"Engaging images accompany information about Illinois. The combination of high-interest subject matter and narrative text is intended for students in grades 3 through 8"--

Inspired by her late grandmother, thirteen-year-old Nina spends a summer secretly doing good deeds for her neighbors and enjoying the changes she brings about, even as she is dealing with changing friendships and family issues.

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

Sixteen-year-old Lindsay, a former child star whose career ended when she developed the ability to hear what anyone, anywhere says about her and apparently suffered a nervous breakdown, comes to see this as an asset when, after her father's death, she learns that she is not alone.

Relates the surprising gifts bestowed on twelve-year-old Bob Barnhart and his family, who have recently moved to a small Illinois town in 1958, by their larger-than-life neighbor, Mrs. Dowdel.

Did the Great Chicago Fire really start after a cow kicked over a lantern in a barn? Find out the truth in this addition to the What Was? series. On Sunday, October 8, 1871, a fire started on the south side of Chicago. A long drought made the neighborhood go up in flames. And practically everything that could go wrong did. Firemen first went to the wrong location. Fierce winds helped the blaze jump the Chicago River twice. The Chicago Waterworks burned...

A guide to appreciating and understanding art gathers works from the Art Institute of Chicago to explain how artists from various cultures and periods depict faces, places, and inner thoughts, and includes related activities and projects.

Forced to help in her parents' cadaver lab for the summer, Fovea Munson, twelve, discovers three talking heads in need of a favor.

After seventh-grader Jerome is shot by a white police officer, he observes the aftermath of his death and meets the ghosts of other fallen black boys including historical figure Emmett Till--

"The Tuskegee Airmen heroically fought for the right to be officers of the US military so that they might participate in World War II by flying overseas to help defeat fascism. However, after winning that battle, they faced their next great challenge at Freeman Field, Iowa, where racist white officers barred them from entering the prestigious Officers' Club that their rank promised them. The Freeman Field Mutiny, as it became known, would eventually...