She’s already got her resume, business cards, and mustard packets (which are so much more grown up than ketchup) ready. So why is it taking eleventeen hundred years? Frannie’s class is visiting the local radio station and the radio host is no where to be found. Should Frannie cover for him—after all, this could be her big break! But what happens when listeners call in with questions, and Frannie doesn’t know the answers?

Frannie has been named principal for the day and she couldn't be more excited! To spend the whole day in an office?-with a desk, a copier, and swivel chair, no less?-is beyond her wildest dreams! Pretty soon all these office supplies are making her a little punchy, and before she knows it she's accidentally setting off the fire alarm, which is no small offense. But as principal of her own school, does she get to come up with her own punishment?

When Frannie notices her aunt's dog limping, she sees it as her big break to be a vet, so it's off to the veterinarian's office, where she can showcase her doggy-diagnostic skills. But in true Frannie form, all she can pull off is a doggy disaster . . .

Somebody's getting married! Frannie has the important job of flower girl in her best friend Elliott's mother's wedding, and Frannie's new dog is the ring bearer! As Elliott's mother plans her wedding, Frannie discovers her latest calling: Wedding Planner! Frannie and Elliott work together to make sure his mother has the best wedding day ever, but with Frannie involved, you can count on some wedding-day mayhem.

In the vein of bestselling memoirs about mental illness like Andrew Solomon's Noonday Demon, Sarah Hepola's Blackout, and Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind comes a gorgeously immersive, immediately relatable, and brilliantly funny memoir about living life on the razor's edge of panic. The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern--how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in New York, Amanda experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching-that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away-Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true. Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Amanda Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.

ItÕs opening night at a local restaurant, and the service is a little slow. Always on the lookout for employment opportunities, Frannie sidles up to the bus station, grabs some bread baskets and water pitchers, and lends a helping hand. Who knows, maybe the restaurant will hire her on permanently? ThatÕs what she hopes anyway, until she discovers patrons eating escargotÑactual snails! Frannie knows itÕs up to her to warn people away from the disgusting mollusks. But can she do it without ruining the restaurantÕs reputation?

Ducky is unlucky—somehow things just always seem to go wrong. So he decides to look for a four-leaf clover; that will do the trick! But when he goes to the park, there is none to be found. However, what Ducky finds instead is much greater: he meets Piggy, Bunny, and Pup and realizes that having friends makes him the luckiest duck of all! Lucky Ducky is a bright and bubbly new picture book that shows young readers how luck is all about how you perceive it and that anyone has the power to turn his or her luck around.

Second-grader Keena Ford loves writing in her journal. One day, Keena accidentally leaves her journal in the apartment of her mean classmate Tiffany Harris. The next day, Tiffany informs Keena that she's read the journal and is going to tell all of Keena's secrets! Well, unless Keena does everything Tiffany says, of course. With a little help from her brother, some classic fables, and a visiting author, Keena discovers what she must do to stand up to Tiffany and apologize to her friends.

The most adorable pet monster ever shows what everyone needs: hugs! When Shelly adopts her pet monster Hugsby she loves everything about him. It doesn't matter that he can't do fancy tricks, or whistle, or blow bubbles. He gives the best hugs ever. But when Pet Monster Show and Tell Day arrives, Shelly worries. What can Hugsby do? All the other pet monsters can juggle or do flips or even Hula-hoop! Finally, it's time to show everyone her beloved Hugsby . . . and finally Shelly realizes that what she loves about Hugsby is more important than fancy tricks. Hugsby gives the best hugs ever!

Funny Business is a compilation of humour. It exposes students to different styles of writing and text types, such as first- and third-person narrative; explanatory, informative and descriptive texts; poetry and lists. Contrasts and comparisons can be made among thematically linked fiction extracts, poems, non-fictions and new writing.