Mills Press imprint: 54 books

In this Michael L. Printz Honor Book, Lily wishes she could be like the other girls in her class. But how can she? As the only sensible person in her family, she never has time to hang out with friends. Someone has to stay home to look after her brother. Maybe she should fall in love! What could...

One day in the distant future, Thor, the Norse god of thunder, is destined to battle the giant snake that threatens to devour the world. Until then, mortals of Middle Earth look to Thor and his magic hammer for protection from evil. In this third volume of the Secrets of the Ancient Gods series, Thor...

By both society’s measure and her own, fifteen-year-old Zoe Mahar is pretty much a loser. Then one day she ducks into Spencerport Savings and Loan simply to get out of the rain—and witnesses a bank robbery gone horrifyingly wrong. The good news is that Zoe has a unique ability: she can play back...

Shy farm girl Joni’s new friendship with animal rights activist Chess unravels when Chess’s views push Joni too far in this layered coming-of-age story about two girls and their love for horses. Joni’s world revolves around her beloved horse, Archie, and her family’s Vermont sheep farm....

After an abrupt move across the country to San Francisco, sixteen-year-old Livvy is shocked to find that her mother has lied to her. Instead of looking for work at a bakery, her mom is taking care of Adelle, Livvy’s grandmother, who Livvy thought was long dead. Suffering from Alzheimer’s, Adelle...

In this humorous, witty ghost story, Harold, who uses a wheelchair, accepts a mysterious artifact from a horror novelist’s daughter and discovers that while it may help him fight bullies, its power can’t be controlled. When writer Frank Goolz and his daughters move in next door, Harold...

It's easy to make one, lying on your back in the newest snow. you move your arms like wings. Later you forget about your creation, go inside for a mug of hot chocolate. That's when she rises from the snow takes a feathery breath, tries out her wings. So begins a poem about making a snow angel, but it...

The world is filled with numbers. From learning to count their fingers to learning to put on their shoes, children encounter mathematical concepts early in life. Steve Swinburne introduces children to number-related words in this bouncy, colorful photo-essay. From one to a dozen, lively photographs...

Christine Pakkala grew up in Idaho and studied English and Journalism at the University of Idaho before heading east to attend the Iowa Writers Workshop (MFA, Poetry Writing, 1993). She was a Fulbright Scholar in 1994 in Helsinki, Finland, where she translated modern Finnish poetry. She has taught...

In this supernatural mystery set in a Virginia coal-mining town in 1942, Bone discovers that she has a Gift—the ability to see true stories in objects—and investigates whether her mother’s Gift may have led to her death. Bone sees stories when she touches everyday objects—both the happy...

Three species of bear inhabit North America: the grizzly, the polar bear, and the black bear. But the American black bear is truly North America's bear, found only in North America. Black bears range from Canada to Mexico, from New England to California. There may be as many as 750,000 black bears...

Seed, Soil, Sun. With these simple ingredients, nature creates our food. Once again, noted author Cris Peterson brings both wonder and clarity to the subject of agriculture, celebrating the cycle of growth, harvest, and renewal. Using the corn plant as an example, she takes the reader through the...

Ten-year-old Celie and her family have moved an hour away from her school and her friends, and the changes don’t stop there. At her new school, Celie struggles to make friends, torn between energetic and intriguing Mary Majors Meade and sweet but shy Charlie Larken, two classmates who do not get along....

A sighting of the rare frangipani fruit fly sends Lilly's scientist parents off in search of the fabled Shipwreck Islands. In this Smithsonian's Notable Book for Children, Lilly awaits their return at the home of her great-uncle Ernest, the chief librarian of Mundelaine, a town that seems to have more...