Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

Author Gary Paulsen relates tales from his youth in a small town in northwestern Minnesota in the late 1940s and early 1950s, such as skiing behind a souped-up car and imitating daredevil Evel Knievel.

Fourth-grader Frankie Piccolini's vivid imagination does not help him advance in rank with the rest of his Possum Scout troop, but winning the Pine Run 3000 model car race would give him the points he needs.

When eleven-year-old Yumi Chung stumbles into a kids' comedy camp she is mistaken for another student, so she decides to play the part.

"Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago--'one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.' Javier's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers...

Recounts how the author and her family became casualties of her father's attachment to a Nottinghamshire estate that he forfeited nearly everything to acquire, and how their lives were thrown into turmoil by her father's abrupt embrace of another passion later in life.