Esme Raji Codell

Hunky Dory is at the top of her class in charm school. She can make flowers wilt like wet spaghetti. She can make thunder rumble like a whale's bellyache. And she can turn any prince into a frog-but she always changes them back. That's when she knows there'll be a problem

Diary of a Fairy Godmother

A first-year teacher in the Chicago public school system reveals her frustrations, achievements, and struggles to maintain her individuality in the face of administrators, abusive parents, gang members, and weary teachers.

Diary of a Teacher's First Year

Educating Esme

Struggling with school and her feelings since her father left, Sahara gets a fresh start with a new and unique teacher who supports her writing talents and the individuality of each of her classmates.

Sahara Special

His real name was John Chapman. He grew apples. But wait. So what? Why should we remember him and read about him and think about him and talk about him today, more than two hundred years after he was born? Why should we call him a hero? Esme Raji Codell and Lynne Rae Perkins show us, in eloquent words and exhilarating pictures, why Johnny Appleseed matters now, perhaps more than ever, in our loud and wired and fast-paced world.

The Legend and Legacy of John "Appleseed" Chapman

Seed by Seed

Like every fifth grader, Esm Raji Codell spent her days within the small world of school, neighborhood, and family. But this small world provides rich material for the often hilarious, always engrossing stories and vignettes in this book. Esm tells us about: the night she and her mother became "egg vigilantes" against an illegally parked car; her freewheeling first school, where kids could choose disco dancing instead of math; her dangerous neighborhood, which her father made seem friendly and wondrous; the Passover dinner when she stole a matzoh right out from under a rabbi; the awe-inspiring, life-threatening Chicago snowstorms; and lessons about love from tea-reading gypsies and Popeye cartoons.

Sing a Song of Tuna Fish: Hard-to-Swallow Stories From Fifth Grade: Sing a Song of Tuna Fish

Old Scroogemacher was as sour as a pickle and had a tongue like horseradish. He was a tyrant to the poor workers in his waistcoat factory, and even on the last night of Hanukkah, he had the nerve to set the clocks back. What a shtunk. When his nephew Moshe protests, Scroogemacher laughs. "Hanukkah, shmanukah," he says. "It's just another night to me."Oy vey iz mir, was he wrong! Who would have thought that not one, not two, but THREE ghostly rabbis would visit him that night? As Scroogemacher travels back and forth with his wise spirits from the time of the Maccabees, to the present-day tenements and then on to the wonders and horrors of the future, he begins to understand that some good can happen from a little remembering. Especially on Hanukkah, Shmanukkah.But do the rabbis manage to turn Scroogemacher into a mensch? Can a leopard change his spots? So you'll read the book, you want that I tell you everything right here?

Hanukkah, Shmanukkah!

The author presents stories of growing up in Chicago with her single mother, capturing some of her pranks, holiday mishaps, and events in her school.

A Memoir of My Fifth-Grade Year

Sing a Song of Tuna Fish

Paris has come for piano lessons, not chopped-liver sandwiches or French lessons or free advice. But when old Mrs. Rosen gives her a little bit more than she can handle, it might be just what Paris needs to understand the bully in her brother’s life…and the bullies of the world. This companion novel to the award-winning Sahara Special is an affecting look at what it means to be your brother’s keeper, and how we hold onto hope when the world seems dark. (Rose-colored glasses optional.)

Esme Raji Codell

About

Books

Join the club