Out of the Dust meets Me and Marvin Gardens in this coming-of-age novel about a young misfit searching for the truth of her family's past, set against the backdrop of an environmental cover-up.Twelve-year-old Xyla is sick of two things: working on her family's sixth-generation Iowa farm and her mother's nagging words, "Pay attention!" But Xyla can't help getting lost in the thoughts that fill her head, sometimes leaving a wake of costly mistakes. If only her mother would tell her something, anything, about her father, who left when she was little. When Xyla finds her mother's hidden childhood diary, she's soon sucked into the story of a hardscrabble life on the family farm in the 1980s. Can she find the key to her past and her father in the pages?Xyla's life grows even more complicated as a new family begins renting a vacant house on the farm, and the daughter Alegría is focused and motivated-the kind of kid Xyla is sure her mother prefers. But when the girls stumble upon an environmental disaster right next door, Xyla must trust her new friend and her complicated mother to figure out how to stop it. Alternating timelines in prose and verse connect the quiet desperation of Iowa farmers in the late 1980s to the modern farming landscape in this layered and voice-driven middle grade debut.

Far below the ocean's surface / live tiny, restless creatures / called zooplankton. / They are the ocean's heart.The largest migration of animals on Earth happens every single night as billions upon billions of microscopic animals-zooplankton-paddle from the ocean's depths to its surface. On their journey, they swim daunting distances through predator-infested waters in pursuit of a midnight feast. Zooplankton are so small, and they live so deep, that we may never see them-but the entire food web depends upon their survival. Venture into the ocean's twilight zone with Jilanne Hoffmann's lyrical, evocative prose and Khoa Le's luminous illustrations of these tiny yet magnificent creatures.

Far below the ocean's surface / live tiny, restless creatures / called zooplankton. / They are the ocean's heart.The largest migration of animals on Earth happens every single night as billions upon billions of microscopic animals-zooplankton-paddle from the ocean's depths to its surface. On their journey, they swim daunting distances through predator-infested waters in pursuit of a midnight feast. Zooplankton are so small, and they live so deep, that we may never see them-but the entire food web depends upon their survival. Venture into the ocean's twilight zone with Jilanne Hoffmann's lyrical, evocative prose and Khoa Le's luminous illustrations of these tiny yet magnificent creatures.

Out of the Dust meets Me and Marvin Gardens in this coming-of-age novel about a young misfit searching for the truth of her family's past, set against the backdrop of an environmental cover-up.Twelve-year-old Xyla is sick of two things: working on her family's sixth-generation Iowa farm and her mother's nagging words, "Pay attention!" But Xyla can't help getting lost in the thoughts that fill her head, sometimes leaving a wake of costly mistakes. If only her mother would tell her something, anything, about her father, who left when she was little. When Xyla finds her mother's hidden childhood diary, she's soon sucked into the story of a hardscrabble life on the family farm in the 1980s. Can she find the key to her past and her father in the pages?Xyla's life grows even more complicated as a new family begins renting a vacant house on the farm, and the daughter Alegría is focused and motivated-the kind of kid Xyla is sure her mother prefers. But when the girls stumble upon an environmental disaster right next door, Xyla must trust her new friend and her complicated mother to figure out how to stop it. Alternating timelines in prose and verse connect the quiet desperation of Iowa farmers in the late 1980s to the modern farming landscape in this layered and voice-driven middle grade debut.

Far below the ocean's surface / live tiny, restless creatures / called zooplankton. / They are the ocean's heart.The largest migration of animals on Earth happens every single night as billions upon billions of microscopic animals-zooplankton-paddle from the ocean's depths to its surface. On their journey, they swim daunting distances through predator-infested waters in pursuit of a midnight feast. Zooplankton are so small, and they live so deep, that we may never see them-but the entire food web depends upon their survival. Venture into the ocean's twilight zone with Jilanne Hoffmann's lyrical, evocative prose and Khoa Le's luminous illustrations of these tiny yet magnificent creatures.

Far below the ocean's surface / live tiny, restless creatures / called zooplankton. / They are the ocean's heart.The largest migration of animals on Earth happens every single night as billions upon billions of microscopic animals-zooplankton-paddle from the ocean's depths to its surface. On their journey, they swim daunting distances through predator-infested waters in pursuit of a midnight feast. Zooplankton are so small, and they live so deep, that we may never see them-but the entire food web depends upon their survival. Venture into the ocean's twilight zone with Jilanne Hoffmann's lyrical, evocative prose and Khoa Le's luminous illustrations of these tiny yet magnificent creatures.