This collection of essays drawn from five different disciplines – history, the arts, philosophy, science, and social science – represents the kinds of writing that have characterized each discourse community, and illustrates both the clashes and agreements within those communities about the nature of effective writing.

Communities of Discourse: The Rhetoric of Disciplines

Schmidt, Gary D.

Vande Kopple, William J.

Literature & Fiction

Pearson

The Sin Eater

While living on his grandparents' farm in New Hampshire, Cole hears stories about a mysterious sin-eater which enable Cole to learn forgiveness and to connect with his ancestors. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

Self-Help

Death & Grief

Puffin

While serving as a British Fencible to maintain the peace in eighteenth-century Ireland, Anson finds that his sympathy for a hedge master, a teacher devoted to teaching Irish children their forbidden language and culture, places him in conflict with the law of King George II. Reprint.

Anson's Way

Children's Books

Edging the Boundaries is a genre-based children's literature sourcebook that emphasizes issues in thinking and writing about the literary qualities of children's literature. This book examines the field by defining and discussing literature genres and their qualities. This book includes information and issues about literary genres, writing/thinking opportunities, teaching pointers for classroom use, and examples of the best authors and illustrators in each genre. For elementary school educators, or anyone interested in the genre of children's literature.

Edging the Boundaries of Children's Literature

Winters, Carol J.

Teen & Young Adult

Allyn&Bacon

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them. He and Lizzie try to save her community, but there’s a terrible price to pay for going against the tide. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Listening Library (Audio)

Mr. Heavy Legs walked past Cooper and got into the jeep. He turned on the ignition and backed up to Cooper. He handed him a card with a single phone number on it. “I’m not forcing you to come, kid. Not yet. But things are going to start happening fast. Very fast. Call if you want me. And one thing more: Next time I see you, I won’t be asking you to come.” “Do you know what happened to my father?” “Of course I do,” said Mr. Heavy Legs. Then he drove away. “You’re my first boy, Cooper, my first boy,” his grandfather tells him just before he dies. Now, fourteen-year-old Cooper Jewett has no one, not even a dog to keep him company. The only thing that keeps him going is looking after the dairy farm. All of a sudden, strange and inexplicable things begin to happen. Big men in suits with black sedans are all over Cooper’s small New Hampshire town. The President of the United States invites Cooper for a chat at her headquarters. Her opponent insists that Cooper join him on his campaign. Cooper’s house is searched at night, and his barn is burned down. His neighbors, even the sheriff, are behaving strangely. Why?

First Boy

“The Dump” is what Doug Swieteck calls his new home in upstate New York. He lands there in the summer of 1968, when the Apollo space missions are under way, Joe Pepitone is slugging for the New York Yankees, and the Vietnam War is raging. At home he lives with a father who has lost his way and a brother accused of robbery. And Doug’s oldest brother is returning from Vietnam. Who knows what wounds his missions have given him? But Doug has his own mission, too, and it begins when he first sees the plates of John James Audubon’s Birds of America at the local library. His mission will lead him to Lil Spicer, who shows him how to drink a really cold Coke, to Mrs. Windermere, who drags him to a theater opening, and to the customers of his Saturday grocery deliveries, who together will open a world as strange to him as the lunar landscape. Swieteck, who first appeared in Gary D. Schmidt’s Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars, will discover the transforming power of art over disaster in a story about creativity and loss, love and recovery, and survival.

Okay for Now

Historical Fiction

Gary Schmidt's First Boy fast-paced political thriller will have the reader turning the pages in anticipation of the next clue.
"You're my first boy, Cooper, my first boy," grandfather says just before he dies. All alone in the world, without even a dog, the only thing that keeps Cooper going is running the dairy farm.
Suddenly, black sedans are swarming all around Cooper's small New Hampshire town, driven by mysterious men in dark suits. Cooper's barn is burned to the ground, and his house is broken into and searched during the night. The President of the United States calls on Cooper for a visit, and her opponent wants Cooper to join him on the campaign trail. 
 Who exactly is Cooper Jewett, and what does the government want with him?

Contemporary

Square Fish

Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness

A testament to the power of stories, and how they may bring hope even in times of darkness.
As night falls, the women gather their children to listen to Mara tell her stories. They are stories of light and hope and freedom, stories of despair and stories of miracles, stories of expected pain and stories of unexpected joy--all told in the darkness of the concentration camp barracks. 
Through extensive research noted in the back of the book, Gary Schmidt has skillfully woven together stories from such sources as the Jewish religious scholar, Martin Buber; Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel; and folklorists, Steve Zeitlin and Yaffa Eliach. Combining lore of the past with tales born in the concentration camps, Mara's stories speak to us from a time that must never be forgotten.

As Otten and Schmidt note in their preface, voice is a broad metaphor. Thus the 41 essays in this collection provide varied approaches, examining point of view, focus, selection of details, tone, and even illustrations as part of the narrative identity. Eight genres, including picture books, fantasy, realism, and biography, receive separate study in generally brief articles by writers and more substantial analyses by critics. . . . In her contribution, Jill Paton Walsh describes contemporary criticism as an `impenetrable thicket of technical terms.' In most cases, the critics here avoid jargon. They speak clearly, offering practical criticsm accessible to anyone seriously concerned about narrative technique in children's literature. ChoiceAlthough children's literature is now a recognized branch of English and American literature, much of the criticism of it has focused on teaching methodology, history, and basic exposition. Since children's books are no less a part of the literary tradition than adult books, there is room for new approaches to children's literature. While the importance of the voice of the narrator is emerging in criticism of adult fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, little has been written about this subject in children's literature. Examining the voice of the narrator can identify hitherto unexplored and unrecognized aspects of children's literature.The essays in this collection were contributed by noted authors and critics. Their inquiry is divided into eight genres--the illustrated book, folk literature and myth, fantasy, realism, poetry, historical fiction, biography, and informational books--and each genre is discussed in terms of the authorial voice and the critical voice. Each of the essays works toward an understanding of how the voice of the narrator functions in a given work or in the larger corpus of an author's work. The result is not only a greater understanding of how specific authors shape their material and how authors use voice for particular effects, but also how the narrator differs functionally from one genre to the next. This unique essay collection is particularly suited for use in children's literature courses. Because the contributors are some of the most significant authors and critics in children's literature in English, it should also be part of any academic library's holdings in the criticism of children's literature in particular and literary criticism in general.

The Voice of the Narrator in Children's Literature: Insights from Writers and Critics (Contributions to the Study of World Literature)

Otten, Charlott

Praeger

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schmidt, Gary D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Schmidt, Gary D.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schmidt, Gary D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Communities of Discourse: The Rhetoric of Disciplines

The Sin Eater

Anson's Way

Edging the Boundaries of Children's Literature

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

First Boy

Okay for Now

First Boy

Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness

The Voice of the Narrator in Children's Literature: Insights from Writers and Critics (Contributions to the Study of World Literature)