A Space Apart is so deftly and subtly written, I hardly noticed how involved I'd become until I'd read the last page and turned it, wanting more. The Scarlin family is going to be with me for a very long time. -- Anne Tyler Willis fleshes out with warmth and tenderness the complexities of family love, which not only defines commitment but deepens the need. An important new talent. -The Kirkus Reviews The narrative carries warmth and strength. The people are as real as your next door neighbors. - Houston Chronicle Willis views the Scarlin family ties and loyalties, limits and tensions, with...

If you or your students dread the process of revision, this book will prove transformative. Deep Revision covers topics such as revision as a natural process, learning to revise by editing other people's writing, changing media to revise, and revising nonfiction with fiction techniques. Meredith Sue Willis offers a wide array of specific revision exercises for fiction and nonfiction, and numerous examples of student writing are provided.

Willis treats the writing of fiction as a natural process that anyone can do with pleasure. The book includes over 400 helpful writing assignments for all age levels. In addition, teachers will appreciate the appendixes on writing ideas according to age level, other books on writing, and magazines that publish student writing. "A terrific resource for the classroom as well as the novice writer."-Harvard Educational Review.

Lee Maynard, a native of Crum (Wayne County), West Virginia, spins a sometimes shocking, often outrageous, always irreverent tale of his young protagonist's rebellion against the place he's from and the people he grew up with. Part Huckleberry Finn and part The Red and the Black, Maynard's novel Crum is a touching and humorous look at small-town life and the peculiar rituals of male adolescence. Ultimately, though, Crum is not about the town of Crum itself but about rejecting the comfort and familiarity of home and finding a place in the larger world.

The fictional story of Oradell Greengold takes the reader on a sea voyage full of unforgetable characters, most notably Oradell herself.

Marco believes he has special powers that help him make friends with the class bully and deal with some tough situations in the rough neighborhood where they live.

Fourth-grader Marco has his hands full when his best friend is chosen to be star of the class play and his sister is accused of killing a gerbil in her kindergarten class.