Books with author Maranda Elizabeth

Grade Level: 6-12The Discovering Literature Series is designed to develop a student’s appreciation for good literature and to improve reading comprehension. At the Challenging Level, we focus on a variety of reading strategies that help students construct meaning from their experience with literature as well as make connections between their reading and the rest of their lives. The strategies reflect the demands of each literature selection.In these study guides, we will focus on beginning a book, setting and mood, irony, plot structure, foreshadowing and flashback, characterization, forming hypotheses, evaluating a book, plot conflict, point of view, inferencing, rereading, theme, narration, and the genre of dystopias.Each chapter analysis is organized into three basic elements: Journal and Discussion Topics, Chapter Vocabulary, and Chapter Summary.Other features include Strategy Pages to increase students’ understanding of strategies to enhance their comprehension of literature; Testing at the end of each chapter grouping, and Writer’s Forum for students’ to write in a variety of genres relating to the text.This 201-page teaching guide includes an answer key.

Albert lived on a small Caribbean Island called Little Scrub. His best friend had just moved away to Brooklyn, New York and Albert was lonely. He was also short, so short that on the first day of Middle School older kids made up a stupid chant about him: “ Little Man, Little Man, you so small. We didn’t hardly see you at all.” Middle School started out bad, and it got worse. Albert grew quieter and sadder. Then he met Peachy, the leader of a troupe of Mocko Jumbies – stiltwalkers. Stiltwalking was a Caribbean tradition, but Peachy’s Mocko Jumbies did a lot more than walk. They danced and leaped on spindly wooden stilts, arms waving, brilliant costumes shimmering. Albert had never seen anything so amazing. Or so dangerous. Peachy offered to teach him to stiltwalk, but Albert was scared of heights. At the same time he could imagine himself up there, walking tall, high above the ground, high above his problems. He decided he had to try it, but he never imagined how hard it would be.

Marie Rogers is not best friends with her college roommate. And she's fine with that. She would rather have a roommate that ignores her than a roommate that hates her. But when Alyssa's plans fall through for Winter Break and she has nowhere to go, Marie knows that the right things to do is to bring Alyssa home with her. While Alyssa experiences what a Rogers family Christmas is like for the first time, Marie is left dealing with her family, her friends, and a person from her past who she isn't sure whether she can trust.This Christmas settle down with Make Me Believe, a new adult Christmas romance, and enjoy a festive holiday story filled with humor and heart.

It’s Christmas vacation and college student Courtney Kurtz could not be more excited to spend the holidays at Shady Knoll Campground. The family owned vacation spot has been her family’s favorite place to spend their vacation time ever since she was a kid.Courtney is hoping for a relaxing trip filled with delicious hot chocolates, playing in the snow, and maybe even ice skating on the lake. She might even get to make headway with her crush, whose family is renting the cabin next door to hers.But little does she know, this trip is a little different.Her hopes for a relaxing vacation quickly disappear when she finds out the scary truth about the campground, and why her family has been brought here after so many years away.It’s up to Courtney to save Shady Knoll, the place that they’ve always considered their home away from home. But she can’t do it alone. With her friends and family along for the ride, Courtney takes on the task of helping to run Shady Knoll’s first Winter Festival.But as she soon learns, that’s easier said than done.Search no further for your next holiday read! Better When We’re Together is a contemporary young adult Christmas romance filled with humor and heart.

Designed for use in middle school and high school classrooms, as well as at home, books in this series transform subjects that are normally dreaded by many students. Painless books take light-hearted approaches to their subjects, while addressing topics that classroom texts never get to. Painless Speaking explores the uniquely human act of oral communication, including elements in our culture that shape the way we speak. It explores finding one's voice, understanding the basic unit of speech communication (an utterance), learning the art of conversation, reading aloud from fiction and nonfiction texts, and instruction in public speaking, which entails composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Students will find guidelines for self-evaluation of a public speech.

120 lightly lined writing pages provide plenty of space in which to write favorite quotations, poems, and personal reflections. Acid-free, archival paper takes pen or pencil beautifully.Keeping a journal is a powerful mental health tool. At the American Psychiatric Association says: "Journaling can provide general wellness and self-improvement benefits, such as making you more self-aware, boosting creativity and helping you build better habits. Journaling can help you better understand your feelings and emotions and help you manage stress. Writing about things that have frustrated or upset you can help you to let go of some of the stress and gain perspective.". Overall, journaling/expressive writing has been found to:Boost your mood/affect;Enhance your sense of well-being;Reduce symptoms of depression before an important event (like an exam);Reduce intrusion and avoidance symptoms post-trauma;Improve your working memory (Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005).In particular, journaling can be especially helpful for those with PTSD or a history of trauma.

Each literature teaching guide for the Hunger Games trilogy is aligned to the Common Core State Standards and includes strategic reading lessons that focus on both the individual volume and the series. There are over 50 separate strategies in the series for deeper understanding and meaning. In addition to lessons that focus on the standard elements of literature (plot, characterization, setting and mood, theme, diction, style, and narration), students are provided with the Choice Analysis Tool to help them gain a deep understanding of motivation in a complex and terrorized society. They are also offered the opportunity to use historical documents (e.g., the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence) as well as other works of literature and poetry to contextualize the trilogy. Each book also includes Writer’s Forums that guide students in writing while using the books in the series as a backdrop. A vocabulary feature in the final volume provides word study ideas for the entire series.

The author points out ways in which recognizing sound and letter patterns makes spelling easier. Also important are recognition of diphthongs, silent letters, compound and abbreviated words, contractions, homophones, homographs, prefixes, suffixes, and base words. "Brain tickler" problems challenge students' imaginations and test their learning progress. Barron's popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve "Brain Tickler" problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

Hamish, the son of the Loch Ness Monster, was seen at the surface of the loch by a fisherman, stirring up excitement in area writers and reporters. Ten-year-old Michael and his Scottish cousin Brian visit the shores of Loch Ness looking for the famous, elusive water creatures when they witness one being kidnapped. Their adventures continue when the two boys search for the missing Hamish, hoping to free him, but they find they need help from Michael's leprechaun friend, Connor O'Dell. Can Hamish be found and what do young boys do with a sea creature?

Miss Snowball's Friends is a small children's book. It's all about having fun with little animals. Each page has a different animal that brings something fun and includes one fact about that animal. This way children can learn about animals in a fun way. This book will have your children reading along and interacting with the book itself. This is a great way to help get your child into reading at a young age that will help them the rest of their lives. So join in on Miss Snowball's Friends and all their fun!

A light-hearted tale of a boy who gains self-confidence with the help of some timely mentoring. Albert is short -- very short -- and he hates it. His older brothers are tall like his father, but he takes after his petite mother. He wears too-large hand-me-down clothes from his bigger brothers. And worst of all, his very best friend moved away to Brooklyn during the school break. It was all so unfair. Albert is beginning Middle School on Little Scrub, the small Caribbean Island where he lives. As he steps on the bus, and sees the older kids, he feels smaller than ever. They take one look at him and howl with laughter, chanting "Little Man, Little Man, you so small, didn't hardly see you at all." Things go downhill from there, and would've stayed down if it wasn't for an encounter with Peachy, the leader of a troupe of stiltwalkers. The stiltwalkers do a lot more than walk: they dance and leap across the sand on spindly eight-foot high wooden stilts, their brilliantly colored costumes shimmering in the moonlight. Peachy invites Albert to join the high school students he teaches to stiltwalk. It's not an easy decision for Albert. Would they laugh at him even harder than the Middle School kids? And he is queasy about heights. The thought of wobbling around on those skinny wooden sticks makes him woozy with fear. But Albert is won over by the thought that one day he might actually be up there, tall as a palm tree, dancing around without fear or hesitation. Besides, desperate times call for desperate measures and nobody was more desperate than Albert. Slowly, as his stiltwalking improves, Albert finds his self-confidence grows. He becomes less of a target for teasing at school and he makes some new friends.