Michelle Houts Author Visit

Indian Hill Elementary and Primary School are excited to welcome award-winning author, Michelle Houts, on December 18th and 19th!

Order books from the list below and Michelle will sign them during her visit.

Books will be delivered to the school before the event. Select Pickup at Checkout

During checkout, please include your student's name, grade, and teacher in the Order Instructions box. This is important to make sure your child receives his or her order. 

Use code: HOUTS during checkout to receive 20% off your order.

Nuts About Science: Lucy's Lab - The Bookmatters
Nuts About Science: Lucy's Lab - The Bookmatters

Nuts About Science: Lucy's Lab

$4.99
Introducing Lucy Marie Watkins and a new STEM-based chapter book series that's all about discovering the wonders of the world around us from an educator favorite!

From IRA Children’s Book Award-winner, Michelle Houts, Lucy Saves Some Squirrels draws on STEM themes and is aligned with curriculum guidelines to bring a love of science to young readers, inspiring them to start their own labs and explore their world.

On Lucy’s first day of second grade, she’s excited to meet her new teacher, Miss Flippo, and find out everything’s she’s going to learn about this year in school. And when Miss Flippo tells the class that they’re going to have their very own science lab, complete with lab coats and goggles, Lucy can’t wait to start exploring.

But one thing is troubling her. The tree that sat outside her first-grade classroom all year is gone. Where are the squirrels going to live?

Inspired by her classroom lab, Lucy starts her own research mission to find out what happened to the tree, and then to lobby for the school to plant a new one. With the help of her cousin, Cora, and their new classmates, Lucy discovers that science is everywhere you look, and a lab can be anywhere you look.
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Solids, Liquids, Guess Who's Got Gas: Lucy's Lab #2 - The Bookmatters
Solids, Liquids, Guess Who's Got Gas: Lucy's Lab #2 - The Bookmatters

Solids, Liquids, Guess Who's Got Gas: Lucy's Lab #2

$5.99
The second book exciting title in the STEM-based Lucy's Lab chapter book series, where your science discoveries are only limited by your imagination.

Autumn has arrived, and at Granite City Elementary School everyone is gearing up for the biggest and best event of the year, the Harvest Festival. The whole school is excited about the games, the contests, the food, and most of all—the costumes! Everyone except Lucy. She doesn’t like dressing up, and has no desire to be a fairy princess or rock star, even for one day.

But Lucy is excited about the new science unit Miss Flippo has started: the states of matter. Lucy and her friends understand solids and liquids. They’re easy. But gasses are more difficult to grasp.

When the class goes on a field trip to an orchard and Stewart Swinefest eats too many apples, and gets a serious stomachache, Lucy suddenly understands that even if you can’t see gasses they can fill space and expand, and even make you move.

And with Stewart feeling better, she has a really great idea for her Harvest Festival costume, too.

The second book in a new chapter book series from IRA Children’s Book Award-winner, Michelle Houts, Solids, Liquids, Guess Who’s Got Gas draws on STEM themes and is aligned with curriculum guidelines to bring a love of science to young readers, inspiring them to start their own labs and explore their world.
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Colossal Fossil Fiasco: Lucy Lab's #3 - The Bookmatters
Colossal Fossil Fiasco: Lucy Lab's #3 - The Bookmatters

Colossal Fossil Fiasco: Lucy Lab's #3

$4.99
The third book exciting title in the STEM-based Lucy’s Lab chapter book series, where your science discoveries are only limited by your imagination.

Lucy accidentally overhears her parents talking about the family getting a second pet. But what pet should they get?

At school, Lucy’s class is learning about fossils and the plants and animals that left them behind.

One afternoon, Lucy finds a special rock, and Miss Flippo gets very excited! But when Lucy’s precious fossil goes missing, everyone in Room 2C is a suspect. . . .
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Silent Swoop: An Owl, An Egg, and a Warm Shirt Pocket - The Bookmatters
Silent Swoop: An Owl, An Egg, and a Warm Shirt Pocket - The Bookmatters

Silent Swoop: An Owl, An Egg, and a Warm Shirt Pocket

$16.95
An owl swoops down to lay her egg in a coal yard - a dangerous spot for a fragile egg! Rescued by Walter, a bird expert with a big heart and warm shirt pocket, the egg miraculously hatches and is aptly named Coal. Thus begins the tender story of rescue, rehabilitation, and most of all, friendship. Watercolor illustrations styled in soft realism capture the connections between Coal and the people whose lives he touches. Complementing the story are additional pages of science information, literacy connections, and STEM activities.

"This delightfully told true story will go in the owl section of my library. A story I won't forget."

Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon
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Sea Glass Summer - The Bookmatters
Sea Glass Summer - The Bookmatters

Sea Glass Summer

$16.99
Author Michelle Houts and illustrator Bagram Ibatoulline explore the magic of one of the seaside’s greatest wonders and the bonds that link us through time.

One summer, a boy named Thomas visits his grandmother at her seaside cottage. She gives him a magnifying glass that once belonged to his grandfather, and with it Thomas explores the beach, turning grains of sand into rocks and dark clamshells into swirling mazes of black, gray, and white. When his grandmother shows him a piece of sea glass, Thomas is transfixed. That night he dreams of an old shipyard and the breaking of a bottle. Could the very piece of sea glass on his nightstand have come from that bottle? For the rest of the summer, he searches for more sea glass and hopes to have dreams that will reveal more of the sea’s secrets. A stunning ode to stories and the seaside, this picture book invites readers to imagine the ocean of possibility that lives in every small or forgotten treasure.
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Winterfrost - The Bookmatters
Winterfrost - The Bookmatters

Winterfrost

$8.99
“This folkloric tale is rich with depth and tradition and full of a child’s wonder of the natural world. . . . A timeless story.” — Kirkus Reviews

Christmas has come, and with it a sparkling white winterfrost. When Bettina’s parents are called away unexpectedly, leaving her in charge of the house, the farm, and baby Pia, Bettina neglects to set out the traditional bowl of Christmas rice pudding for the tiny nisse. No one besides her grandfather ever believed the nisse were real, so what harm could there be in forgetting this silly custom? But when baby Pia disappears, the magic of the nisse makes itself known. To find her sister and set things right, Bettina must venture into the miniature world of these usually helpful, but sometimes mischievous, folk.
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Hopefully the Scarecrow - The Bookmatters
Hopefully the Scarecrow - The Bookmatters

Hopefully the Scarecrow

$18.99
"A beautifully crafted friendship tale that’s just right for storytime." --Kirkus

The perfect Fall book for kids! A poignant picture book about a scarecrow who befriends the young girl who reads to him day after day until one day he's left wondering where she is.

A scarecrow stood in the garden. Tall, proud, and smiling. Every day a girl brought her favorite books to the garden and she read to him. He heard tales of courage and of hope. And when she said, "The End," the scarecrow always felt a little bit taller and braver. Year after year, she came and she read to him.

Until one spring, two different hands picked him up from the garden shed and placed him in the garden. He waited, but she didn't come to read to him.

With poignant words from award-winning author Michelle Houts and lush illustrations by Pura Belpré Honor winner Sara Palacios, Hopefully the Scarecrow is a tender distillation of the enduring power of friendship and a heartwarming look at the ways stories connect us.

Perfect for fans of The Leaf Thief, Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, and The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry and The Fan Bros! 

A great Back-to-School, Autumn, or Halloween read! 
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Beef Princess of Practical County - The Bookmatters
Beef Princess of Practical County - The Bookmatters

Beef Princess of Practical County

$7.99
After years of waiting, it is finally Libby Ryan’s turn to shine at the Practical County Fair. Libby is filled with excitement as she and her granddad pick out two calves for her to raise on her family’s cattle farm, in hopes of winning the annual steer competition. Against her father’s advice, Libby gives the calves names, even though both steers will eventually be auctioned off. After a few months of preparing for the Practical County Fair, Libby finds that she is growing closer to her steers with each passing day, and the pressure to win Grand Champion is mounting.

Luckily, Libby can count on her best friend to get her through most of the county fair chaos. Yet once reality sets in and she realizes that her steers will soon be sold to the highest bidder, the chaos in Libby’s heart becomes
too much to bear.

Michelle Houts lives on a grain and livestock farm in West Central Ohio with her husband and three children. This is her first novel.
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Barn At Night - The Bookmatters
Barn At Night - The Bookmatters

Barn At Night

$17.99
When you grow up on a farm, adventures happen all day long—even at night! On a cold winter evening, a father and daughter go out to the barn and are welcomed with a warm scene. Who is awake, who is asleep, and who is just making their first appearance in the barn? Michelle Houts' lyrical poetry paired with Jen Betton's glowing watercolors create a warm and wonderful bedtime story—best shared together.
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When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike - The Bookmatters
When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike - The Bookmatters

When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike

$17.95
In 1955, sixty-seven-year-old Emma “Grandma” Gatewood became the first woman to solo hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one through hike. Michelle Houts and Erica Magnus bring us the first children’s book about her feat and the unexpected challenges she encountered on the journey she initially called a “lark.”

It took her two tries, but in 1955, sixty-seven-year-old Emma “Grandma” Gatewood became the first woman to solo hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one thru-hike. Gatewood, who left an abusive marriage after raising eleven children, has become a legend for those who hike the trail, and in her home state of Ohio, where she helped found the Buckeye Trail. In recent years, she has been the subject of a bestselling biography and a documentary film.

In When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike, Michelle Houts brings us the first children’s book about her feat, which she accomplished without professional gear or even a tent. Houts chronicles the spirit of a seasoned outdoorswoman and mother of eleven whose grit and determination helped her to hike over two thousand miles. Erica Magnus’s vibrant illustrations capture the wild animals, people from all walks of life, and unexpected challenges that this strong-willed woman encountered on the journey she initially called a “lark.”

Children ages 4–10 will delight in this narrative nonfiction work as they accompany Emma Gatewood on the adventure of a lifetime and witness her transformation from grandmother to hiking legend, becoming “Grandma” to all.

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Books
will be
delivered
to the school
before the event.

Select
Pickup at Checkout