{"product_id":"kaleidoscope-eyes-isbn-9780440421900","title":"Kaleidoscope Eyes","description":"\u003ci\u003eWill Lyza’s 1968 summer mystery lead to . . . pirate treasure?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Lyza helps her dad clean out her late grandfather’s house, a mysterious surprise brightens the sad task. In Gramps’s dusty attic, Lyza discovers three maps, carefully folded and stacked, bound by a single rubber band. On top, an envelope says “For Lyza ONLY.” What could this possibly be? It takes the help of her two best friends, Malcolm and Carolann, to figure out that the maps reveal three possible spots in their own New Jersey town where Captain Kidd (\u003ci\u003ethe \u003c\/i\u003eCaptain Kidd, seventeenth-century pirate) may have buried a treasure. Can three thirteen-year-olds actually conduct a secret treasure hunt? And what will they find? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a tale inspired by a true story of buried treasure, Jen Bryant weaves an emotional and suspenseful novel in poems, all set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War during a pivotal year in U.S. history.\u003cb\u003eStarred Review, \u003cu\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/u\u003e, April 1, 2009:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Readers will fall under the spell of the delicious plot.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStarred Review, \u003cu\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/u\u003e, May 25, 2009:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Sincere and well-paced, with the backdrop of a tumultuous period in history, the story is not easily forgotten.”Jen Bryant is the acclaimed author of poetry, biographies, picture books, and fiction, including \u003ci\u003eThe Fortune of Carmen Navarro\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eRingside, 1925\u003c\/i\u003e: \u003ci\u003eViews from the Scopes Trial\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003ePieces of Georgia\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eThe Trial\u003c\/i\u003e, a novel for young readers about the 1932 kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA graduate of Gettysburg College, Jen Bryant teaches children's literature at West Chester University and lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter. To learn more about the author and her books, please visit www.jenbryant.com.\u003cbr\u003eKARMA\u003cbr\u003eI wake up every morning\u003cbr\u003eto Janis Joplin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy sister, Denise, has a life-size poster of Janis--\u003cbr\u003emouth open in a scream around the microphone,\u003cbr\u003earms raised, hair frizzed out wildly,\u003cbr\u003ean anguished, contorted look on her face--\u003cbr\u003ethumbtacked right above her desk, \u003cbr\u003ewhich is directly across the hall from my bed\u003cbr\u003eand one hundred percent dead ahead\u003cbr\u003ein my direct line of sight.\u003cbr\u003eJanis is the first thing I see when I return from sleep\u003cbr\u003eand reenter reality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a normal house, the simple answer to this would be:\u003cbr\u003eclose the door. But I do not live\u003cbr\u003ein a normal house. I live in a tumble-\u003cbr\u003edown, three-story, clapboard Victorian\u003cbr\u003ewhere the rooms get smaller as you climb the stairs,\u003cbr\u003emine being barely larger than a closet and having--\u003cbr\u003elike all the other rooms on the third floor--\u003cbr\u003eno door (Dad says the former owners, who went broke,\u003cbr\u003eused them for firewood before they moved),\u003cbr\u003eacross the hall from my sister, who's nineteen\u003cbr\u003eand who believes anyway\u003cbr\u003ethat walls and doors \"interrupt the flow\" of her karma,\u003cbr\u003eand so of course this leaves me no choice\u003cbr\u003ein the matter of Janis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I pointed out to Denise\u003cbr\u003ethat my future mental health was probably in jeopardy\u003cbr\u003ebecause of it, she just sneered and said:\u003cbr\u003e\"Get over it, Lyza--you're already a Bradley,\u003cbr\u003eso mental health\u003cbr\u003eis out of the question for you anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003eWhoever said \"the baby of the family\u003cbr\u003egets all the sympathy\"\u003cbr\u003ewas clearly not\u003cbr\u003ethe baby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJUNE 1, 1966\u003cbr\u003eIt's been almost two years since that day,\u003cbr\u003ewhen our family began to unravel\u003cbr\u003elike a tightly wound ball of string\u003cbr\u003ethat some invisible tomcat\u003cbr\u003etook to pawing and flicking across the floor,\u003cbr\u003epouncing upon it again and again,\u003cbr\u003eso those strands just kept loosening\u003cbr\u003eand breaking             apart\u003cbr\u003euntil all we had left was a bunch of frayed,\u003cbr\u003echewed_up bits\u003cbr\u003escattered all over the house.\u003cbr\u003eMom had left twice before,\u003cbr\u003eafter she and Dad had a fight\u003cbr\u003eover money. She stayed away overnight,\u003cbr\u003ebut both times she came back, acting like\u003cbr\u003enothing had happened. This time, the three of us thought,\u003cbr\u003ewould be the same...it just might take\u003cbr\u003ea little longer.\u003cbr\u003eDays became weeks. I finished sixth grade.\u003cbr\u003eDad, who already taught math full_time\u003cbr\u003eat Glassboro State, started to teach at night.\u003cbr\u003eWe almost never saw him.\u003cbr\u003eDenise tore up her college applications,\u003cbr\u003egot hired as a waitress at the Willowbank Diner,\u003cbr\u003estarted sneaking around with Harry Keating\u003cbr\u003eand his hippie crowd.\u003cbr\u003eStill, we hoped Mom would come back.\u003cbr\u003eFor the entire summer,\u003cbr\u003eDad left the porch light on\u003cbr\u003eand the garage door unlocked every evening\u003cbr\u003earound the same time\u003cbr\u003eMom used to come home\u003cbr\u003efrom her art_gallery job in Pleasantville.\u003cbr\u003eI'd lie awake until real late,\u003cbr\u003ewondering where she could be,\u003cbr\u003eif she was OK, if she might be\u003cbr\u003ehurt, lost, or sick.\u003cbr\u003eDenise sent letters through Mom's best friend,\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Corman, the only one who knew\u003cbr\u003ewhere Mom had gone.\u003cbr\u003eMom answered them at first, but she never\u003cbr\u003egave a return address. Then, for no reason,\u003cbr\u003eher letters to Denise and to Mrs. Corman\u003cbr\u003estopped.\u003cbr\u003eEven so, I had hope.\u003cbr\u003eEvery evening, I set her place\u003cbr\u003eat the dinner table and bought candy\u003cbr\u003eon her birthday, just in case.\u003cbr\u003eWhen September came, I started seventh grade.\u003cbr\u003eI kept my report cards and vaccination records\u003cbr\u003ein the family scrapbook\u003cbr\u003eso that when she came back, she could pick up\u003cbr\u003emothering right where she'd left off.\u003cbr\u003eLong after Dad and Denise\u003cbr\u003ehad made their peace\u003cbr\u003ewith the reality of our broken family, I still believed\u003cbr\u003eMom would come home.\u003cbr\u003eI believed the way I had once believed\u003cbr\u003ein Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.\u003cbr\u003eThen one day last year, I was\u003cbr\u003ewalking home from Willowbank Junior High\u003cbr\u003ewhen I noticed the library flag\u003cbr\u003eflying at half_mast,\u003cbr\u003eso I asked\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Leinberger, our town librarian, why.\u003cbr\u003e\"Charley Prichett, Guy Smith, and Edward Cullinan\u003cbr\u003ewere killed in Vietnam,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003eI knew them all\u003cbr\u003etheir families lived on our end of town.\u003cbr\u003eCharley, Eddie, and Guy\u003cbr\u003ehad graduated from Willowbank High\u003cbr\u003ewith Denise.\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Leinberger put her hand\u003cbr\u003eon my shoulder. \"They're not coming back\u003cbr\u003eto Willowbank, Lyza I'm sorry...\"\u003cbr\u003eNot coming back...Not coming back...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer words thrummed against the inside\u003cbr\u003eof my head\u003cbr\u003elike the machine guns I'd seen and heard\u003cbr\u003eon the evening news.\u003cbr\u003eNot coming back...Not coming back...\u003cbr\u003eLike the blades of choppers\u003cbr\u003elifting half_dead men\u003cbr\u003efrom the swamps and jungles,\u003cbr\u003ethe phrase sliced through any shred\u003cbr\u003eof hope I had left.\u003cbr\u003eThat night, I threw the scrapbook\u003cbr\u003ein the trash,\u003cbr\u003eset the dinner table for three,\u003cbr\u003eand gave Denise\u003cbr\u003ea large heart_shaped box of chocolates,\u003cbr\u003ewhich she took down to the record store\u003cbr\u003eto share with Harry\u003cbr\u003eand the rest of their hippie friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKALEIDOSCOPE EYES\u003cbr\u003eSome nights, before I go to sleep,\u003cbr\u003eI look through the lens of the\u003cbr\u003eone Mom gave me\u003cbr\u003efor my tenth birthday, just to see how, when I\u003cbr\u003eturn the tube slowly around,\u003cbr\u003eevery fractured pattern that bends and splits\u003cbr\u003einto a million little pieces\u003cbr\u003ealways comes back together, to make a picture\u003cbr\u003emore beautiful than the one before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMALCOLM DUPREE\u003cbr\u003eHe's thirteen\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eHe lives in a three_story clapboard Victorian\u003cbr\u003eon Gary Street\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eHe's an eighth grader\u003cbr\u003eat Willowbank Junior High\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eHe's in Mrs. Smithson's homeroom,\u003cbr\u003eMr. Bellamy's Earth Science,\u003cbr\u003eand Mr. Hogan's Math\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eHe roots for the Phillies\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eHe's the younger of two kids\u003cbr\u003ein his family (but his brother, Dixon, is\u003cbr\u003ea LOT nicer than Denise)\u003cbr\u003elike me.\u003cbr\u003eYou see, Malcolm and me,\u003cbr\u003ewe've been friends since we were little,\u003cbr\u003esince the day I finally got tired of trying to tag along\u003cbr\u003ewith Denise and her girlfriends.\u003cbr\u003eThat afternoon, according to Dad, I looked out\u003cbr\u003ethe window and saw Malcolm playing in the street.\u003cbr\u003eI went outside, told him my name, then rode\u003cbr\u003emy tricycle down the block to his house,\u003cbr\u003ewhere we played every outdoor kids' game\u003cbr\u003ewe could think of:\u003cbr\u003eCops and Robbers\u003cbr\u003eRed Light, Green Light\u003cbr\u003eJump rope\u003cbr\u003eHide_and_Seek\u003cbr\u003eDodgeball             Hopscotch\u003cbr\u003euntil it was time for supper and my father\u003cbr\u003ecame to take me home.\u003cbr\u003e\"You'd never thrown a tantrum,\u003cbr\u003ebut that night you and Malcolm hid\u003cbr\u003eunder the Duprees' front porch,\u003cbr\u003ewhere none of us could squeeze in\u003cbr\u003eand reach you. You refused to come out unless we promised\u003cbr\u003eyou could play again the whole next day, just the same.\u003cbr\u003eOf course we promised...and ever since,\u003cbr\u003eyou two have gotten along\u003cbr\u003elike peas in a pod.\"","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303184912613,"sku":"NP9780440421900","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440421900.jpg?v=1767730617","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/kaleidoscope-eyes-isbn-9780440421900","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}