{"product_id":"first-light-isbn-9780440422228","title":"First Light","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis   remarkable and acclaimed debut novel, by the Newbery-winning author of \u003ci\u003eWhen You Reach Me \u003c\/i\u003eand the new   instant classic \u003ci\u003eThe List of Things That Will Not   Change\u003c\/i\u003e, introduces readers to a captivating,   hidden world below the ice. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Peter is thrilled to join his parents on an expedition to Greenland. But   when they finally reach the ice cap, he struggles to understand a series of   frightening yet enticing visions. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Thea has never seen the sun. Her extraordinary people, suspected of   witchcraft and nearly driven to extinction, have retreated to a secret world   they’ve built deep inside the arctic ice. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As Thea dreams of a path to Earth’s surface, Peter’s search for answers brings   him ever closer to her hidden home in this dazzling tale of mystery, science,   and adventure at the top of the world. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A mystic thriller.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Optimistic science fiction that highlights human ingenuity and survival   under dire conditions.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Junior Library Guild Selection \u003cbr\u003e A Book Sense Children’s Pick\u003cbr\u003e A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age \u003cbr\u003e A Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the   Year—Outstanding Merit \u003cbr\u003e An IRA-CBC Notable Book \u003cbr\u003e A Parents’ Choice Award Winner\u003cbr\u003e Named to Multiple State Award Lists\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Peter and Thea are vividly realized. . . . Gracehope itself is sketched   with sure strokes, its icy setting and its matriarchal social structure fresh   and believable.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Horn Book Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Stead’s debut novel rests on an intriguing   premise. . . . It is a testament to the storytelling that the existence of   this parallel world and the convergence of Peter and Thea’s stories, told in   separate chapters, are both credible and absorbing. Young readers will find   this a journey worth taking.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003eREBECCA   STEAD is the author of \u003ci\u003eWhen You Reach Me\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller and winner of the Newbery Medal and the Boston   Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction, and\u003ci\u003e Liar \u0026amp;   Spy\u003c\/i\u003e, which was also a \u003ci\u003eNew   York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller, won the Guardian Prize for   Children’s Fiction, and was on multiple state master lists and best of the   year lists. She also wrote \u003ci\u003eGoodbye Stranger\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book for Fiction and a\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eFirst Light\u003c\/i\u003e, which was nominated for many state awards. Her latest book, \u003ci\u003eThe List of Things that Will Not Change\u003c\/i\u003e, has received eight starred reviews. She lives in New York   City with her family. Visit her online at rebeccasteadbooks.com and on   Twitter @rebstead.\u003c\/p\u003eOne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost boys his age had never touched paper. There was little left. Paper was reserved for fine drawing and important documents. Mattias knew even before he could skate that if he were to harm any of it, if he were to crease one corner of one sheet, the consequences would be serious. But Mattias could not resist his mother’s drawing table. He loved the drawers and panels that opened almost without a sound, the bright vials of dye, the immaculate brushes on their small rack, the smooth wooden box of charcoal. And although he was a very obedient boy in almost every other way, he regularly explored the contents of the table when he found himself alone with it. Mattias knew its every measure, including the shape of the black dye stain that had dried inside one drawer before he was born. And each time he approached the table, he expected to find it exactly as he had always found it before.\u003cbr\u003eToday he found something new.\u003cbr\u003eIt was a thick paper envelope, closed but unsealed, underneath his mother’s working sketches. Mattias unwound the string closure slowly, being careful to remember the length that should be left hanging when he tied it again. Inside was a square of paper unlike anything Mattias had ever seen. One side of the square glowed with an image in color, almost as if someone had frozen a moment in time and flattened it, capturing every detail. Even his mother, considered the most talented artist now alive, couldn’t create anything like this. Mattias turned it carefully in his hands, holding the square by its sharp corners. It was an image of two women. Sisters, he thought. And there was something else–a glowing blur behind them.\u003cbr\u003eThe sun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeven Years Later\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA headache, Peter thought as he lay in bed with one arm thrown over his eyes, is something you have to experience to understand. No one can describe a headache to someone who has never had one. He rolled to one side and reached for the little spiral notebook on his night table. \u003cbr\u003ePeter’s mother had gotten headaches for as long as he could remember. They sometimes lasted for days, during which she sat in the red chair next to the pull-out couch where his parents slept. She didn’t eat, or laugh, or make the “proper supper” she otherwise insisted upon. She hardly got up at all. “She’s gone away again,” his father would say. “But she’ll be back.” It happened maybe twice a year. \u003cbr\u003eEveryone said how much Peter was like his mother– their skin that was nearly paper white, their all-over freckles, their wavy hair (hers dark, his blond like his father’s), even the way they sneezed (always twice), and laughed (very quietly, after one loud sort of bark). So Peter had always assumed that, like his mother, he would get headaches one day, and that, when he did, they would be headaches just like hers. \u003cbr\u003ePeter paged through the worn notebook. It had his friends’ phone numbers in it, and the names of some video games he wanted if his parents ever let him \u003ci\u003eget\u003c\/i\u003e a video game, and the address of a company in Oregon that sold old radio parts for almost no money, and a bunch of other things. He flipped to the inside back cover, where he had made a series of slashes.\u003cbr\u003eJust after his twelfth birthday, Peter’s mother began asking him whether he had a headache. She had never asked him that before, and he couldn’t help thinking it was strange she had to ask at all. Wouldn’t it be obvious when he had a headache? Wouldn’t he, too, sit in the living room and never smile or get hungry? But she kept asking, every week or two, always smiling carefully, as if she were expecting bad news. So they waited, together. \u003cbr\u003ePeter got his first headache a few months later. He knew right away what it was, and three things surprised him about it. First, it lasted only a few hours. Second, although it hurt some, he was able to eat the same salt-and-vinegar potato chips he bought after school every day. Third, he didn’t tell his mother about it. \u003cbr\u003eThe only person he told was Miles. He and Miles had been in the same class every year since kindergarten. They knew everything about each other. For instance, Peter knew that Miles only pretended to hate the two stepsisters who lived uptown with Miles’s father and stepmother. The truth was that Miles liked them, and that he liked his Monday and Friday nights at his dad’s– he liked how the apartment was full of life, with friends coming and going, and teasing at dinner, and the way they always ate oranges and popcorn while they watched TV together.\u003cbr\u003eAnd Miles knew that Peter was afraid to tell his mother about his first headache because it had brought him a little closer to knowing what he had already half-known for years: that his mother’s headaches were not headaches at all, but something else entirely. Something she didn’t want to talk about. Something like sadness.\u003cbr\u003eThen Peter had more headaches. He took the stub of a pencil from where he had wedged it into the spiral of his little notebook and made a mark next to the others. He counted to himself, slowly. His ninth. In a month. He replaced the notebook on the table and rolled over so he could look through the skylight next to his bed.","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304988037349,"sku":"NP9780440422228","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440422228.jpg?v=1767727385","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/first-light-isbn-9780440422228","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}