Patricia Reilly Giff

During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently.

"Mateo's big brother Julian works in the United States. When the family doesn't hear from Julian for a few weeks, Mateo sneaks out and journeys north to find him, crossing the border with the help of a new friend, Angel"--

It's 1944, W.W. II is raging. Jayna's big brother Rob is her only family. When Rob is called to duty on a destroyer, Jayna is left in their small town in upstate New York with their cranky landlady. But right before he leaves, Rob tells Jayna a secret: they may have a grandmother in Brooklyn. Rob found a little blue recipe book with her name and an address for a bakery. When Jayna learns that Rob is missing in action, she's devastated. Along with...

When her pet dog goes outside during a snow storm, an imaginative young girl tries to save him from the sneaky snow fox.

"Set during the Irish Land Wars (1879-1882) this novel in verse follows Anna Mallon through a series of tragedies as her mother dies, older sibling immigrate to America, and she and her father and sister with special needs are about to be evicted from their farm"--

When thirteen-year-old Dina emigrates from Germany to America in 1871, her only wish is to return home as soon as she can, but as the months pass and she survives a multitude of hardships living with her uncle and his young wife and baby, she finds herself thinking of Brooklyn as her home.

Who is Sam, and what do his strange dreams mean?
The shock of icy water as a boat crashes onto rocks feels real; so does the castle high above him that is almost hidden in the mists. And what about the number eleven woven into all those dreams?
The papers Sam finds in the locked box in the attic may hold the answers–if only he could read them. But to Sam, words are like spiders flexing their thin legs as they move across the page. Words...

"In 1942 13-year-olds Izzy and Matt become trapped on an Japanese-occupied Aleutian island when the rest of the American population is evacuated and must survive on their own for the duration of World War II"--

In a humorous and entertaining guide, two-time Newbery Honor-winning author Patricia Reilly Giff breaks down the process of writing fiction into steps, all while trying to cope with the constant distractions from her exuberant seventy-pound golden retriever puppy, Rosie. Citing examples from her award-winning novels she explains how to proceed with each step in chapter sections titled Can You See What I Did? Young writers can find the inspiration...

When a cafeteria mishap causes him to lose his inventing privileges for a week, budding inventor Charlie needs some help from his friends and Mr. Redfern in order to make something special for the fast-approaching Afternoon Center Inventing Fair.