{"product_id":"the-lifters-isbn-9781524764197","title":"The Lifters","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the Newbery Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Eyes and the Impossible\u003c\/i\u003e come the story of a mysterious underground world where nothing is as it seems.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat if the ground beneath your feet was not made of solid earth and stone but had been hollowed into hundreds of tunnels and passageways? What if there were mysterious forces in these tunnels? What would it feel like to know the fate of an entire town rested on your shoulders? Twelve-year-old Gran Flowerpetal is about to find out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Gran's friend, the difficult-to-impress Catalina Catalan, presses a silver handle into a hillside and opens a doorway underground, Gran knows that she is extraordinary and brave. He will have no choice but to follow her and help save the town (and the known world). With luck on their side, and some discarded hockey sticks for good measure, they might just emerge as heroes.“This book is a ripper, full of all the good stuff: adventure, mystery, and lots of great jokes.” \u003cbr\u003e —Mac Barnett, Caldecott Honor–winning author of \u003ci\u003eExtra Yarn\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Full of surprises, magic, and heart.\" --Rebecca Stead, Newbery Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eWhen You Reach Me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A heart-gladdening work of allegorical genius . . . brilliantly rendering the bewildering stupidity of the adult world as seen by children.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Eggers performs a marvelous sleight of hand, producing a first-rate middle grade adventure that doubles as a political parable for our times.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Buffalo News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[A] cozy contemporary novel about lifting spirits and rebuilding community through teamwork and imagination.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A warm and rewarding read . . .Eggers skillfully handles the trope of the kids who save the town, with plenty of humorous adult cluelessness but an equal measure of compassion.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Original . . . and always intriguing. . . . Eggers's story moves along briskly thanks to mounting suspense and bite-size chapters.\" —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A whimsical, fantastical story with elements of realism. . . . This atmospheric story's detailed plot moves quickly, and all the characters experience growth.\" \u003ci\u003e—School Library Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDave Eggers \u003c\/b\u003eis an award-winning author whose bestselling novels for adults include \u003ci\u003eThe Circle, Heroes of the Frontier,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWhat Is the What.\u003c\/i\u003e His books for children include \u003ci\u003eThis Bridge Will Not Be Gray\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHer Right Foot.\u003c\/i\u003e His work has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other honors. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, and cofounder of ScholarMatch, a college-access organization, as well as 826 National, a network of educational centers around the country, offering free tutoring and publishing opportunities to youth. He lives in Northern California with his family.Gran did not want to move to Carousel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But his parents had little choice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His father, a mechanic, had not had steady work in many years, for reasons unknown to Gran.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His mother had had an accident when Gran was young, and was now in a wheelchair. His parents never explained quite what happened, and Gran didn’t feel right asking. After a while, when people asked Gran about his mother’s condition, he just said, “She was born that way.” It was the easiest way out of the conversation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But he remembered when she walked. He remembered that she had once worked as an artist in museums, making the animals in ­dioramas look realistic. He had a foggy memory of standing, as a toddler, in an African savannah with her as she touched up the whiskers of a cheetah. That was before the wheelchair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then Gran’s sister Maisie was born, and his mother hadn’t returned to work. Gran’s father had built a studio for her, enclosing their deck and filling it with easels and paint and worktables, everything the right height. But Gran couldn’t remember her ever using it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “My art is them now,” Gran heard her say to his father one day. At the time, Gran didn’t know what that meant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Something of her talents had rubbed off on Gran. When he was four, his mother began giving him a certain kind of clay, available in hundreds of colors, that hardened when baked in the oven. With this clay, and with his mother’s gentle guidance, he formed penguins and dolphins and narwhals—­sea creatures who shared the Atlantic with him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was a distinct satisfaction in taking a block of blue clay and warming it, rolling it into a ball, then pinching it here to make a fin, squeezing there to make a tail—­and suddenly, from a blue ball there was something like a whale. Gran made animals from clay when he was happy, when he was sad, and especially when his parents fought. He was never sure what would happen when his parents argued, how loud it would get or how long it would go on, but he always knew that in twenty minutes, as their voices faded from his mind, he could make a ball of colored clay look like an orca, a manatee, a hammerhead shark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As he worked, Maisie usually watched.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Doesn’t look like anything,” she would say as he first rolled the clay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He would pinch and pull, and she would say, “Looks like a snake. Snakes are boring.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then he would twist and poke, and something different, and specific, would emerge, and always Maisie acted like it was a miracle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “How’d you do that?” she would ask, her voice awed. Gran liked nothing better in the world than to hear his sister’s voice awed. It gave him immeasurable strength for reasons he could not know.","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305371881701,"sku":"NP9781524764197","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781524764197.jpg?v=1767740236","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-lifters-isbn-9781524764197","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}