{"product_id":"chasing-augustus-isbn-9780385754040","title":"Chasing Augustus","description":"\u003cb\u003eA sweetly satisfying novel about a girl and her lost dog, perfect for fans of Jennifer E. Holm and Kirby Larson.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rosie’s led a charmed life with her loving dad, who runs the town donut shop. It’s true her mother abandoned them when Rosie was just a baby, but her dad’s all she’s ever needed. But now that her father’s had a stroke, Rosie lives with her tough-as-nails grandfather. And her beloved dog, Gloaty Gus, has just gone missing.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Rosie’s determined to find him. With the help of a new friend and her own determination, she’ll follow the trail anywhere . . . no matter where it leads. If she doesn’t drive the whole world crazy in the meantime. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Kimberly Newton Fusco’s tender story brings to life a feisty, unsinkable, unstoppable, unforgettable girl who knows she’s a fighter . . . if she can only figure out who’s already on her side.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Praise for Kimberly Newton Fusco’s \u003ci\u003eBeholding Bee:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Fans of Kate DiCamillo, Jennifer Holm, and Polly Horvath will find this an enjoyable and engrossing read.” —\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[A] really terrific, hopeful story. . . . This could be my favorite middle-grade novel of [the year].” —\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A modern twist on fairy godmothers [with] strong, supportive women who don’t need to provide a Prince Charming to make dreams come true.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Horn Book\u003c\/i\u003e\"Magnificent.\"—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eReviews\u003c\/i\u003e starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for Kimberly Newton Fusco’s \u003ci\u003eBeholding Bee:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Fans of Kate DiCamillo, Jennifer Holm, and Polly Horvath will find this an enjoyable and engrossing read.” —\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[A] really terrific, hopeful story. . . . This could be my favorite middle-grade novel of [the year].” —\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A modern twist on fairy godmothers [with] strong, supportive women who don’t need to provide a Prince Charming to make dreams come true.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Horn Book\u003c\/i\u003eKIMBERLY NEWTON FUSCO is the author of three other novels, \u003ci\u003eTending to Grace, The Wonder of Charlie Anne,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBeholding Bee,\u003c\/i\u003e which garnered many accolades. Before becoming a novelist, she was an award-winning reporter and editor for the \u003ci\u003eWorcester Telegram \u0026amp; Gazette.\u003c\/i\u003e Ms. Fusco lives in Foster, Rhode Island, with her family. Visit her on the Web at kimberlynewtonfusco.com and @kimnewtonfusco.\u003cp\u003e1\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy grandpa Harry says vinegar runs through my veins and I am too impatient for my own good.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe says I stomp around like a moose half the time and I am proud, prickly, and rude.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlso, I am thin as an eel and, come to think of it, not much better to look at, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHornets whirl up in me when my grandpa talks like this, I can tell you that. I read in my encyclopedia of facts--The World Book of Unbelievable and Spectacular Things--that if you wanted to cuss someone out in the Middle Ages, you called him a clay-brained boar-pig, so that’s what I say to Harry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What?” he sputters. “Where in the name of Pete did you pick that up?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI let my grandpa think about it as the afternoon train rumbles into town and shakes our skinny apartment beside the tracks. Grit from the sandpits sifts like sugar through the window screens. Harry swallows the last of his sardines and crackers with a big gulp of black coffee, pushes the newspaper away, and grabs his fishing hat. “Don’t you dare go anywhere on that old bike,” he growls. “I don’t care if school just let out for the summer. Thunder’s rolling in.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen he stomps out, his gruff Marines voice marches right after him. He slams the door and the picture of me, my dog Augustus, and my papa flips on the floor. I pick it up, swipe off the grit. Of the three of us in that picture, I am the only one left.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI call Harry a loggerheaded maggot and about a thousand other cusswords as he walks up Main Street to the donut shop, which he took over after my papa’s stroke or else we would lose our shirts. I throw my report card in the trash and shove it to the bottom under all the coffee grounds. Then I rush in my room for my goggles and check the map of our town that I hung in the back of my closet, where Harry never goes. Each day I pick a new road to hunt for my dog, keeping track with a trail of stickpins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHarry says you can’t keep a big sloppy dog like Augustus in our skinny apartment, so it’s best to forget him. A year is too long for a dog to remember a kid anyway--so put a lid on it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy grandpa forgets how much you can love a dog or he would never say that. My dog slept on my bed and I fell asleep to his heart beating. He was the true-blue friend of my soul until that awful day my mum gave him away and flew back to California, where she is a lawyer now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat’s when I learned the true way of things: When you lose your dog, there’s a hole in your heart as big as the sun. Your head aches all the time and you are so empty inside because you are half the girl you used to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor this reason, I swoop down our steep steps, past Eddie’s Barbershop on the first floor (where there’s always a bowl of M\u0026amp;M’s waiting for me), and out onto Main Street, my goggles flapping and clapping behind me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd I do not let the thunder inside Harry get in my way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI call my bike the Blackbird.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt has one gear that works and rust spots the size of silver dollars and brakes that clamp only when they feel like it--but you don’t really need to stop when you fly. You just need to land.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Blackbird was my papa’s bike when he was a boy, and the wire basket in the front is rusted through, the fenders are crunched, and the front wheel squeals and wobbles like an old washing machine off balance, but if you knew my papa, you’d keep fixing it, too. He had what is called a listening ear, and my bike does, too--you can tell the Blackbird anything when you ride and things start feeling better. Plus, it has a bell that sounds like an old goose honking, and folks tend to get out of your way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI pull the Blackbird out of the toolshed behind our apartment building and lean it against the fence. Already the wind from the storm coming bends the thin maples on Main Street until they are looking at their feet. They could use a pep talk.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI hurry with the worst wheel first--the front--but Harry’s old wrench won’t grab hold because I’ve tightened the nut so many times I stripped the threads. Each time I try, the wrench slips.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy head pounds. The wind sends grit from the sandpits pling-pling-plinging into my face. Our neighbor Mrs. Salvatore rushes out to the clothesline and pulls a bleached sheet off and tosses it in her wicker basket. I am careful to keep my eyes straight on what I am doing without any wavering at all because Mrs. Salvatore has a sixth sense about things. She can smell something fishy the way an old hound dog can smell mackerel in a can. Just one whiff of something out of place and she’ll badger you until she gets to the bottom of things.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy headache roars. Grizzlies gnaw behind my eyes. I get the wrench to twist a quarter of a turn before it slips off.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Rosalita!” Mrs. Salvatore yells, snapping sheets behind me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI force the wrench, but I do it too hard and it slips again. God’s bones, I snort, which is another good cuss from the Middle Ages. My papa and I discovered this one when we read my World Book together, which has a full list. After that we made up our own--cow-pocked rogue (my papa’s), cockroach-breath (mine).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a loud crash in Mrs. Salvatore’s apartment and one of her foster girls screams at one of the boys for changing the channel, and since we live in such an old apartment building with rattling windows, thin walls, and hardly any insulation at all, you can hear everything--even when somebody pees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMrs. Salvatore yells, “You stop that, Francesca, you hear?” and when she catches me looking up, she snaps, “Night and day that girl is going to be the death of me. What did I ever do to the good God in heaven to deserve a girl like that?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI don’t know. I have no idea why she keeps all these foster kids when she already raised a bunch of her own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy head throbs. My World Book recommends ice for headaches, so I rub my brow with the plastic baggie I filled with cubes from Harry’s freezer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother train rumbles in, shaking the toolshed, the apartment building, and the ground beneath my feet. I pinch my lips in a straight line, squeeze the wrench, and turn, but not too hard this time. This is not easy when your heart is a rubber band snapping back and forth and you are in such an awful rush to find your dog.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI breathe in, twisting the wrench very slowly, and--bingo--the nut turns, the wheel tightens. I breathe out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is still a little wobble, but that is bound to happen with a bike so old. My papa had me when he already had gray hair, and the Blackbird is no spring chicken, either. This is why Harry says it belongs in a museum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI pull on the swimming goggles I snuck into my pocket at the Church of Our Risen Lord thrift shop. I am riding out by the sandpits today, one of the last places on my map without a stickpin, and without the goggles I couldn’t see through the whirling grit. I strap on my helmet and wheel my bike across the yard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe clothesline pulley screeches like an oiled pig. “Rosalita Gillespie, I want you to come over and meet my new foster boy, Philippe.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen pigs fly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI climb on my bike and test the gear lever, but it is stuck on third, the hardest to pedal, the one that forces me to stand when I ride uphill, and sometimes I even have to walk. I test the brakes, but the pads freeze before they clamp the wheel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMrs. Salvatore tells me how the new boy loves Monopoly, which I hate. God’s bones. When she yells that my grandpa wouldn’t want me going anywhere with this storm coming on, I shake my head and point to my helmet like I can’t hear, but I can hear just fine and what I am really hearing is my dog’s heart beating, I can tell you that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI press my chest into the handlebars and shoot past the donut shop. The big coffee sign out front still blinks my papa’s name--jack’s donuts--on and off. Harry hasn’t changed the sign.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI fly past St. Camillus Rehabilitation Hospital, where my papa’s been since those first few terrible weeks. I do not allow my eyes to glance at his window or at the roses waving me in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wind picks up and the overhead wires hum. My chain clatters as I turn onto Maple Street, the road where I used to live. Someone is sitting on my old porch swing, watching the storm move in, and I picture my papa there, the smoke from his pipe swirling around his head, the smell of cherry tobacco scratching my nose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI pedal faster. The Blackbird’s front light rattles. The seat is cracked down the middle and pinches. My papa was going to help me fix it, but we never got around to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe milk truck roars behind me as I pedal up the first hill. The heat of the engine scorches my neck and the milkman swerves around me, yelling, “Storm’s coming!”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI lower my head and push on. Already I am out of breath and I have a stitch in my side, but the spring under my seat bounces and squeaks and tells me not to be a quitter. It is good to have a bike that pushes you on. My tires skid in the gravel and at the top of the next hill I fly the Blackbird straight down, holding my feet out in case I need to stop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe milkman hates dogs, and they hate him, but I never heard of any dog in the history of our town that hated him worse than my Augustus. He would chase the truck from one end of Maple Street to the other, and he’d growl and bite at the tires like they were cats. He’d put up such a ruckus I’d have to lock him in the house on milk days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe milkman hogs all conversation at the donut shop by telling how he got chased by this dog or bit by that one or how a dog as big as an elephant jumped on him when he was carrying two gallons of milk into somebody’s house. I am careful to keep track of everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYesterday he told the folks sitting at the counter that he saw a big galumph of a dog out by the sandpits.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Thought it was a bear.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI only ever saw one dog that looked like that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGravel crackles under my tires and the clanging clashing sounds from the sandpits fill my head.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFolks in other places say we are the grittiest town on God’s sweet earth and who wants to live here? But what we really are is a town filled with folks who know how to press on and make do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor this reason, we do not hang hammocks, we do not picnic when the wind blows, and some days, after a dozen sand trucks have driven down Main Street, you can surf the blacktop in your sneakers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOther than our neighbor Mrs. Salvatore--who is a stubborn mule about that and every other thing--we do not hang our clothes on the line. We use Pine-Sol and Windex and keep track of wind direction the way some folks watch for snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn our town summer is hardest, and we know if we wash our kitchen tables in the morning and leave the windows open, we can come back at night and write our names in the grit on our tabletops. We do not pitch tents or barbecue, and we learn to love swimming when we are babies because there is no better way to get the dust off your back than a dunk in one of our old millponds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy papa knew that eating a sweet donut after a long dusty day in a sandpit town like ours tends to perk you up. And, as he got everyone to believe, nothing gets the grit out of your throat better than a tall mug of his steaming black coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI know other things--like how mums who don’t like grit move to California when you are still a baby, how you don’t need to bother with fancy shampoo because nothing scrubs the sand off your scalp better than Head \u0026amp; Shoulders, and, now most important, if you don’t do something about all the grit in your life, things tend to jam up something awful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e5\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rain begins, first as a soft patter against my arms, then a steady thrum thrum thrum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs it hits the road, puffs of grit burst in front of me. The quitting thoughts begin--the ones that tell me if I haven’t found my dog by now, I’ll never find him. I make myself think victory thoughts and pedal faster.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI lower my helmet. I have hunted for my dog almost every day for over a year and I keep going by imagining how it will feel to hold him in my arms, to bury my face in his warm clumpy dog fur, to snuggle so close I can feel his heart beating. In those old romantic movies Harry loves to watch, there is always a scene where the boy and the girl find each other after a very long time and they wrap themselves around one another, sometimes rolling down a hill and laughing, always with tears running over their cheeks. That’s how it will be for me and my Augustus.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy papa was not too good about putting the Blackbird away when it snowed and rained, and now the old plastic handgrips pinch like sand crabs. I loosen my fingers and pedal slower because my tires are pushing through wet sand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThunder growls. A red Camaro roars up, horn blaring. It is Avery Taylor, one of the baggers at Shop Value, the star of the high school hockey team who everyone at the donut shop says has a college scholarship in his back pocket, but I wonder who would give money to somebody who tied the smallest boy in the whole second grade to a tree in front of the house where the terrible German shepherd Gorilla Dog lives?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302385340645,"sku":"NP9780385754040","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780385754040.jpg?v=1767723590","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/chasing-augustus-isbn-9780385754040","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}