Everything you need to understand or teach The Carnival in My Mind by Barbara Wersba.
Harvey Beaumont is fourteen, short, and lonely. He spends his days at a New York City prep school being tortured by the other boys, and he spends his evenings dreaming of residing in the midst of a carnival because his mother favors her prized Irish Setters far more than Harvey. All this changes, however, when Harvey meets Chandler Brown, a struggling, would-be actress who befriends Harvey one afternoon on a city bus. Life...