Kim Culbertson

SOMETIMES, LIFE DOESN’T FOLLOW A LESSON PLAN... After being attacked by a disgruntled parent in the parking lot of the private San Francisco Bay Area high school where she has taught English for the past twelve years, traumatized Chelsea Garden flees to her hometown of Imperial Flats in the Northern California foothills. She hasn’t been home in six years. When Chelsea meets beleaguered principal of Imperial Flats High School, Nora Delgado, the two realize they might have found each other at an essential crossroads. To complicate matters, her former classmate and complicated first love, Evan Dawkins, has also recently joined the faculty at IFHS to teach music. And he wasn’t expecting Chelsea to walk back into his life. Other People’s Kids follows three educators: one at the beginning of his career, one in the middle of hers, and one on her way out. A story about teaching, hometowns, and risking change in midlife.

What can 100-word stories help your students understand about writing? The short answer is, everything This flash-fiction form has become a popular structure for efficiently teaching a wide variety of literary devices, terms, and processes in a targeted way. Part teaching guide, part anthology, 100-Word Stories is a dynamic guide complete with lessons and prompts to help young writers learn and practice literary elements, narrative skill, and personal voice. Through a collection of accessible lessons, each with a mentor text that is either student- or author-created, Culbertson and Faulkner share insight into using these "small, bright things" in the ELA classroom. The book's structure is meant to be flexible-you might dip in and out of the lessons as needed to supplement existing curricula, or you might choose to teach an entire unit based on the lessons. No matter how you employ them, this short form can create expansive practice for young writers.

"An epic journey of love and friendship, forgiveness and possibility... The novel itself is a beautiful wonder, and I would follow Riya and Abby anywhere." Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places Riya and Abby are: Best friends. Complete opposites. Living on different continents. About to embark on an epic adventure around Europe. Since Riya moved away with her family to Berlin, she and Abby have struggled to be there for one another, and they haven't spoken in weeks. But Riya is pretty sure she knows the perfect way to make things better - a grand tour of European cities. Two weeks, six countries, unimaginable fun. Can the lush countrysides and dazzling cities of Europe fix their friendship, or does growing up mean growing apart? Perfect for fans of Stephanie Perkins, Maggie Harcourt and David Levithan, this witty and vivid story is the ideal holiday read.