McDougal Littell Literature Connections: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Student Editon Grade 8

Star Crossed Lovers
When Romiette Cappelle meets Julio Montague, she feels as though she has met the soul mate who can rescue her from her recurring nightmare about fire and water. But like the Shakespearean characters whose names echo theirs, Romiette and Julio discover that not everyone approves of their budding romance. In their case, it is because Romiette is African-American and Julio is Hispanic, and the Devildogs, a dangerous local gang, violently oppose their interracial relationship.
When the Devildogs threaten to teach them a lesson, Romiette and Julio come up with a risky plan to escape from the gang's fearsome shadow. But things go terribly awry, and the two find themselves caught up in a deadly reality more frightening that Romiette's nightmare — and in a desperate struggle to avoid the tragic fate of Shakespeare's famous young lovers.

“Stylistically superb. . . . This packs a punch that will leave readers of any age reeling.”—School Library Journal, Starred

“Sharper in focus and more mature in style than Hinton’s The Outsiders.”—Booklist

An ALA Best Books for Young Adults

A School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

There are friends we can't imagine living without.

Morgan and Jimmy were kids together, whirling around the porch on hot summer days. They've been friends forever, and by now they know each other inside out. They do everything together—from cutting high school to go into the city to coaching each other at dance auditions and acting workshops. They even argue well. A perfect friendship. Best friends. For life.

So how could life be so right and then be so wrong? After a terrible accident, Morgan suddenly has to face life alone. Without Jimmy around, though, it's like the best part of her has died. How could he do this to her? And why is love so hard?

A Newbery Medal Winner

An Incan boy who tends llamas in a hidden valley in Peru learns the traditions and secrets of his ancestors. 

"The story of an Incan boy who lives in a hidden valley high in the mountains of Peru with old Chuto the llama herder. Unknown to Cusi, he is of royal blood and is the 'chosen one.' A compelling story."—Booklist

Deborah Sampson wanted to travel and have adventures, but since she had no money, the best way to do that was to join the army. This is the exciting true story of a woman who became a soldier during the American Revolutionary War, by dressing and acting like a man.

Newbery Medal-winning Seedfolks from Paul Fleischman tells thirteen stories from diverse perspectives—young and old, immigrant and native, haunted and hopeful. A fractured neighborhood unites with just a few seeds, turning a drab empty lot in Cleveland into beautiful green garden.

Seedfolks has been chosen as a state- and city-wide read in communities across the country for its inspiring message of unity.

Kim begins the garden, planting a few lima beans to connect with her father who died when she was a baby in Vietnam. Then Tío Juan, a farmer from Guatemala, gains purpose when he teaches the neighborhood children how to plant. Soon curious neighbors join in and together they grow a beautiful garden. With each bean sprout and cucumber blossom the residents of Gibs Street find hope and meaning in their little green paradise.

As the Christian Science Monitor noted, "The size of this slim volume belies the profound message of hope it contains."

Tor Classics are affordably-priced editions designed to attract the young reader. Original dynamic cover art enthusiastically represents the excitement of each story. Appropriate "reader friendly" type sizes have been chosen for each title—offering clear, accurate, and readable text. All editions are complete and unabridged, and feature Introductions and Afterwords.

This edition of Emily Dickinson's Selected Poems includes an Index of First Lines as well as an Afterword and Biographical Note by Debra Fried of Cornell University.

Dressed always in white Emily isolates herself in her room, rarely straying from her Main Street home in Amherst, M.A. What is she doing?

She's changing the world.
She's shattering rules.
Smashing rules about poems, and words, and how to use them.

Challenging rules about woman can say and think. Destroying rules about how we can look at the universe, life, god and the mysteries of the night...

To hear the truth
sometimes you must be alone.
To tell your visions,
sometimes you must break rules.
Emily does.

Soon after moving to Kluney, a small Texas town, Katie and her mother notice sinister activities involving a secret high-school gang and a company that illegally stores toxic wastes. Reprint. C. K. PW.

He rode into our valley in the summer of ’89, a slim man, dressed in black. “Call me Shane,” he said. He never told us more.

There was a deadly calm in the valley that summer, a slow, climbing tension that seemed to focus on Shane.

“There’s something about him,” Mother said. “Something . . . dangerous . . .”

“He’s dangerous all right,” Father said, “but not to us.”

“He’s like one of these here slow burning fuses,” the mule skinner said.

“Quiet . . . so quiet you forget it’s burning till it sets off a hell of a blow of trouble. And there’s trouble brewing.”

Jack Schaefer is best known for this timeless classic.

After Marty Preston worked so hard to earn the dog, Shiloh, he had hoped that his troubles with Judd Travers were over. He could not rescue all the dogs that Judd mistreated, but since Shiloh was the one who ran away and came with him, Shiloh was the one he loved. Judd, however, has other problems. Anyone who cheats and swears and lies and kicks his dogs has troubles inside himself, and when the man starts drinking, Marty realizes that Shiloh is in danger once again. As hunting season approaches and Judd begins hunting on their land, the Prestons know that something is bound to happen. They're right. Marty does the only thing he can think of to do, and discovers just how deep a hurt can go and how long it takes to heal.

Although he faces responsibility bravely, thirteen-year-old Matt is more than a little apprehensive when his father leaves him alone to guard their new cabin in the wilderness. When a renegade white stranger steals his gun, Matt realizes he has no way to shoot game or to protect himself. When Matt meets Attean, a boy in the Beaver clan, he begins to better understand their way of life and their growing problem in adapting to the white man and the changing frontier.

Elizabeth George Speare’s Newbery Honor-winning survival story is filled with wonderful detail about living in the wilderness and the relationships that formed between settlers and natives in the 1700s. Now with an introduction by Joseph Bruchac.