Claudia Mills: 31 books

The final book in the Nora Notebooks series finds Nora trying to navigate the unscientific matter of making friends with someone you have nothing in common with. Nora Alpers, fourth-grade scientist, likes things to be just so. Her ant farm, her hobbies, her friends. So when Coach Joe, her teacher,...

**"The thought-provoking reflections on personality and growth add insight and discussability."--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Fourth grade scientists are not meant to be babysitters. The second book in the Nora Notebooks finds Nora Alpers in unfamiliar territory.** Nora...

A wise guy gets wise The school year is almost over, and Alex Ryan still has plenty of pranks to pull and jokes to tell. Then his dad attends the meeting about the seventh-grade outdoor education trip. Alex knows nothing good can come of this -- Mr. Ryan is a jester, too, and the butt of his...

Todd and Amy Davidson may be twins, but they're complete opposites – Todd is organized and is the family "engineer," while Amy is outgoing and has been dubbed the "poet." So it would seem that for a fifth-grade economics project, Todd would come up with a master invention, and...

Izzy Barr is the star athlete of the third grade: she hits homeruns on her softball team and is one of the fastest runners in her class. But at home, her half-brother, Dustin, seems to be her father's favorite athlete—why else would her dad go to all of his games and miss so many of hers? Izzy pretends...

The students in Miss Molina's third grade class are abuzz with excitement about the upcoming spelling bee, where they will be competing against the two other classes in third grade. Simon Ellis, who just happens to be good at a lot of other things, is also very good at spelling. But Simon's best friend,...

Cody Harmon doesn't love reading, math, spelling, or really any of the subjects that Miss Molina teaches in her third-grade class. But he lives on a farm and he loves animals--he even has nine pets--so when the school holds a pet-show fund-raiser, it should be his time to shine. There's a ten-dollar...

Science-obsessed fourth grader Nora has ants all figured out—now she just has to try to understand her fellow humans! The trouble with ants is . . . . . . people think they’re boring. . . . they are not cuddly. . . . who would ever want them for a pet? Nora Alpers is using her new...

Maggie McIntosh is crazy about her biology teacher and loves to impress him with her academic excellence. But when the dreaded day of the first class dissection arrives, Maggie has to disappoint Mr. O. There's no way she can cut up a worm. Maggie's best friend, Alycia, understands. Alycia is...

Dinah Seabrooke is in seventh grade and distraught at learning that the sun will vaporize the earth in about 5 billion years. Nothing matters anymore-not class elections, the school play, even her relationship with Nick. Then Dinah suffers her first loss and discovers the reasons to live fully even...

The sequel to Losers, Inc. Twelve-year-old Julius Zimmerman is the former vice president of the defunct organization Losers, Inc. Ethan Winfield, the former president, no longer feels like a loser. But Julius still does, maybe because his mother thinks of him that way. To "improve"...

Exploring the ethical questions posed by, in, and about children’s literature, this collection examines the way texts intended for children raise questions of value, depict the moral development of their characters, and call into attention shared moral presuppositions. The essays in Part I look...

Twelve-year-old Autumn loves to write, and she can't wait to grow up and be a published author. She finds inspiration all around her, but especially in Cameron, the dreamy boy in her journalism class who she has a major crush on. When her older brother Hunter makes fun of one of her most personal...

Chelsea learns she is perfectly human If Chelsea Garing likes anything better than school, it's church, especially when she gets the chance to shine. Unfortunately, Chelsea can't perform perfectly every time. One day, when she's serving as acolyte, her candlelighter unexpectedly goes out. Another...