Dunderheads, unite A tyrannical teacher gets her just due in a delightfully
subversive, outrageously funny tale by Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman.
Miss Breakbone hates kids. Especially the time-squandering, mindwandering, doodling, dozing dunderheads in her class. But when she confiscates Junkyard s crucial fi nd, she fi nally goes too far. Enter Wheels (and his souped-up bike with forty-eight extra gears), Pencil (who can draw anything from memory), Spider (look up and you ll fi nd him), and their fellow misfi ts in a spectacular display of teamwork aimed at teaching...

When a little girl visits her great-grandfather at his curio-filled home, she chooses an unusual object to learn about: an old cigar box. What she finds inside surprises her: a collection of matchboxes making up her great-grandfather's diary, containing objects she can hold in her hand, each one evoking a memory. Together they tell of his journey from Italy to a new country, before he could read and write - the olive stone his mother gave him to suck on when there wasn't enough food; a hairpin he found on the boat; a ticket still retaining the thrill of his first baseball game.