From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up -Alexa is not happy about having to go to Central America for the summer with her marine biologist mother, who will be working there. The teen meets a local boy and makes friends with the lab's dolphin. When the animal's baby is taken by members of a rival lab, the teens set out to find out why and what they plan to do with it. The author incorporates 1000 SAT vocabulary words into the novel. Each one is footnoted at the bottom of the page with its definition. This is a great idea. Not only can students read a fast-paced and fun story, but they can also learn potentially unfamiliar words without a great deal of effort. The writing and character development are actually good and the DNA-lab setting is believable, as is the story line. The Marino Mission may not be a literary standout, but as a study tool it is unbeatable.-Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park High School, MD
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Review
"The Marino Mission...a better read than prior attempts at this concept, which tried too hard to cram in large words." (Miami Herald, February 26, 2005)

Discovered in 1779, the Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous monuments to have survived from Ancient Egypt. Its bilingual inscription in three different scripts provided the key that enabled scholars, and in particular the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time. This illustrated booklet tells the story of the stone from its discovery and arrival in the British Museum to its eventual decipherment. It also includes a full translation of the inscription.

Sonia Hughes - Weeding Cane

Another great book from Gatehouse, because: "A beginner reader is not a beginner thinker".

Weeding Cane is a story that really does work on many levels. Everything is a metaphor for something and it is presented with the kind of intelligent, earthy domestic poetry that very few writers manage.
"How do we arrange the world? How do we arrange our lives? And how do we love and hold ourselves together when we begin to crack? Classic themes explored with a fresh and agile mind. There is more to this story than it seems. Yes it is black, but yes, it is universal.”
Benjamin Zephaniah, Poet

TREASURES (audiobook)
A story of family... the Osbornes -- two sisters and a brother -- united by family ties but split apart by different dreams. Lara, the happy young wife, longs for the family that will make her life whole. Connie, wild and lovely, is more like her brother Eddy -- bright, ambitious, and ready to seize all that life has to offer. A story of choices... Connie is looking for wealth -- to make or to marry. Lara, staying behind in a small Ohio town, finds everything she cherishes threatened by fate and by her own blind commitment. And Eddy, as Wall Street's "wonder boy," can make millions... if he ruthlessly uses his family and friends. A story of marriages... Lara's held together by devotion, Connie's shattered by infidelity and betrayal, and Eddy's rocked by shame and prison. Torn by conflicting loyalties, they are a family caught in the tides of scandal... and swept toward a fate where dreams may end or be born again.