Böcker av Mary Ann Rodman

"Claire can't wait to get out on the ice and skate, skate, skate! She's going to jump, leap, and twirl! Just you wait--pretty soon she'll be on TV and dazzling audiences everywhere. But when Claire and her mom arrive at the Ice Center for Claire's very first skate lesson, it's not everything Claire was dreaming it would be. Beginners wear ugly brown skates, and who wants to practice marching in place when you can get right to it? But not so fast, Claire! ... In this humorous tale of expectation meets reality, Claire discovers beautiful performances require lots of skill, and it's going to take many small failures and perseverance if she wants to skate like a pro"--

An unflinching story about racism and culture clash in the 1960s.The year is 1964, and Alice Ann Moxley's FBI-agent father has been reassigned from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi, to protect black people who are registering to vote. Alice finds herself thrust into the midst of the racial turmoil that dominates current events, especially when a Negro girl named Valerie Taylor joins her sixth-grade class -- the first of two black students at her new school because of a mandatory integration law. When Alice finds it difficult to penetrate the clique of girls at school she calls the Cheerleaders (they call her Yankee Girl), she figures Valerie, being the other outsider, will be easier to make friends with. But Valerie isn't looking for friends. Rather, Valerie silently endures harassment from the Cheerleaders, much worse than what Alice is put through. Soon Alice realizes the only way to befriend the girls is to seem like a co-conspirator in their plans to make Valerie miserable. It takes a horrible tragedy for her to realize the complete ramifications of following the crowd instead of her heart.

First-grader Haley wishes she were back having fun in kindergarten with her old teacher--until she finds out that first grade is special, too. Full color.