Buttons

Tugs Esther Button was born to a luckless family. Buttons don't presume to be singers or dancers. They aren't athletes or artists, good listeners, or model citizens. The one time a Button ever made the late Goodhue Gazette - before Harvey Moore came along with his talk of launching a new paper - was when Great Grandaddy Ike accidentally set Town Hall ablaze. Tomboy Tugs looks at her hapless family and sees her own reflection looking back until she befriends popular Aggie Millhouse, wins a new camera in the Independence Day raffle, and stumbles into a mystery only she can solve. Suddenly this is a summer of change - and by its end, being a Button may just turn out to be what one clumsy, funny, spirited, and very observant young heroine decides to make of it.

Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, Tugs Button's scrawny cousin Ned can think of nothing but football. Sure, Lester's younger bully of a brother is determined to keep Ned and his gang from ever getting near a real pickup game. But Ned has a few things going for him: he can catch and sometimes even throw, much to his surprise. And he's got his eccentric grandpa Ike, who may have less get-up-and-go these days, but no shortage of down-home wisdom to pass along-like that being a football star is less about being big and more about playing as a team and honing your strategy, and that having friends and family in your corner is a bigger prize than a lucky football will ever be. From the author of The Luck of the Buttons comes another story about a sometimes hapless, always winning family that scores big points for humor and heart.