{"product_id":"the-book-of-one-hundred-truths-isbn-9780440420859","title":"The Book of One Hundred Truths","description":"\u003ci\u003e\"I should probably mention something right now before this story goes any further: my name is Theodora Grumman, and I am a liar.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's hard for Thea to write four truths a day in the notebook her mother gave her for the summer. Especially when her grandparents' house on the Jersey Shore is even more packed with family than usual, and her cousin Jocelyn wont leave her alone. Jocelyn just might be the world's neatest and nosiest seven-year-old, and she wants to know what's in Thea's notebook. But Thea won't tell anyone about the secret she has promised to keep--or how she lost her best friend (Truth #12), whose name was Gwen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Thea has to babysit in the afternoons, and all Jocelyn wants to do is spy on people. Neither of them expect to see Aunt Ellen and Aunt Celia at the boardwalk in the middle of the day, or for their aunts to lie and insist they were at work. Could it be Thea's not the only one in the family keeping secrets this summer?“Issues of secrets and lies will resonate with young readers. . . . A  compelling novel.”–The Bulletin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Strong characterizations. . . . Readers will respond to [Jocelyn’s]  fortitude.”–BooklistJulie Schumacher is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Book of One Hundred Truths, The Chain Letter, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Grass Angel, \u003c\/i\u003ea PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Children’s Literature, all published by Delacorte Press. She is also the author of numerous short stories and two books for adults, including \u003ci\u003eThe Body Is Water,\u003c\/i\u003e an Ernest Hemingway Foundation\/PEN Award Finalist for First Fiction and an ALA Notable Book of the Year. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJulie Schumacher is the director of the creative writing program and a professor of English at the University of Minnesota. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in St. Paul.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Probably because they didn’t trust me, my parents were grilling me at the  airport in Minneapolis, asking all the usual travel questions. Did I have  my backpack? Yes. Did I have the claim check for my suitcase? Yes. Did I  need to use the bathroom?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Guess what? They have bathrooms on planes now,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My father patted his pockets. “Do you need any chewing gum?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I already have some.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “A bottle of water?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Dad,” I said. “This is kind of insulting.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Okay, I’ll stop. A magazine?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Every summer since I was six years old, my parents had been sending me to  visit my father’s relatives at the beach in New Jersey. They were always  more anxious about it than I was. I liked eating lunch on the plane at  thirty thousand feet, and I liked staying at my grand-  parents’ house, which was full of lumpy, mismatched furniture and  old-fashioned wallpaper that would have been seriously ugly anywhere else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yes, I said. I had a magazine. I had absolutely everything that a person  going on a plane could possibly want.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But then my mother cleared her throat, opened a shopping bag I hadn’t  noticed, and offered me a notebook. It was light blue, with thick, heavy  unlined paper—a much nicer notebook than the kind I used at school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What’s that for?” I felt uneasy. I was already   bringing a lot of things with me: a gift for my grandparents, a lunch and  some junk food, my CD player and a dozen CDs, and several books that my  father insisted I would want to read.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’s a notebook of truths,” my mother said. She flipped the pages of the  notebook and held it toward me. “You can write anything you want in here,  as long as every single thing you write is true.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What do you mean, every single thing?” I looked at the notebook but  didn’t touch it. On its cover was a white star about the size of my  fingertip. All around us, people were pushing strollers and dragging  suitcases   toward their gates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, I’m not talking about essays, or even paragraphs,” my mother said.  She was standing very close to me; I could smell peppermint on her breath.  “I’m only talking about observations. Write a few sentences at first. You  can make a list.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Gee. A list.” I shifted my backpack to my other shoulder. “That sounds  exciting.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My mother didn’t appreciate sarcasm. “Notebooks are private,” she went on.  I was almost exactly her height, and she was looking at me forehead to  forehead, eye to eye. “That’s the best thing about them. You can write  down any truths at all. Anything you’re thinking.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “The world is round,” I said. “How’s that for a truth?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My mother tucked her hair behind her ears and   said that the world is round was a fact instead of a truth, and that there  was a difference. She said she suspected I knew what it was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Time to get on that plane,” my father said. He clapped his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Here was a truth: my father didn’t like goodbyes. He didn’t like train  stations or bus depots or airports. I could tell he was nervous by the way  he had been jingling the change in his pockets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A tall blond woman ran over my foot with her rolling suitcase.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We have one more minute,” my mother said. She straightened the sleeve of  my T-shirt and pulled me aside. “You’ll be gone for three weeks.  Twenty-two days. If you write down four or five true things every day”—she  tapped the cover of the notebook—“you’ll have a hundred. A hundred true  things.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “A hundred,” I repeated. I had to admit that one hundred truths had a  certain ring to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You’ll feel better if you use this,” my mother said. “You never know what  you might discover. You might learn something new.” Her green eyes were  like matching traffic lights. “You might find out something new about who  you are.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I didn’t want to get into that kind of discussion. I took the notebook. It  felt good in my hands; the blue cover was soft.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Off you go, then,” my father said. He gave my ticket to the flight  attendant, who wrapped a paper bracelet around my wrist as if I were two  years old instead of almost thirteen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I started down the carpeted hallway and waved. My parents, their arms  around each other’s shoulders, waved back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We’ll see you soon,” my father said. “Call us when you get there. And  have a good time. Behave yourself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I told him I would.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But I should probably mention something right now, before this story goes  any further: my name is Theodora Grumman, and I am a liar.","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302769610981,"sku":"NP9780440420859","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440420859.jpg?v=1767738478","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-book-of-one-hundred-truths-isbn-9780440420859","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}