Books in What Happened Here series

Today is the grandest of all sixth-grade days at Marcy G. Middleton Middle School: the Great Ancient Greece Extravaganza. So far, its a herculean success, with kids wrapped in bedsheets performing onstage, a backdrop of Mount Olympus standing tall, and a giant cardboard Trojan horse ready to roll. But when the mighty stallion makes its debut onstage, Spartans are left speechless by the Great Trojan . . . Chicken? How, exactly, was the horse transformed? Did a competitive set designer or rival baseball team vandalize it? Perhaps the high school theater teacher introduced this challenge to test the students acting skills. Or maybe this is all just a bad dream . . . Crack open a What Happened? book to investigate a preposterous mystery from four different perspectives. See what the witnesses gets right . . . and what they get hilariously wrong. Bet you'll never guess what really happened!

Sam Witt's sandwich was a marvel on a plate. The sandwich to end all sandwiches. If life were a movie, there'd have been trumpets and drums playing as Sam paraded his delicious STEAM fair project into class. But not more than two hours after the breathtaking wonder's arrival at school, the king of all sandwiches was missing. Was it taken hostage by a jealous rival? Swallowed by a runaway tiger? Beamed up to space by alien invaders? Polished off by a rogue substitute teacher whose eyes were bigger than her poor groaning belly? Or was it something else entirely . . . ? Crack open a What Happened? book to investigate a preposterous mystery from four different perspectives. See what the witnesses get right . . . and what they get hilariously wrong. Bet youll never guess what really happened!

The Quetlock Quavers have reached the pinnacle of their middle school careers: the statewide Music and Variety Talent Contest. They ve drafted Bert Bishop, retired music teacher and bassist extraordinaire, for an important solo at the start of their opening piece. Rehearsals go off without a hitch, yet when the orchestra takes its place on Stage Two to begin its set, everyone is there except for Bert. Was he ferried away aboard another orchestra s bus? Maybe he was a casualty of an amateur magician s trick. Did the dodgy tuna sandwich he ate finally do him in? Unless it was the performance hall s resident ghost . . . He couldn t have just vanished, could he? Crack open a What Happened? book to investigate a preposterous mystery from four different perspectives. See what the witnesses get right . . . and what they get hilariously wrong. Bet you ll never guess what really happened!

Ms. Abaza's fifth-grade class is beyond excited when she brings in live mice for them to care for. The students spend the day thinking up names for their new furry friends. Should they be named after soccer players or computer scientists? The possibilities are endless! Yet when the students arrive the next day, the mouse cage is empty. Did an animal-loving vegan set the mice free? Or were they mouse-napped by a body spray-spritzing villainess who hates how they smell? Maybe they were actually million-dollar mice, stolen by crime bosses for their high value. Unless they mutated, developed superpowers, and escaped on their own . . . Mice don't just disappear, right? Crack open a What Happened? book to investigate a preposterous mystery from four different perspectives. See what the witnesses get right . . . and what they get hilariously wrong. Bet youll never guess what really happened!

It's April Fools' Day at Harwington Middle School. The eighth graders are on guard for mischief, waiting to see who can top last year's classic white-toothpaste-filled-Oreos prank. But fake cockroaches are one thing. Missing math testsand the threat of having to retake the test the following day-are something else. Who could have stolen those tests? Was it a slacker trying to force a retest? Or a lovesick boy hoping to protect a crush from a bad grade? How about a jealous teammate trying to frame the competition? Unless it was the prankster of all pranksters, trying to outdo himself in his last year of middle school. . . . Crack open a What Happened? book to investigate a preposterous mystery from four different perspectives. See what the witnesses get right . . . and what they get hilariously wrong. Bet youll never guess what really happened!

From early democracy to the Olympics, the contributions of ancient Greece are still very much a part of today's world. However, this ancient civilization dissolved thousands of years ago. How and why did this impressive civilization fall? The answer to that question is found within the pages of this book, written especially for elementary readers. Historical images and important dates support social studies content, including the rise in the power of the Roman Empire, which eventually conquered the Greeks. With this knowledge, readers will better understand the influence and importance of this civilization hundreds of years after its decline.