Books with author Chris Ellison Dandi Daley Mackall

This isn’t about me. This story, I mean. So already you got a reason to hang it up. At least that’s what Mrs. Smith, our English teacher, says.But the story is about ten-year-old Laney Grafton and the new girl in her class—Lara Phelps, whom everyone bullies from the minute she shows up. Laney is just relieved to have someone else as a target of bullying. But instead of acting the way a bullied kid normally acts, this new girl returns kindness for a meanness that intensifies . . . until nobody remains unchanged, not even the reader.In a unique and multi-layered story, with equal parts humor and angst, Laney communicates the art of storytelling as it happens, with chapter headings, such as: Character, Setting, Conflict, Rising Action, Climax. And she weaves an unforgettable tale of a new girl who transforms an entire class and, in the process, reveals the best and worst in all of us.This is a powerful and emotional story, which School Library Journal called “Thoroughly enjoyable and unexpectedly wry, . . . as intelligent as it is succinct.”

Starlight tosses her head, and I know instantly by the tightening I feel in her back that something's wrong. . . . Nothing unusual I can make out. . . . Then I smell it. Smoke.Meet 18-year-old Hank. He's Catman's cousin and the all-American, popular, good guy at Starlight Animal Rescue. But a tragic fire has Hank questioning everything—including his ability to rescue anything, even himself. With a burned, wild horse and a lost cat at stake, Winnie the Horse Gentler, now a senior in high school, and Catman Coolidge will have to join Hank, bringing Nickers and everything they've got to save Starlight Animal Rescue.Starlight Animal Rescue: Where problem horses are trained and loved, where abandoned dogs become heroes, where stray cats become loyal companions. And where people with nowhere to fit in find a place to belong.

Twelve-year-old Winnie Willis has a way with horses. She can gentle the wildest mare, but other parts of life don't always come as easily. Along with her dad and sister, Lizzy, Winnie is learning how to live without her mom―who was also a natural horse gentler. As Winnie teaches horses about unconditional love and blind trust, God shows Winnie that he can be trusted as well. Readers will be hooked on the series' vivid characters, whose quirky personalities fill Winnie's life with friendship and adventure.#4 Midnight Mystery―It's up to Winnie to solve a mystery and save a circus horse. But Winnie faces her own mystery as she struggles to keep her family from changing and to hold on to things as they are. She'll learn to appreciate God, who never changes no matter what else may threaten.

Twelve-year-old Winnie Willis has a way with horses. Along with her dad and sister, Lizzy, Winnie is learning how to live without her mom―who was also a natural horse gentler. As Winnie teaches her horses about unconditional love and blind trust, God shows Winnie that he can be trusted as well. Readers will be hooked on the series' vivid characters, whose quirky personalities fill Winnie's life with friendship and adventure.Gift Horse: When a mysterious horse, soon discovered to be sick and with foal, appears in Winnie's pasture, she's suddenly faced with life and death. Just as Christmas arrives, Winnie learns an unforgettable lesson about sacrificial love and God's Christmas gift to the world.

I haven't done anything with my life. . . . I need to do something . . . like Mom and Dad and Hank do all the time. And I need to do it now. Meet 12-year-old Kat—short for Katharine. She thinks she has two weeks to do something worthy of being adopted by her wonderful foster family. But cancer, medicine, and the older kids at Starlight Animal Rescue make it difficult for Kat to really help out around the farm. On top of that, she's just started junior high and has to work on a project with the most popular—and demanding—girl in her class. When Kat accepts the role of “cat shrink” for her classmates' pets, could her success . . . or failure . . . be more than she can handle? Starlight Animal Rescue: Where problem horses are trained and loved, where abandoned dogs become heroes, where stray cats become loyal companions. And where people with nowhere to fit in find a place to belong.

This isn’t about me. This story, I mean. So already you got a reason to hang it up. At least that’s what Mrs. Smith, our English teacher, says.But the story is about ten-year-old Laney Grafton and the new girl in her class―Lara Phelps, whom everyone bullies from the minute she shows up. Laney is just relieved to have someone else as a target of bullying. But instead of acting the way a bullied kid normally acts, this new girl returns kindness for a meanness that intensifies . . . until nobody remains unchanged, not even the reader.In a unique and multi-layered story, with equal parts humor and angst, Laney communicates the art of storytelling as it happens, with chapter headings, such as: Character, Setting, Conflict, Rising Action, Climax. And she weaves an unforgettable tale of a new girl who transforms an entire class and, in the process, reveals the best and worst in all of us.This is a powerful and emotional story, which School Library Journal called “Thoroughly enjoyable and unexpectedly wry, . . . as intelligent as it is succinct.”

The year 1978 has been a pretty good one for Eva Lott. She has a terrific best friend, she's dating the best-looking guy in school, and she just made the varsity swim team. So when her widowed dad says it's time for them to move, she's not exactly thrilled. And when he tells her that he intends to move to Communist Poland to help with a radical underground movement . . . Well, it's all downhill from there. Soon Eva has been transplanted from her comfortable Chicago suburb to a land that doesn't even have meat in its stores, let alone Peter Frampton records. And everywhere she goes, the government is watching. But Eva begins to warm to her new life. Sometime between eating lard on bread and dodging the militia, she makes a handsome new friend, Tomek. And soon she is wondering if maybe she's found home in the most unlikely of places.

When Bailey Daley shows up at a St. Louis diner soaking wet, wearing a prom dress, and leading three dogs in tow, the owner figures there's a story behind all this. But what a story it is! Bailey wants what every girl wants from her boyfriend: enthusiasm, loyalty, and unconditional love. And Bailey is always falling in love-with boys, and with their dogs. Each of her dogs came from a relationship that didn't quite work out. But don't worry: In this fun, clean romance, true love is never far away-it just waits until you stop looking for it.

Fourth-grader Ellie James and her horse, Dream, are best friends forever. But when her human best friend, Colt, starts acting strange, Ellie determines to fix his problem. She tries to find the perfect horse for Colt. But how? Ellie’s brother is struggling to stay on his baseball team, her father is fighting to hold onto his job at the Jingle Bells Ad Agency, and her mother is volunteering at the cat farm and the worm ranch . . . so, Ellie is on her own. Or is she . . . ? Join Ellie and Colt in their exciting, horse-loving adventures.