpoints Island. But what did I do instead? I woke up the kraken, a terrifying octopus-like monster the size of an apartment building. Now he's coming after everything and everyone I love. And who can stop him? You guessed it. Me. Well, me and Shona, and another person too, someone I'd hoped never, ever to see again.

Go to The Dancing Men and ask for a saucer of milk for your snake. Then all will be revealed. That’s all the note says - before the ink disappears! Xena and Xander Holmes think living in London will be boring. But when they discover they’re related to Sherlock Holmes and inherit his unsolved casebook, life becomes much more exciting. The siblings set out to solve the cases their famous ancestor couldn’t, starting with the mystery of a prized painting that vanished 1000 years ago. Can two smart 21st-century kids succeed where the celebrated Sherlock Holmes could not?

When Eben McAllister reads about the Seven Wonders of the World, he longs to escape the small farming community of Sassafras Springs and do some exploring of his own. No one else ever seems to want to leave Sassafras, however, not even his best pal, Jeb, and so, for now, Eben figures he's stuck on the farm with Pa and Aunt Pretty until he grows up. All that changes when Pa, tired of Eben's moping, challenges him to find the Seven Wonders in Sassafras Springs.

What could make Unicorn Island even more magical? Hidden treasure! Continue the magic in the next Unicorn Academy series, where students and their unicorn best friends race to find treasure! Evie is excited to search for hidden treasure with her unicorn, Sunshine. They make a great team, even if they are both a little clumsy. But then their accidents get stranger and more dangerous! Is it because of Sunshine's new magic? Or is someone trying to stop them from finding the treasure?

Loops, variables, input/output - Lucy can't wait to get started with the new coding club at school. Finally, an after school activity that she's really interested in. But Lucy's excitement turns to disappointment when she's put into a work group with girls she barely knows. All she wanted to do was make an app that she believes will help someone very special to her. Suddenly Lucy begins to get cryptic coding messages and needs some help translating them. She soon discovers that coding - and friendship - takes time, dedication, and some laughs!