Books published by publisher Bancroft Press

In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world’s most important scientists, went about their lives and their work as they always had.But all that changed the day the men in black arrived.They arrived to take twelve-year-old Jasper Modest and his six-year-old sister, Lucy—he with his remarkable creations and she with her perfect memory—from their London, England home to a place across the ocean they’d never seen before.They arrived to take nine-year-old Wallace Banneker, last in a long line of Africa-descended scientists, from his chemistry, his father, and his New York home to a life he’d never imagined.Twelve-year-old Noah Canto-Sagas, already missing his world-famous and beloved mother, was taken from Toronto, Canada, carrying only his clothes, his violin, and his remarkable mind.And thirteen-year-old Faye Vigyanveta, the genius daughter of India’s wealthiest and most accomplished scientists, was removed by force from her life of luxury.From all across the world, they’ve been taken to mysterious Sole Manner Farm, and a beautiful but isolated schoolhouse in Dayton, Ohio, without a word from their parents as to why. Not even the wonderful schoolteacher they find there, Miss Brett, can explain it. She can give them love and care, but she can’t give them answers.Things only get stranger from there. What is the book with no pages Jasper and Lucy find in their mother’s underwear drawer, and why do the men in black want it so badly?How is it all the children have been taught the same bizarre poem—and yet no other rhymes or stories their entire lives?And why haven’t their parents tried to contact them?Whatever the reasons, to brash, impetuous Faye, the situation is clear: They and their parents have been kidnapped by these terrible men in black, and the only way they’re going to escape and rescue their parents is by completing the invention they didn’t even know they were all working on—an invention that will change the world forever.But what if the men in black aren’t trying to harm the children? What if they’re trying to protect them?And if they’re trying to protect them—from what?An amazing story about the wonders of science and the still greater wonders of friendship, The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Mysterious Men in Black , the first book of the Young Inventors Guild trilogy, is a truly original novel. Young readers will forever treasure Eden Unger Bowditch’s funny, inventive, poignant, and wonderfully fun fiction debut.

The long-awaited Strange Round Bird brings Eden Unger Bowditch’s Young Inventors Guild trilogy to a satisfying conclusion—no mean feat with so many threads and mysteries to be resolved. The children—young inventors all—are brought together with their parents at last in what seems like a peaceful retreat. But the evil Komar Romak waits behind the scenes and innocents may get hurt. While parents hide in secret laboratories, doing who knows what, the children resolve to take immediate action and set out through the streets of Cairo, finding clues, analyzing mysteries, and utilizing those curious inventions they've so carefully designed.

It has been mere days since the brilliant children of the Young Inventors Guild escaped from the clutches of the horrible Komar Romak.They've escaped with their lovely and caring schoolteacher, Miss Brett; with their long-absent parents; and with their bizarre captors, protectors, or both--the mysterious men in black. And now they travel by train, destined for parts unknown.But a note torn from the hand of a dead man in a New York tunnel guarantees that safety is an illusion. When the children's world is blown apart, life will never be the same again.Soon, the children--Jasper and little Lucy Modest, from London, England; Wallace Banneker, from New York, United States; Noah Canto-Sagas, from Toronto, Canada; and Faye Vigyanveta, from Delhi, India--find themselves in the ancient Italian village of Solemano, deep in a mystery that spans centuries. As they inch toward the truth of the men in black and the secrets they keep, one terrible fact remains:Komar Romak is still out there. He's still after them, for reasons they can't even begin to imagine.And he knows exactly where they are . . .From the rolling plains of America to the wide-open waters of the Atlantic, through the Strait of Gibraltar to a remarkable village in the hills of Abruzzo, Italy, The Ravens of Solemano or The Order of the Mysterious Men in Black, the second book of Eden Unger Bowditch's Young Inventors Guild trilogy, is an adventure like no other, as the children draw ever closer to the answers to the mysteries that surround them.

In this gem of a book, scholar and wit Kenneth Lasson takes on all manner of excesses in the Ivory Tower, which from his insider’s viewpoint, constitute little less than a full-scale assault on American values and mores. Lasson uses his sharply pointed pen to skewer both the powerful and the petty, from perpetually outraged law professors and would-be literati to ethnic hatemongers with tenure. Colleges and universities, Lasson reminds us, are not intellectual playgrounds, but training places for future social, political, and artistic leaders―so what’s said and not said on those campuses have a far-reaching effect on every one of us. In what is the only truly funny scholarly book to hit the shelves, Trembling in the Ivory Tower ponders the questions many of us should be asking and supplies the answers we should be demanding. In an age of easy catch phrases, media hype, and watered-down scholarship, Trembling in the Ivory Tower is a welcome breath of fresh air that pays homage to original, not merely popular, thought.

The year is 2021 and the money is still green. The fully privatized city of Tulsa, OK, is home to Sara Paige Christie, a teenage girl with her heart set on a film career in L.A. and her camera trained on the graffiti-covered walls of the city’s outskirts. In pursuit of a documentary subject that might propel her from college hopeful to film school admittee at UCLA, Sara has focused her ambitions upon a singularly ubiquitous tag—WH2RR??From the facades of storefronts to the walls of public restrooms, the tag is appearing nearly everywhere. Its stark all-capital letters and demanding question marks have captured Sara’s imagination, even as the private security personnel of FreeForce Tulsa (FFT) scramble to eliminate the marks with power washers, gray-overs, and full censorship, stripping even photographs of the tags from the locally accessible Internet.Sara has no doubt that there is meaning hidden in plain sight, and she sets off on a mission to find the person behind the mysterious tags while balancing an already full life: her final exams, her wild best friend, a physical fitness test that threatens her GPA, and a family that seems almost oblivious to what’s happening just down the street from their suburban home.With the exception, perhaps, of her father.A retired Marine turned FFT investigator, Sara’s dad has been on the trail of the graffiti artist for his own professional reasons. And if he knows what’s going on, he’s not telling Sara.And they’re not the only ones on the hunt . . .Tensions are rising in town and beyond. Between the machinations of the city’s home-grown megachurch, Chosen Hill, and the movements of a growing camp of homeless citizens parked just beyond Tulsa’s comfort and security, life in Tulsa is about to become very interesting, and Sara just might be in the right place to catch it all on film . . .. . . but only if she survives.

Ever since his mother left, life hasn’t been easy for Heath Wellington III. Between his father’s (Junior’s) bouts with alcoholism and literary rejection, and Heath’s own wrongful suspension from school, there hasn’t been all that much to be thankful for.But following the tragic death of estranged grandfather Senior, father and son alike stand to inherit a life-changing fortune . . . with one catch.Heath and Junior must spend the next three months managing Senior’s bed and breakfast, located in the same Massachusetts home Junior has spent the last eight years trying to escape.Upended from his everyday life and relocated to a town where everyone knew and loved the grandfather he can’t even remember, Heath finds an inn full of some of the strangest people he’s ever met, such as:•Winsted, the old, wise Jamaican man who used to lead the prayers in Senior’s factory; •Mrs. Farrel, an elderly woman giving away her late husband’s fortune letter by letter; •Mustang Sally, the muscle-bound, tattooed grease monkey who doubles as a children’s author; •And Carter, the silent TV news junkie and secret Harvard graduate.And, at a nearby school is Savannah, Junior’s first love, and her adorable, autistic daughter, Tori.But most of all, there’s Junior himself, vinegar to Heath’s oil. As Heath adjusts to his new world, what he needs most is to start anew with his father, to understand that Junior, too, is dealing with loss, and to realize that, even in the most tragic of times, there’s a lot in life to be thankful for.Thanksgiving at the Inn is a beautiful story of family and forgiveness, and a sure holiday classic. Tim Whitney’s fantastic, heartwarming debut is one you’ll want to read with the whole family for years and years to come.Tim Whitney grew up in South Portland, Maine and now splits his time between Dallas, Texas, and Whately, Massachusetts. He completed his undergraduate degree in Business Administration at Northeastern University and has an MBA from Western New England College. He works as an international manufacturing consultant and vice president of operations for a growing company in Garland, Texas. His interests include fishing, camping at the Cape, snow skiing, and spending time with family and friends. This is his first book. (He can be reached at timcwhitney@yahoo.com.)

Considered the best, least intimidating introduction to stock market investment by Better Investing Magazine, the National Council on Economic Education, best-selling investment author Ric Edelman, and Young Money Matters, a newsletter published by the National Association of Investors Corporation, this novel is a favorite of investors worldwide and especially of young people, ages 12 on up, for whom it is an ideal gift.

It is the fall of 1922. World War I is over, the Jazz Age is beginning, and Americans everywhere fear the spread of Bolshevism. Orphaned and penniless in Baltimore, Maryland,15-year-old Carl and 17-year-old Adam Matuski are forced to move across the continent to live with their Uncle Pete in Portland, Oregon.Almost from the beginning, homesick Carl desperately wants to return east with his brother, but his plans come acropper when Adam is sought by police for the theft of expensive jewels from his girlfriend's wealthy home.Carl, our first-person protagonist, is convinced that Adam is being fingered unfairly. He and his brother are Polish Catholics, and Portland is awash in anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant sentiment. Voters, in fact, are being asked to decide whether Catholic schools, indeed all non-public schools, should be outlawed entirely. Carl works at one such Catholic school. Fueled by the Ku Klux Klan and other unsavory groups, the campaign touches Carl personally as he strives to clear his brother's name and solve the mystery: who really took the family jewels, and why?Carl's quest forces him to confront the Klan, the local police, and his own fears and insecurities. With the help of a friendly reporter, he follows clues that lead him to a dangerous gambling ring that deals in extortion, blackmail . . . and even murder.Previously reliant on his older brother for direction and strength, a growingly resourceful Carl learns how to stand on his own two feet and confront painful truths about his fellow man.The Case Against My Brother is a historical mystery set against the backdrop of the campaign for the Oregon School Question, an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic referendum in 1922 that outlawed parochial and non-public schools in Oregon. Eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the referendum was a sad manifestation of the fear-mongering and paranoia prevalent in post-World War I America.About the Author:A Baltimore native, Libby earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and also attended the summer American School of Music in Fontainebleau, France. After graduating from Peabody, she worked as a Spanish gypsy, a Russian courtier, a Middle-Eastern slave, a Japanese geisha, a Chinese peasant, and a French courtesan—that is, she sang as a union chorister in both the Baltimore and Washington Operas, where she regularly had the thrill of walking through the stage doors of the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. before being costumed and wigged for performance. She also sang with small opera and choral companies in the region.For many years, she and her family lived in Vermont, where she worked as an education reform advocate promoting school choice policies, contributed occasional commentaries to Vermont Public Radio, and was a member of the Vermont Commission on Women.Libby’s first young adult novel, Uncovering Sadie's Secrets, was a finalist for the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America. The second in her Bianca Balducci mystery series, Finding the Forger, was released in hardcover in November 2004 (both were published as mass-market paperbacks by Smooch), and a third is set for release in 2008. Her debut adult novel, Loves Me, Loves Me Not (published under the name Libby Malin) was released in 2005 to critical acclaim.She is married, has three children, and lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

"Imagine a modern-day retelling of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with a teenage girl and a very pregnant young Mexican as the main characters. That’s the gist of Matthew Olshan’s brilliant literary debut, Finn: A Novel.The book’s narrator is Chloe Wilder, a quiet girl, part tomboy, part survivor. Rescued from a murderous life with her mother, Chloe lives with her grandparents in the cocoon of a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. For the first time in her life, things are steady, safe―and stifling.Enter Silvia Morales, the grandparents' maid. Silvia is an illegal immigrant, but that’s not her only secret: She’s also pregnant, a transgression which gets her kicked out of the house. Not long after, Chloe is torn from her quiet life, too, and forced to live on the run.While Finn is about Chloe and Silvia’s comic mishaps―and their brushes with real danger―on the road, it’s also a dark portrait of modern America, where smug suburbanites live minutes away from the wilderness of inner cities, and once-mighty rivers meander under superhighways.Finn has been approved for ninth-grade English use statewide by the South Carolina Department of Education (2004). It’s required for all high school college prep freshmen (2009).It was named one of LA’s Best 100 Books for 2001 by the Los Angeles Unified School District.Finn was a finalist for the Michal L. Printz Award and the Booklist Editor’s Choice Award, and it was considered for the PEN/Faulkner. It was nominated for YALSA Quick Picks (for reluctant teen readers) and for ""Best Book of 2001) by Bookreporter.com.It was selected ""Best Children’s Book of 2001) by Plymouth Library, Plymouth, MI, and voted ""Book of the Month"" by Lake Mills, Wisconsin Library (2002).It was placed on the 2002 Summer Reading List for Lovett School in Atlanta, GA, and also on the Summer Reading List at Westside High School in Mason, GA."

Maybe she’s right to be miserable. A social misfit and mediocre student, she has never known her mother, and her father seems to hate her.This is the life of Taylor Dresden, a freshman in a gritty New Jersey high school. The only pleasure she’s ever had was playing baseball. But at the age of eight, she stopped playing when she overheard her dad say how embarrassed he was that her athletic talent far exceeded her older brother’s.A fourteen-year-old struggling to find her true self, Taylor commits a single incident of alcohol-induced vandalism at her new school, and is suddenly branded a juvenile delinquent. Her guidance counselor, instead of pressing charges on the school’s behalf, offers her an alternate punishment—join the baseball team and talk regularly to him. Forced to play baseball once again, Taylor continues to feel that life has thrown her a few too many curves. None of the boys want her on the team. No girls are friendly to her. Her dad ignores her. Her one friend complicates their relationship by becoming a possible love interest.Eventually, after several baseball games and several sessions with her guidance counselor, Taylor begins to gain the self-confidence she needs to straighten out her life. She realizes she has real talent as a pitcher, especially with her killer curveball. She begins to accept the friendship of other girls. She starts to enjoy a romance with her best friend. She even attempts to improve the dreadful relationship she has with her distant dad.Taylor’s story reflects the plight of every adolescent who’s struggled with self-worth and identity, with relational problems between parents and peers, and with finding a niche in an imperfect world. Though Taylor is no fairy-tale heroine, she gradually comes to know that no matter how many curves life throws at her, she’s quite capable of catching them and throwing them right back.Sara Griffiths, a native of New Jersey, is an eighth grade teacher of language arts in South Orange, NJ. As a teacher at the South Orange Middle School, she’s been active in developing a language arts curriculum and producing the school’s musical. A graduate of Rutgers College, where she majored in psychology, she obtained her teaching certificate in language arts from the College of Saint Elizabeth.Sara is also a certified NARHA (North American Riding for the Handicapped) therapeutic horse-back riding instructor and has seen the physical and mental benefits of involving children in sports.She is a member of the New Jersey Education Association, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the National Council of Teachers of English. Thrown a Curve was her first published novel; its stand-alone sequel is Singled Out. She lives in Whitehouse Station, NJ with her husband, Jamie, and their son, Benjamin.

"In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world’s most important scientists, are taken from their lives and their parents by the mysterious men in black. They take twelve-year-old Jasper and six-year-old Lucy Modest from London, England; nine-year-old Wallace Banneker from New York, United States; twelve-year-old Noah Canto-Sagas from Toronto, Canada; and thirteen-year-old Faye Vigyanveta from New Delhi, India, depositing them all at a strange, isolated farmhouse in Dayton, Ohio, with kindly schoolteacher Miss Brett. But what mysterious invention have all the children, unbeknownst to one another, been working on? Who are the men in black? And are the men in black trying to kidnap them―or protect them? And if they're trying to protect them―from what? An amazing story about the wonders of science and the still greater wonders of friendship, The Atomic Weight of Secrets, the first book of the Young Inventors Guild trilogy is a novel readers will forever treasure.In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world’s most important scientists, went about their lives and their work as they always had.But all that changed the day the men in black arrived.They arrived to take twelve-year-old Jasper Modest and his six-year-old sister, Lucy―he with his remarkable creations and she with her perfect memory―from their London, England home to a place across the ocean they'd never seen before.They arrived to take nine-year-old Wallace Banneker, last in a long line of Africa-descended scientists, from his chemistry, his father, and his New York home to a life he'd never imagined.Twelve-year-old Noah Canto-Sagas, already missing his world-famous and beloved mother, was taken from Toronto, Canada, carrying only his clothes, his violin, and his remarkable mind.And thirteen-year-old Faye Vigyanveta, the genius daughter of India’s wealthiest and most accomplished scientists, was removed by force from her life of luxury.From all across the world, they've been taken to mysterious Sole Manner Farm, and a beautiful but isolated schoolhouse in Dayton, Ohio, without a word from their parents as to why. Not even the wonderful schoolteacher they find there, Miss Brett, can explain it. She can give them love and care, but she can't give them answers.Things only get stranger from there. What is the book with no pages Jasper and Lucy find in their mother’s underwear drawer, and why do the men in black want it so badly?How is it all the children have been taught the same bizarre poem―and yet no other rhymes or stories their entire lives?And why haven't their parents tried to contact them?Whatever the reasons, to brash, impetuous Faye, the situation is clear: They and their parents have been kidnapped by these terrible men in black, and the only way they're going to escape and rescue their parents is by completing the invention they didn't even know they were all working on―an invention that will change the world forever.But what if the men in black aren't trying to harm the children? What if they're trying to protect them?And if they're trying to protect them―from what?An amazing story about the wonders of science and the still greater wonders of friendship, The Atomic Weight of Secrets or the Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black, the first book of the Young Inventors Guild trilogy, is a truly original novel. Young readers will forever treasure Eden Unger Bowditch’s funny, inventive, poignant, and wonderfully fun fiction debut."

Mia Fullerton has entered her freshman year at St. Hilary’s with a twin goal: to lose her nickname “Mia the Meek,” and soar into a confident high school career. Unfortunately, her transformation is made harder by her English-teacher mom, bratty little brother, already popular nemesis, and new neighbor. Although she’s prepared herself for the battle by reading Excruciatingly Shy: How to Defeat Public Fear and Become Popular, her freshman year remains a series of uphill battles.The week before school starts, Mia wakes up to discover new neighbors have moved in next door. Forced by her mother to take them her special chocolate chip cookies, Mia first encounters Tim – the handsome yet seemingly arrogant oldest son of the family. Their relationship develops based on competition – from literature to the basketball court – and Mia’s got her work cut out for her.School begins, and Mia immediately meets with all sorts of challenges – from having a locker right next to her arch-enemy Cassie, to being paired with Tim for science lab, to having her mom as her very own English teacher. Before she knows it, her best friend has nominated her for class president, and, what’s worse, she’s running against Cassie! Mia embraces her nomination when she learns that her crush, Jake Harris, has seconded it. After all, what better way to emerge from her shell?As the year goes on, Mia deals with all the things girls her age face. She becomes class president – with the help of an improvised speech and unconventional catch phrase – dates Jake Harris, helps lead her team in the Academic Quiz Bowl, and tries to balance her new friends with the old. In the end, Mia emerges a far different person than when she set out, though it may not be the person she had imagined that first day at St. Hilary’s. She’s a Mia in progress, learning from her mistakes and welcoming her future.In Mia, author Eileen Boggess has created the best kind of modern female role model – the kind who sees most of her flaws and wants to change them; one who’s not only intelligent but athletic; and one who’s trying to find her way through a very awkward time in life. In telling her story, Mia proves to be a witty, quick, candid, and interesting fourteen-year-old. And the book Mia the Meek is clever, honest, and full of laugh-out-loud moments.