Books in Avenues series

No one wants Chinese food on the Fourth of July, I say. We're in apple-pie America, and my parents are cooking chow mein! . . . They just don't get it. Americans do not eat Chinese food on the Fourth of July. Right? Shocked that her parents are cooking Chinese food to sell in the family store on this all-American holiday, a feisty Chinese-American girl tries to tell her mother and father how things really are. But as the parade passes by and fireworks light the sky, she learns a lesson of her own. This award-winning author-illustrator team returns with a lighthearted look at the very American experience of mixed cultures.

Annie May Weightman and Violet Cobble are best friends and neighbors. They live in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression. This is their story, told in two voices. Annie is happiest on the ground, sifting through the dust for traces of the past. But Violet is a dreamer always playing make believe to escape, to fly away from the dusty land. In this beautifully crafted first novel, poet Tracey Porter joins together two unique voices to tell a larger story of America, its hopes and dreams, during a time when thousands fled their prairie homes in search of work, food, and shelter.Annie and Violet's story is one of friendship and courage--treasures shining through in the face of hardship.

Milly Lee's mother was eight years old in 1906, when San Francisco was shaken by a powerful earthquake. Buildings fell, fires flared, and the city burned for several days. This is the stirring story of one Chinese American family who had to leave their home in Chinatown on that early morning to join hundreds of other refugees making their way to safety.

The Picture the Past series looks at the many kinds of communities in America's past. Each book describes what made each community different and what children and adults did each day. Life in a Sioux Village In this book, discover what it was like to live in a Sioux village on the Great Plains. Find out how the Sioux moved their villages to follow buffalo herds. Discover how and why they hunted buffalo. Learn about Sioux families, clothes, food, and customs. Then use a recipe to cook a Sioux treatwojapi!