Level 1

Starting to Read

? Simple stories

? Increased vocabulary

? Longer sentences

True stories of animals that saved people's lives

Dolores and the Big Fire

Dolores is a very timid cat. Her owner, Kyle, keeps a light on all night so she won't be scared. One night Dolores pokes at Kyle's face while he is sleeping. The house is on fire! Can Dolores wake Kyle up in time?

Meet Jake Drake.

He's ten years old and he already has a full-time job. Because that's how he treats school. Like it's a job. And his teachers are his bosses. Up until now -- fourth grade -- Jake has lucked out in the boss department. All of his teachers have been pretty nice. But Jake is about to have the grumpiest teacher yet, and the worst thing is, she's not even a real teacher. She's a student teacher.

How can Jake make his grumphead student teacher, Miss Bruce, lighten up enough to crack even the littlest smile? Why, by becoming the class clown, that's how. But will Jake take his new act too far?

In this series by the best-selling author of Frindle, The Landry News, The Janitor's Boy, and The School Story, Jake Drake confronts the problems of school life and finds some surprising solutions.

IT WAS THE PERFECT CRIME

Unfortunately, it also led to the perfect punishment. When Jack Rankin gets busted for defacing a school desk with a huge wad of disgusting, watermelon bubble gum, the principal sentences him to three weeks of after-school gum cleanup for the chief custodian. The problem is, Jack's anger at the chief custodian was the reason for his gum project in the first place. The chief custodian happens to be Jack's dad.

But doing time in the school basement after hours reveals some pretty surprising things: about the school, about Jack's father, and about Jack himself.

Twelve-year-old Natalie Nelson has written a powerful school story. It's a short novel called "The Cheater," and her best friend Zoe is certain it should be published. All Natalie has to do is give the manuscript to her mom, an editor at a big publishing house. However Natalie doesn't want any favors from her mom. Still, Zoe won't drop the idea.

Spurred into action, Natalie invents a pen name for herself and Zoe becomes a self-styled literary agent. But if the girls are to succeed, they'll need support from their wary English teacher, legal advice from Zoe's tough-talking father, and some clever maneuvering to outwit the overbearing editor in chief of Shipley Junior Books.

Andrew Clements, the best-selling author of Frindle, The Landry News, and The Janitor's Boy, delights his audience with this story of two irrepressible girls who use their talent, ingenuity, and a little cunning to try to make a young writer's dream come true.

A fifth-grader starts a newspaper with an editorial that prompts her burnt-out classroom teacher to really begin teaching again, but he is later threatened with disciplinary action as a result.

Meet Jake Drake.

He's not the toughest kid in fourth grade or the fastest kid or the funniest. But he's got ideas -- big ideas, and boy, does he have stories to tell about what really goes on in school. Like bullies, for instance. Jake wants to know "if everybody who works at school is so smart, how come they can't get rid of the bullies?...Because every year, it's the same thing. Bullies."

So it's up to Jake Drake to take matters into his own hands when Link Baxter, SuperBully, moves into the neighborhood. Link's reign of terror must be stopped...if only Jake can figure out how.

In this new series by the bestselling author of Frindle, The Landry News, and The Janitor's Boy, Jake Drake confronts the problems of school life and finds some surprising solutions!

NEW STUDENT GETS OLD TEACHER

The bad news is that Cara Landry is the new kid at Denton Elementary School. The worse news is that her teacher, Mr. Larson, would rather read the paper and drink coffee than teach his students anything. So Cara decides to give Mr. Larson something else to read -- her own newspaper, The Landry News.

Before she knows it, the whole fifth-grade class is in on the project. But then the principal finds a copy of The Landry News, with unexpected results. Tomorrow's headline: Will Cara's newspaper cost Mr. Larson his job?

Ordinarily, no one would have imagined that Jack Rankin would vandalize a desk. But this was not an ordinary school year for Jack....

When Jack Rankin learns that he is going to spend the fifth grade in the old high school -- the building where his father works as a janitor -- he dreads the start of school. Jack manages to get through the first month without the kids catching on. Then comes the disastrous day when one of his classmates loses his lunch all over the floor. John the janitor is called in to clean up, and he does the unthinkable -- he turns to Jack with a big smile and says, "Hi, son."

Jack performs an act of revenge and gets himself into a sticky situation. His punishment is to assist the janitor after school for three weeks. The work is tedious, not to mention humiliating. But there is one perk‹janitors have access to keys, keys to secret places....

In this new novel by the author of Frindle, a boy's explorations lead to surprising new discoveries about himself and his father.

When he decides to turn his fifth grade teacher's love of the dictionary around on her, clever Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a chain of events that quickly moves beyond his control

In a tale that emphasizes the importance of character rather than appearance, Big Al, a nobby, gnarly fish, has trouble getting other fish to judge him on his merits but finds a way to show his true colors

From the Editor's Desk

A Question of Fairness

There has been no teaching so far this year in Mr. Larson's classroom. There has been learning, but there has been no teaching. There is a teacher in the classroom, but he does not teach.

Cara Landry is a budding journalist. When she posts a scathing editorial about her burned-out teacher on the bulletin board one afternoon, everything changes. Prodded into action for the first time in years, Mr. Larson challenges his fifth-grade students to create a real newspaper. Soon The Landry News gets more attention than either Cara or her teacher bargained for, as the principal uses the paper to try to get Mr. Larson fired. While the whole town is swept up in a dramatic debate over The Landry News and the First Amendment, Mr. Larson uses the controversy as raw material for some of the finest teaching of his career. And Cara and her classmates learn the importance of tempering a newspaper's truth with mercy. But will their lessons cost Mr. Larson his job?

Written by the author of the immensely popular Frindle, this is a compelling new novel about the collision of a student in need of a teacher with a teacher in need of inspiration.

Is Nick Allen a troublemaker?

He really just likes to liven things up at school -- and he's always had plenty of great ideas. When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he's got the inspiration for his best plan ever...the frindle. Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle? Things begin innocently enough as Nick gets his friends to use the new word. Then other people in town start saying frindle. Soon the school is in an uproar, and Nick has become a local hero. His teacher wants Nick to put an end to all this nonsense, but the funny thing is frindle doesn't belong to Nick anymore. The new word is spreading across the country, and there's nothing Nick can do to stop it.

Poor Big Al! He just wants to make friends. And in the whole wide blue sea you can't find a nicer fish. But because Big Al is large and scary-looking, the little fish are afraid to get to know him.

What can he do? He tries everything he can think of -- from disguising himself with seaweed to burrowing under the ocean floor so he'll look smaller. But something always goes wrong, and lonely Big Al wonders if he'll ever have a single friend. Then one frightening day, when a fishing net captures the other fish, Big Al gets the chance to prove what a wonderful friend he can be!

It's an ordinary morning in Walla Walla until Lulu, her teacher, the school nurse, and the principal are all infected by a word warp which makes them reduplicate everything they say

Nicholas Allen has plenty of ideas. Who can forget the time he turned his third-grade classroom into a tropical island, or the times he fooled his teacher by chirping like a blackbird? But now Nick's in fifth grade, and it looks like his days as a troublemaker are over. Everyone knows that Mrs. Granger, the language arts teacher, has X-ray vision, and nobody gets away with anything in her classroom. To make matters worse, she's also a fanatic about the dictionary, which is hopelessly boring to Nick. But when Nick learns an interesting tidbit about words and where they come from, it inspires his greatest plan yet: to invent a new word. From now on, a pen is no longer a pen -- it's a frindle. It doesn't take long for frindle to take root, and soon the excitement spreads well beyond his school and town. His parents and Mrs. Granger would like Nick to put an end to all this nonsense. But frindle doesn't belong to Nick anymore. All he can do now is sit back and watch what happens.

This quirky, imaginative tale about creative thought and the power of words will have readers inventing their own words. Brian Selznick's black-and-white illustrations enhance the humor in this unforgettable story.