From renowned Newbery-winning author Jerry Spinelli comes a powerful story about how not fitting in just might lead to an incredible life. This classic book is perfect for fans of Gordon Korman and Carl Hiaasen. Just like other kids, Zinkoff rides his bike, hopes for snow days, and wants to be like his dad when he grows up. But Zinkoff also raises his hand with all the wrong answers, trips over his own feet, and falls down with laughter over a word like "Jabip." Other kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it. He doesn't know he's not like everyone else. And one winter night, Zinkoff's differences show that any name can someday become "hero." With some of his finest writing to date and great wit and humor, Jerry Spinelli creates a story about a boy's individuality surpassing the need to fit in and the genuine importance of failure. As readers follow Zinkoff from first through sixth grade, it becomes impossible not to identify with and root for him through failures and triumphs. The perfect classroom read.
“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother. A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
When a family argument turns into an urgent hunt for a missing child, seventeen-year-old Annie Boots must do everything in her power to bring her nephew home safely. Chris Crutcher, the acclaimed and bestselling author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, shares a provocative story about family, loss, and loyalty that is perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books called Losers Bracket “Genuine and affecting.” When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie’s swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home. Award-winning author Chris Crutcher’s books are strikingly authentic and unflinchingly honest. Losers Bracket is by turns gripping, heartbreaking, hopeful, and devastating, and hits the sweet spot for fans of Andrew Smith and Marieke Nijkamp.
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Teacher evaluation systems are being overhauled by states and districts across the United States. And, while intentions are admirable, the result for many new systems is that goodoften excellentteachers are lost in the process. In the end, students are the losers. In her new book, Linda Darling-Hammond makes a compelling case for a research-based approach to teacher evaluation that supports collaborative models of teacher planning and learning. She outlines the most current research informing evaluation of teaching practice that incorporates evidence of what teachers do and what their students learn. In addition, she examines the harmful consequences of using any single student test as a basis for evaluating individual teachers. Finally, Darling-Hammond offers a vision of teacher evaluation as part of a teaching and learning system that supports continuous improvement, both for individual teachers and for the profession as a whole.
What is a fair wage? Is there a right to work? Is there a right to shelter or to good health? What are the entitlements of those who cannot work? Can opportunities be equal? For women? For Aborigines? For more than a century, Australians have addressed expectations of social justice to their governments and have had to live with the consequences. This book looks at how changing circumstances have generated changing popular aspirations, and how these in turn have been translated into public policy. It argues that social justice has no single meaning and is in fact the site of conflicting and divergent endeavours. Precisely for this reason it has a special relevance for the age of consensus. The first part of this book uses these shifting interpretations of social justice as a lodestar to chart a new course through the history of this country. The second part shows how it operates today as a focus of debate in areas ranging from education to Aboriginal land rights. The book therefore offers a new perspective on the past and a trenchant analysis of the present. It draws together a wide range of material and presents it by means of case studies that assume no specialist knowledge. It will appeal to students of Australian history, public policy and social welfare; and it is addressed to all readers with an interest in the future of their country.
How To Pick Quality Shares provides a three-step process for analysing company financial information to find good investments. The three steps boil down to finding quality companies, avoiding dangerous or risky companies, and not paying too much for companies’ shares. Applying the in-depth techniques described here will give investors a better understanding of companies, and an edge over other investors, including professional investors and analysts. Phil Oakley, an experienced investment analyst and private investor, guides the reader step-by-step through these three stages: 1. For the first step, he shows how to identify the kind of high-quality companies that are capable of being profitable investments over the long term. Important themes are how much a company earns on the money it invests, reliable measures of profit and the importance of cash flow. 2. Next, he shows how to spot the dangers and risks that could lead to a company being a bad investment. Here the focus is on how to analyse debt, in particular hidden debt and pension fund deficits. 3. Lastly, he shows how to value a company’s shares and determine what is a reasonable price to pay to invest in that company. Phil shows why some common shortcuts to valuing shares are not very useful and how to use cash profits to value shares more reliably. At each stage, Phil explains where the investor needs to look in company financial statements to get the information they need and how to analyse this information. Illustrative examples of analysis of real company financial statements are used throughout. If you have a company’s latest annual report and its current share price you have all the information you need to be a successful investor. How To Pick Quality Shares shows you how.
Written in response to the new ITT NC requirements for student teachers Comprehensive guide covering all aspects of primary teacher training relating to mathematics and the Standards required to reach qualified teacher status A strong and adoptable series for all ITT courses Informs teachers of exactly what they need to know to teach the subject and provides further information in continuing professional development issues There is increasing pressure on student teachers to develop their subject classroom competence in a short space of time - this should help relieve the burden Part of the successful Meeting the Standards Series which students on BEd and PGCE courses and teachers will already be familiar with Includes a chapter dealing with the transition from teacher training to being a Newly Qualified Teacher.
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