Books in Charlotte Zolotow Books series

Winner of a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator HonorA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016: NonfictionStarred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and The Horn Book MagazineA Junior Library Guild SelectionThis poetic, nonfiction story about a little-known piece of African American history captures a human's capacity to find hope and joy in difficult circumstances and demonstrates how New Orleans' Congo Square was truly freedom's heart.Mondays, there were hogs to slop,mules to train, and logs to chop.Slavery was no ways fair.Six more days to Congo Square.As slaves relentlessly toiled in an unjust system in 19th century Louisiana, they all counted down the days until Sunday, when at least for half a day they were briefly able to congregate in Congo Square in New Orleans. Here they were free to set up an open market, sing, dance, and play music. They were free to forget their cares, their struggles, and their oppression. This story chronicles slaves' duties each day, from chopping logs on Mondays to baking bread on Wednesdays to plucking hens on Saturday, and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square. This book includes a forward from Freddi Williams Evans (freddievans.com), a historian and Congo Square expert, as well as a glossary of terms with pronunciations and definitions.

From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise is a collection of irresistible poems that celebrates the insect world.Funny, sad, loud, and quiet, each of these poems resounds with a booming, boisterous, joyful noise. The poems resound with the pulse of the cicada and the drone of the honeybee. They can be fully appreciated by an individual reader, but they're particularly striking when read aloud by two voices, making this an ideal pick for classroom use. Eric Beddows′s vibrant drawings send each insect soaring, spinning, or creeping off the page in its own unique way.With Joyful Noise, Paul Fleischman created not only a fascinating guide to the insect world but an exultant celebration of life.

Willa does fall in love, but it isn't at all the way she dreamed it would be. And just what is extraordinary? Willa and twin brother Nicky's mother is going to have a baby-how ordinary. Their friend Horace's mother has left to"seek her fortune."That, Willa thinks, is extraordinary. Willa is on the verge of learning something important. And by the end of the long summer, Willa, Nicky, and Horace each do something extraordinary and unforgettable.

Minna wishes for many things. She wishes she understood the quote taped above her mother's typewriter:Fact and fiction are different truths. She wishes her mother would stop writing long enough to really listen to her. She wishes her house were peaceful and orderly like her friend Lucas's. Most of all, she wishes she could find a vibrato on her cello and play Mozart the way he deserves to be played.Minna soon discovers that some things can't be found-they just have to happen. And as she waits for her vibrato to happen, Minna begins to understand some facts and fictions about herself.

It's a place where life and love begin, and loss is borne.Mothers give birth in the borning room. The dying take their departure there.Ouside the Lott family's Ohio farmhouse, the Civil War rages, slavery falls, and the world marvels at the wonder of electricity. Inside, within the walls of the borning room, Georgina Lott will experience her life's greatest turnings. Across the years, she discovers womanhood and first love, experiences the mourning that comes with loss, and, as did her mother and grandmother, at last takes her place in the room as another precious life is about to begin.The borning room is a room that figures large in the life of an Ohio farm girl born in 1851. Through its doorway pass the members of a free thinking family, bearing news of the world beyond the window: talk of runaway slaves, the siege of Vicksburg, seances, chloroform, electricity. In this heartfelt and haunting work, an account of one life, one family, and one room widens into a panoramic view of the human seasons and the procession of generations. "From an innovative, highly talented novelist and poet . . . memorable characters and valuable glimpses of social history in a beautifully crafted novel. Deeply rewarding." —K. Notable Children's Books of 1992 (ALA)1992 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1992 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)Best Books of 1991 (SLJ)1991 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)1992 Teacher's Choices (IRA)Notable 1991 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)1991 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)1991 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction (SCBW)1991 Choices: The Year's Best Books (Publishers Weekly)100 Books for Reading and Sharing 1991 (NY Public Library)Bulletin Blue Ribbon Books 1991 (C)Children's Books of 1991 (Library of Congress)1992 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)

It's not fair, Emma thinks, for her parents to go away (for five whole days) and leave her with an aunt and uncle she hardly knows. What if they don't like children? But Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Eliot like Emma and her brother, Zachary, just fine. They also like rules. Rules about: Eating. Sleeping. Cleaning up. Messing up. Emma doesn't believe in rules. Not unless they're hers: Eating no broccoli, dead or alive. Sleeping: No sleeping in a room where night rumbles hide. Cleaning up: Don't. Messing up: Do. Emma can see that Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Elliot have a lot to learn about being parents. But that's okay---because Emma has five whole days in which to teach them.