A Crooked Kind Of Perfect

Download or read book A Crooked Kind of Perfect written by Linda Urban and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2009-04-06 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten-year-old Zoe Elias has perfect piano dreams. She can practically feel the keys under her flying fingers; she can hear the audience's applause. All she needs is a baby grand so she can start her lessons, and then she'll be well on her way to Carnegie Hall. But when Dad ventures to the music store and ends up with a wheezy organ instead of a piano, Zoe's dreams hit a sour note. Learning the organ versions of old TV theme songs just isn't the same as mastering Beethoven on the piano. And the organ isn't the only part of Zoe's life in Michigan that's off-kilter, what with Mom constantly at work, Dad afraid to leave the house, and that odd boy, Wheeler Diggs, following her home from school every day. Yet when Zoe enters the annual Perform-O-Rama organ competition, she finds that life is full of surprises—and that perfection may be even better when it's just a little off center. This ebook includes a sample chapter of Hound Dog True.

Download or read book Hound Dog True written by Linda Urban and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the acclaimed "A Crooked Kind of Perfect" comes the story of a fifth-grade girl who begins to see how one small, brave act can lead to a friend who is hound dog true.

Download or read book Mouse was Mad written by Linda Urban and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who knows the best way to be mad? Bear stomps. Hare hops. Bobcat screams. Mouse? He just can't get it right. But when he finds the way that works for him--still and quiet--he discovers that his own way might be the best of all. Linda Urban's story about self-expression is both sweet and sly, and Henry Cole's cast of animal friends is simply irresistible.

Download or read book A Crooked Tree written by Una Mannion and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “meticulously plotted” novel explores “the mysteries of dysfunctional families . . . and adolescents’ imperfect . . . understanding of the world of adults” (Sarah Lyall The New York Times Book Review). “The night we left Ellen on the road, we drove up the mountain in silence.” It is the early 1980s and fifteen-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend. One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister Ellen to walk home. What none of this family knows as they drive off leaving a twelve-year-old girl on the side of the road five miles from home with darkness closing in, is what will happen next. A Crooked Tree is a surprising, indelible novel, both a poignant portrayal of an unmoored childhood giving way to adolescence, and a gripping tale about the unexpected reverberations of one rash act. “Beautifully written with tenderness and wisdom.” — Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of Valentine “Suspenseful, affecting, and disarmingly evocative of childhood and the not-so-distant era of the 1980s.” —Kirkus Reviews “Filled with pathos, nostalgia, and the best kind of suspense..” — Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River “Completely entrancing.” —Julia Pierpont, New York Times–bestselling author of Among the Ten Thousand Things

Download or read book The Center of Everything written by Linda Urban and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spring 2013 Kids' Indie Next List For Ruby Pepperdine, the “center of everything” is on the rooftop of Pepperdine Motors in her donut-obsessed town of Bunning, New Hampshire, stargazing from the circle of her grandmother Gigi’s hug. That’s how everything is supposed to be—until Ruby messes up and things spin out of control. But she has one last hope. It all depends on what happens on Bunning Day, when the entire town will hear Ruby read her winning essay. And it depends on her twelfth birthday wish—unless she messes that up too. Can Ruby’s wish set everything straight in her topsy-turvy world?

Download or read book Straight Down a Crooked Lane written by Francena H. Arnold and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 1959-06-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A love-at-first-sight meeting between Mary Jo and Jack leads to a rash, young marriage. Reality soon hits the excited newlyweds. Yet from their despair and despondency come the desire and ability to learn how to follow God’s path instead of their own.

Download or read book Finding Perfect written by Elly Swartz and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To twelve-year-old Molly Nathans, perfect is: —The number four —The tip of a newly sharpened No. 2 pencil —A crisp white pad of paper —Her neatly aligned glass animal figurines What’s not perfect is Molly’s mother leaving the family to take a faraway job with the promise to return in one year. Molly knows that promises are sometimes broken, so she hatches a plan to bring her mother home: Win the Lakeville Middle School Poetry Slam Contest. The winner is honored at a fancy banquet with white tablecloths. Molly is sure her mother would never miss that. Right...? But as time passes, writing and reciting slam poetry become harder. Actually, everything becomes harder as new habits appear, and counting, cleaning, and organizing are not enough to keep Molly's world from spinning out of control. In this fresh-voiced debut novel, one girl learns there is no such thing as perfect.