Jerdine Nolen

Mr. Perkins has a big surprise for the annual block party, but when the truck carrying it there breaks down, twins Jada and Jamal and their best friends, Josh and Carlita, propose a different form of transportation.

In a series of letters a boy, his science teacher, and his parents discuss the progress of a very unusual, sometimes frightening, plant that becomes more human as the summer progresses.

Mid-19th century. The slave-owning Barnett family in Alexandria, Virginia, is facing financial trouble. The eldest son, Jason, thinks going to California to mine for gold might be the best way to protect his father's legacy. He will need a cook, a laundress, and a hostler for the journey, and one of them is twelve-year-old Clementine, whose mother calls her Hope. From Independence, Missouri, Hope and the others join a wagon train on the Emigrant Overland...

It's springtime on Bradford Street and twins Jada and Jamal Perkins are helping their parents with yardwork as they look for signs of spring, When their teacher tells them about the town's plans to plant new trees at school in celebration of Earth Day, Jada and Jamal and their best friends, Carlita and Josh, come up with a school beautification project of their own"--

"A little girl ... wishes for her father to be home more, but she never expects her wish to come true the way it does"--

A child ventures out in the middle of the night to see how Harvey Potter grows his wonderful balloons.

Through a series of letters a boy, his parents, and others discuss Camp Wannaleavee, the camp bully, and Plantzilla, who has been forbidden to come but misses his caretaker and arrives in time to become the camp hero.