HarperCollins (Firm)

"Life is tough for twelve-year-old orphan Adia. Her aunt and uncle believe she's an ogbanje, a demon-possessed child that brings misfortune wherever they go, and Adia can't disagree, especially when she suddenly manifests mysterious powers that she can't control, causing an earthquake in her village. So when Adia is offered a kitchen apprenticeship at the faraway Academy of Shamans, she flees with nothing but a pouch of change, her cat Bubbles, and...

"Beak loves the snow, but his hopes are dashed when Ally informs him the swamp stays warm year-round and not much changes. As a matter of fact, the only big change is that it gets a lot more crowded! Beak soon discovers what Ally means when the snow birds arrive... Hawaiian shirt-wearing, music-jamming new neighbors who have flown south for the winter. At first, Beak is thrilled when they decide to spend their vacation in hiis tree--he loves to party!...

This accessible behind-the-scenes look at being a scientist takes beginning readers on a research boat to the North Pole where they can discover what type of scientist they want to be.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave...