The Mealworm Diaries

Jeremy struggles to cope with his father's death after moving to a new school in Toronto, where he is paired with a hyperactive boy for a science project on mealworms.

Mealworms are small creatures that live in dark secret places. Jeremy is a bit like that when he leaves his home in rural Nova Scotia and moves to Toronto with his mother. Lots of things keep him from enjoying his new life, but the worst is his science partner, Aaron, who is more annoying than sand in a bathing suit. Jeremy is also burdened by the secret he carries about the motorcycle accident that injured him and killed his father. Although Jeremy is haunted by his past, he starts to feel at home in Toronto when he realizes he has some skills he can share with his classmates. And when his mealworm project yields some surprising results, Jeremy is finally able to talk about his part in the fatal accident.

In this stand-alone sequel to The Mealworm Diaries, Aaron is anxiously waiting for his father to return for the first time since Aaron's mother's death eight years earlier. Aaron works hard with a counselor at school, but he still has problems getting along with and understanding other kids, and he's worried that his dad will think he's weird. As well as having to confront Tufan, the class bully, Aaron must find ways to cope with the fact that his dad now has a pregnant wife and his beloved Gran needs surgery. In the end, his greatest strength is not his intelligence or his sense of humor, but the openness and warmth of his heart.

Worm is thrilled when it's his turn to take care of the class pet, Nat the Gnat. But everything goes wrong when he leaves the lid of Nat's tank open. Can Worm make sure the class pet returns safe and sound before Mrs. Mulch finds out? This all-new, original I Can Read story captures the fun of the #1 New York Times bestselling Diary of a Worm picture book series by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss, and will leave beginning readers wiggling for more! This Level 1 I Can Read book is perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences.

Help your students become 21st century thinkers! This resource provides teachers with strategies to build every student's mastery of high-level thinking skills, promote active learning, and encourage students to analyze, evaluate, and create.

Grounded in theory and best-practices research, this practical text provides teachers with 40 strategies for using fiction and non-fiction trade books to teach in five key content areas: language arts and reading, social studies, mathematics, science, and the arts. Each strategy provides everything a teacher needs to get started: a classroom example that models the strategy, a research-based rationale, relevant content standards, suggested books, reader-response questions and prompts, assessment ideas, examples of how to adapt the strategy for different grade levels (K–2, 3–5, and 6–8), and ideas for differentiating instruction for English language learners and struggling students. Throughout the book, student work samples and classroom vignettes bring the content to life.

In the spring of 1954, when her father announces that the family has a chance to immigrate to Canada, Theresa's life changes forever. She and her family are wartime refugees from Yugoslavia, so it shouldn't be hard to leave Austria. But the weathered barracks of Lager Lichtenstein are the only home she knows, and they are filled with family and friends she doesn't want to leave behind. As she says her good-byes, Theresa's friend Martin gives her two gifts: a package of postcards and a stone he calls the Gnome's Eye, which he says will "protect her from all things evil, living or dead." Theresa is convinced the stone has no power, but she still keeps it close as they travel on the crowded immigrant ship and when they settle into a rooming house on Kensington Avenue in Toronto. At first Theresa is afraid of everything: the other tenants in the rooming house, the rat that lives in the kitchen, learning a new language. But as time goes by, Theresa's need for the Gnome's Eye fades, until she is finally able to give it to someone who needs it more than she does.

Academic study of children's literature has explored various aspects of diversity; however, little research has examined Canadian books that portray characters with disabilities. This relevant and timely text addresses the significant dearth of research by exploring the treatment of disability in Canadian literature for young people. Engaging and highly accessible, this text will assist teachers, teacher educators, and teacher candidates in finding and using books about characters where disability is a part of their characterization, supporting the development of curricula that reflect critical literacy and social justice issues. Stories for Every Classroom explores the historical patterns and trends, theoretical frameworks, and critical literacy methods used to understand and teach children's literature and its portrayal of characters with disabilities. It provides educators with curriculum ideas and enriches the body of resources shared with children in K-12 settings for the purposes of developing imagination, empathy, and understanding of self and others. Featuring author portraits, comprehensive annotated bibliographies of contemporary Canadian children's books that depict characters with disabilities, and read-on bibliographies that provide connections with other books in the field, this unique text will be an invaluable resource for educators.