From the Library

Third graders have been reading books about clever girls who overcome challenges to help their friends and families. We started off with Kate DiCamillo's beloved Bink and Gollie series. These two marvelous companions use their gray matter to compromise, eat pancakes, shop the sock bonanza in aisle ten at Eccles' Empire of Enchantment, play Whack-a-Duck at the state fair, attempt to break world records, and remain best friends forever. We then read the new book The Hard-Times Jar about a girl in a migrant family.  Ask your daughter how Clever Beatrice outsmarts the giant of the north woods and wins bags of gold. And then ask her how Princess Rosamond keeps the royal accounts and the castle drawbridge in order while saving up for a new set of royal dishes, all while collecting healing waters to save her ailing father, in The Well at the End of the World. In The Secret River, Calpurnia bravely wards off bear, panther and hoot owls, and saves the town by changing hard times into soft times with her magical catfish.