Highacres

A newly illustrated edition with reader's notes for tricky words. Complete and unabridged.

A cement-mixer maker gets lost on a mountain—and a fourteen-year-old girl with a Wishing-rock finds him. For Jerry Travis, the stranger may be the first step toward the far-off world she’s dreamed of seeing.

Jerry Travis stands on a sunlit rock above a valley, gazing toward the winding road beyond Kettle Mountain. When her wish brings her to the city and the bustling Lincoln School, she must trade familiar trails and Sunnyside’s warm welcome for new classmates, new rules, and a place in the Westley family. The Westley children have fine opportunities, but they don’t always know what to make of them—or of their spirited mountain guest. And Highacres, the grand old mansion transformed into their school, holds more than classrooms: a locked tower room keeps the past close, while the school’s promise of fellowship challenges everyone to look beyond themselves. Can Jerry help her new friends discover what matters before the mountain girl’s own dreams lead her somewhere else?

This complete and unabridged edition of Jane Abbott’s story includes reader’s notes to help young readers untangle tricky words.

At Wise Minds Press we believe the years between childhood and the teenage leap are a golden window: curiosity runs high, vocabulary explodes and a single page can spark a lifetime of possibility. We were those wide‑eyed readers once—hungry for challenge, eager to roam far‑flung worlds, and guided by parents and teachers who knew the right story could light the path ahead. Today we honor that legacy by bringing time‑tested classics to young readers complete and unabridged, with reader's notes for the tricky words, and original illustrations for Grades 4‑7 (Ages 9‑12).

Our mission is simple: to place in every young reader's hands a bridge to literature's greatest adventures, turning boundless imagination into confidence, empathy, and the readiness to write their own remarkable futures.