Books published by publisher Bancroft Press

"Jake takes place during one of the single most powerfully shaping times in a person’s life―secondary education. Through the metaphor of the utopian and fictitious St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, author Arch Montgomery shows us how our humanity can only be fully realized through other humans. The book depicts three deaths and one near-fatal disease while simultaneously tracking the rebirth of Jake, the titular and main character. He moves from a transparent ""only-good-as-I-have-to-be"" mentality to a lifestyle of excellence and three-dimensionality with the help of his school, which is personified through the characters of Mary White, rector; George Meader, teacher; and Joel Kohn, student.Jake presents both Montgomery’s view of public school systems (which Jake, without a drop of nostalgia, refers to as ""out in the county"") and his view of an ideal school, which, in this case, comes in the form of an independent school, though the tenets that make it so admirable could be applied to almost any school―public, independent, parochial, or otherwise. Mixing real-world models with an informed idealism, Montgomery creates St. Stephen’s in order to demonstrate the most positive influence a school can have on one person.On the flipside of that coin, however, remain numerous questions about what kind of negative effects sub-par schools can have on their students. While St. Stephen’s gives its students a three-dimensional education―mind (academics), body (athletics), and spirit (chapel and community service)―do public schools scratch the surface of even just one dimension? While Mary White, the head of St. Stephen’s, plays roles as varied as disciplinarian, spiritual leader, and friend, in what light do most public school students view their own principals? While the educational events of the highest consequence happen to Jake outside the classroom, how many public school students interact with their classmates, teachers, or administration beyond a school setting?On a continuum of education quality―satisfactory, good, great, excellent, ideal―where does St. Stephen’s fall? Where does the school you went to, or your children go to, fall? These and many other questions arise in Jake, and beg to be discussed, because once problems are recognized, they can begin to get solved."

Summer has finally arrived, but Mia Fullerton does not have much to celebrate. Her best friend, Lisa, is spending the summer at a Mensa camp, and her boyfriend, Tim, will be at his grandparents house in Maine. So, stuck with a choice of spending the next two months hanging out with her younger brother, Chris who has declared a prank war on her or taking a job on the stage crew at a local children s theater group, Mia chooses the lesser of two evils and begins working at Little Tyke. The moment she meets the other student members of the stage crew, Mia realizes she is not at St. Hilary s anymore. There is Zoë, a Goth punk rock singer with fifteen facial piercings; Henry, a caffeine addict with the self-declared ability to predict people s coffee preferences; and Eric, a former childhood friend who has definitely outgrown his shy ways and geeky appearance. In this sequel to the much-loved Mia the Meek, readers will again enjoy spending time with Mia Fullerton, watching as she navigates the next stage of adolescence, one humorous and memorable fiasco at a time.

After one summer at the Little Tykes Theatre, Mia Fullerton is meek no more, but that doesn't make her life any easier―not in her sophomore year at St. Hilary’s, when her best friend Lisa forces her into a dangerously big part in The Music Man. Not when her ex-boyfriend, Tim, is teaching his little brother Chris to treat women like objects.And not when she learns to drive―with serious repercussions.Who is Mia? Is she an independent girl like Zoë, her acerbic goth friend from Little Tykes? Or is she the girl who misses Tim, even after the way he betrayed her? Can Mia forgive Tim? Should she instead choose Eric, Zoë’s cousin, a nicer and more respectful choice in every way? Or would either choice defeat her goals of independence?Between dog costumes and stage costumes, big embarrassments and bigger chickens, and everything else that could possibly go wrong, Mia the Magnificent is a hilarious, clever, and endlessly fun novel, and the best installment yet of the Mia Fullerton series.

There was a time when all was right in Taylor Dresden’s world―that is, as long as she was on the baseball diamond, pitching with all her heart.But that was years ago.Now, as she heads toward her senior year, the magic is gone. There’s no competition in her New Jersey high school, and summer league is not much better. With the scouts losing interest on account of her poor grades, and with the challenge of the game gone, Taylor has made a difficult decision: She won't be playing her senior year.Everything changes when a local, elite, all-boys prep school recruits Taylor for its own baseball team. One of the first three girls ever to attend, Taylor begins to see that she genuinely does have the opportunity to create some real change in her life, her way―and just maybe for the better.But the Hazelton School is a rich boy’s world, its student body run by the Statesmen―an organization determined to force Taylor and the other girls out of their school. Their leader, Sam Barrett, may well be more than he seems, but in a school where not only the sports, but the classes too, are harder than ever, Taylor may never have a chance to find out.Taylor knows she’s a great pitcher, but can she be a great student? Can she succeed in the face of devious boys who will stop at nothing to get rid of her? Will she rise above them or sink to their level―or will she be gone before she can do either?Singled Out, the exciting sequel to Thrown a Curve, will answer these questions as Taylor struggles to find her place beyond the pitcher’s mound.

It's Bianca Balducci's junior year in high school, and she's got more than enough on her plate―impending SAT scores, college admissions, and the mixed signals of sort-of-boyfriend Doug. But when she finds out her mother, widowed as long as Bianca can remember, plans to marry Officer Steve Paluchek, a longtime family friend, things get even worse very, very quickly―because Paluchek, according to Bianca's private-eye sister Connie, is the man responsible for the death of their police officer father. And so Bianca is pulled into her most personal case yet―learning, for the first time, who her father truly was, even as she tries to determine who killed him. Was it Paluchek? He does seem to have ties to the immigrant smuggling ring their father was investigating. Or was it Paluchek's partner? And can Bianca figure it out before an increasingly irrational Connie makes a fatal mistake? Recovering Dad is more than simply the third installment of the Bianca Balducci mystery series, and the best Bianca mystery to date.

Summer has finally arrived, but Mia Fullerton does not have much to celebrate. Her best friend, Lisa, is spending the summer at a Mensa camp, and her boyfriend, Tim, will be at his grandparents house in Maine. So, stuck with a choice of spending the next two months hanging out with her younger brother, Chris who has declared a prank war on her or taking a job on the stage crew at a local children s theater group, Mia chooses the lesser of two evils and begins working at Little Tyke. The moment she meets the other student members of the stage crew, Mia realizes she is not at St. Hilary s anymore. There is Zoe, a Goth punk rock singer with fifteen facial piercings; Henry, a caffeine addict with the self-declared ability to predict people s coffee preferences; and Eric, a former childhood friend who has definitely outgrown his shy ways and geeky appearance. In this sequel to the much-loved Mia the Meek, readers will again enjoy spending time with Mia Fullerton, watching as she navigates the next stage of adolescence, one humorous and memorable fiasco at a time.

When eleven-year-old Sam Webber's father disappears without a trace, he and his mother are forced to relocate to a tough neighborhood, closer to her job. Unfamiliar with his surroundings and intimidated by the students of his new school, Sam recounts the sometimes frightening, sometimes delightful details of his life with touching, humorous sincerity. Living in a tiny apartment, he is forced to deal with the legacy of depression that marked his father, and threatens to envelop him. The city remains a cold and unwelcoming place to Sam until he meets Greely, an elderly black janitor at his junior high. Through this unlikely friendship, Sam begins to heal, as well as confront the racism that surrounds his community, and his life. Tracing a year in the life of an exceptional young boy, newcomer Jonathon Scott Fuqua leaves an impression that endures like a watermark. A masterfully written novel full of beautifully drawn, unforgettable characters, The Reappearance of Sam Webber is only the first from a top writer whose talented storytelling will touch every reader.

There was a time when all was right in Taylor Dresden's world―that is, as long as she was on the baseball diamond, pitching with all her heart. But that was years ago. Now, there's no competition in her New Jersey high school, and summer league is not much better. With the scouts losing interest due to her poor grades, and with the challenge of the game gone, Taylor has made a difficult decision: she won't be playing her senior year. Everything changes when a local, elite, all-boys prep school recruits Taylor for its own baseball team. But the Hazelton School is a rich boy's world, its student body run by the Statesmen, an organization determined to force Taylor and the other girls out of their school. Taylor knows she's a great pitcher, but can she be a great student? Can she succeed in the face of devious boys who will stop at nothing to get rid of her? Will she rise above them, sink to their level, or will she be gone before she can do either? Singled Out, the exciting sequel to Thrown a Curve, will answer these questions as Taylor struggles to find her place beyond the pitcher's mound.

A contemporary Washington mystery with a high tech, China twist… A brilliantly-conceived spy novel introducing seven engaging characters whose lives are transformed by crisis.It begins as a drinking club in an academic backwater on the Stanford University campus of the late 1970s. A post-Nixon/post-Mao generation of China scholars plots to make a better world. Suddenly, the U.S. recognizes the People’s Republic of China. Intense demand arises for the unique skills The Mandarin Club members possess.Now, yesterday’s dreamers are today’s policy-makers and pundits, patriots and spies. Their intimately intertwined past thrusts them together into an international crisis straight from tomorrow’s headlines, as America, China, and Taiwan stumble toward war.Told sequentially from the perspective of each of the Stanford originals, the fast-paced tale takes us behind the scenes of rogue intelligence operations and high tech smuggling, from Washington and Beijing to the wild coastal towns of California.

"Bianca Balducci, everybody’s favorite teenage amateur sleuth, is back on the case, and this time the resourceful Baltimorean has her hands more than full.On top of school (St. John’s), her two bickering friends (Kerrie and Sarah), and boy trouble (Doug), Bianca is brought in to prove the innocence of Hector, Sarah’s latest heart throb, who’s considered the prime suspect in a clever switcheroo at the local art museum―several paintings have gone missing, and forgeries hung in their place.But things get awfully complicated when Connie, Bianca’s PI older sister, is hired by the museum to formally investigate the crime.And that’s just the half of it. Doug, Bianca’s fabulous new boyfriend, isn't paying as much attention to her as she'd like, while a charming and rich Brit named Neville seems more than willing to take Doug’s place. Can Bianca manage to keep Doug’s affections while gently fending off Neville?And what about the Christmas shopping she must do, the party she’s got to plan, and the PI sister she desperately wants to impress? Most important, can she repair a home perm gone so awry she can only hope to have the appearance of human hair?In this story of mis-assumptions, Bianca learns that things are not always as they seem, that all cases are not so open-and-shut, and that connected with every valuable painting is the possibility of a forgery.Finding the Forger, the sequel to the acclaimed series debut Uncovering Sadie’s Secrets, proves to be another hilarious adventure in the world of Bianca Balducci, regular teenager turned mystery-solver extraordinaire."

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.

Bianca Balducci, everybody’s favorite teenage amateur sleuth, is back on the case, and this time the resourceful Baltimorean has her hands more than full. On top of school (St. John’s), her two bickering friends (Kerrie and Sarah), and boy trouble (Doug), Bianca is brought in to prove the innocence of Hector, Sarah’s latest heart throb, who’s considered the prime suspect in a clever switcheroo at the local art museum―several paintings have gone missing, and forgeries hung in their place. But things get awfully complicated when Connie, Bianca’s PI older sister, is hired by the museum to formally investigate the crime. And that’s just the half of it. Doug, Bianca’s fabulous new boyfriend, isn't paying as much attention to her as she'd like, while a charming and rich Brit named Neville seems more than willing to take Doug’s place. Finding the Forger, the sequel to the acclaimed series debut Uncovering Sadie’s Secrets, proves to be another hilarious adventure in the world of Bianca Balducci, regular teenager turned mystery solver extraordinaire.