Anne Ylvisaker

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. Until tomboy Tugs befriends the popular Aggie Millhouse, wins a brand-new Brownie camera in the Independence Day raffle, and...

"'Eleven is not too young for war,' Ike said to Barfoot, who swished his tail agreeably, then lumbered to the yard table and stuck his nose in an unattended pie." When a steamboat arrives heralding the news that Iowa has been called up to represent the Union of the United States of America, Ike...

Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and football fever hit Goodhue, Iowa, scrawny Ned Button can think of nothing but the game. Sure, Lester’s younger bully of a brother is determined to keep Ned and his gang from ever getting near a real pickup game...