Books with author J. J. Carlson

Summer Baseball Car Baseball Sock Ball Wall Ball The Time Tower: can you get older faster? The speed of light: can it be measured? A carp, washed up in the riberbank: what's inside? Larry, Witt, and Rafferty have a whole summer to play all the different kinds of baseball, to build structures in the backyard, to find out what makes the world tick. "We've got to keep busy," says Witt. I want to know everything. Not just part." Larry doesn't want to know what keeps him heading for Witt's backyard, rich with weeds and rotting appliances, whenever he's not at baseball practice. All he knows is that there's no one he'd rather be with than these two friends, that the chaos of Witt's universe offers refuge from his own orderly home and an entrance into a world of change, growth, and unpredictability. THE HOTEL EDEN author Ron Carlson's first novel for young readers is a heady immersion in the first moments of adolescence, when nothing is as it ever was before.

Years before, Mr. Hunter had cut all contact with his own father, Four Horses, forbidding anyone to speak of the past. Yet when fourteen-year-old Ethan gets in trouble with the law, Mr. Hunter is the first to suggest that his son spend the summer with his grandfather- a man he has not seen in almost ten years.Ethan is exiled from his well-to-do home in Virginia to the remote village of Long Pond in Wisconsin. Ethan learns a new way of life, adopts a new sets of values, and finds a new sense of self-worth with the help of his grandfather. He chooses to go on a vision quest where he discovers his spiritual guide and learns of a mysterious mission he must complete before finishing his journey to manhood.In the end, Ethan will gain a better understanding of himself and of his father.

Filled with political intrigue and emotional tension, Carleson s riveting novel features a teenage refugee caught in a web of deceit and conspiracy. "PW, " starred review When her father is killed in a coup, Laila and her mother and brother leave their war-torn homeland for a fresh start in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. At her new high school, Laila makes mistakes, makes friends, and even meets a boy who catches her eye. But this new life brings unsettling facts to light. The American newspapers call her father a brutal dictator and suggest that her family s privilege came at the expense of innocent lives. Meanwhile, her mother would like nothing more than to avenge his death, and she ll go to great lengths to regain their position of power. As an international crisis takes shape around her, Laila is pulled in one direction, then another, but there s no time to sort out her feelings. She has to pick a side "now, " and her decision will affect not just her own life, but countless others. . . . Praise for "The Tyrant s Daughter: " Carleson, a former undercover CIA officer, infuses her story with compelling details and gripping authenticity. "The Boston Globe" "" Every American should read this book. It s an eye-opener. Suzanne Fisher Staples, Newbery Honor winning author of "Shabanu" "From the Hardcover edition.""

Aldric is content working in his family’s apple orchard—or as content as a fourteen-year-old-boy can be doing chores and dreaming up new magic—when he digs up an antique ring and releases a rude spell-bound unicorn. She claims she belongs to the king, but after her long imprisonment, she can’t tell Aldric which king that might be. Aldric promises to take her to the capital, and suddenly a simple three-day trip becomes an adventure. War is building on his country’s borders, and even with the help of Aldric’s new friend Iggy, and Gwen, the general’s daughter, it’s going to take all the military sword training, courage, and magic Aldric has to find the unicorn’s rightful king. Promises will be made, the bonds of family and friendship will be tested, with a war which changes everything. Can an apple farmer and one rude war unicorn save the country from the approaching enemy?

THERE: In an unnamed Middle Eastern country, fifteen-year-old Laila has always lived like royalty. Her father is a dictator of sorts, though she knows him as King—just as his father was, and just as her little brother Bastien will be one day. Then everything changes: Laila's father is killed in a coup. HERE: As war surges, Laila flees to a life of exile in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Overnight she becomes a nobody. Even as she adjusts to a new school and new friends, she is haunted by the past. Was her father really a dictator like the American newspapers say? What was the cost of her family's privilege? Far from feeling guilty, her mother is determined to regain their position of power. So she's engineering a power play—conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to gain a foothold to the throne. Laila can't bear to stand still as yet another international crisis takes shape around her. But how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations?