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On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 20 of 516 items
By Joseph Bruchac, Liz Amini-Holmes. 2018
Short biography of Chester Nez, who, after being taught that his native language and culture were useless at Fort Defiance…
School, was later called on to use his Navajo language to help create an unbreakable military code during WWII. For grades 2-4. 2018By Katherine Paterson. 2017
Cuba, 1961. After reading flyers posted around her school, thirteen-year-old Lora convinces her family to let her spend a year…
in Fidel Castro's army of literacy teachers. Although Lora faces danger in her mission, she willingly trades her sheltered life for the cause. For grades 5-8. 2017By Monica Kulling, Felicita Sala. 2016
In 1903, labor activist Mother Jones inspired a group of working kids and adults to march with her from Kensington,…
Pennsylvania, to President Theodore Roosevelt's summer home in Oyster Bay, New York, in an effort to end child labor. For grades K-3. 2016By Jorge Galán. 2015
San Salvador, 1989. A group of armed men enters the Central American University and murders two women and six priests…
in cold blood. Father José María Tojeira is tasked with discovering the truth behind the massacre and identifying the guilty. Violence and strong language. Spanish language. 2015By Beth Powning. 2021
In this beautiful and deeply moving novel, a young widow struggles to come to terms with her solitary life in…
the rambling Victorian house she shared until recently with her husband and children in semi-rural New Brunswick.It is in this house, surrounded by heirloom gardens and the gentle sounds of a river, that Kate Harding, 52, faces her second winter since the untimely death of her husband. Her children, now grown, are living away, and Kate is truly on her own. In her living room are several hatboxes filled with letters and other ghostly ephemera, recently brought by her sister from the attic of their grandparents’ 18th-century Connecticut house. Their sweet mustiness tinges the air and makes Kate dream of her childhood and of her beloved grandparents. She remembers the sense of permanence and refuge that she felt in their apple-scented world, as well as, more recently, with her husband. As she begins to read the hatbox letters, she discovers that what to a child seemed a serene and blissful marriage was in fact founded on a tragic event. As Kate’s eyes clear to the truth of the past, a new tragedy unfolds, and her own house, filled with the shared detritus of marriage and motherhood, becomes the refuge where Kate can connect the strands of her unravelled life.In The Hatbox Letters — which is both sad and exhilarating, touching and illuminating — Beth Powning offers readers an unforgettable story of love, grief and renewal, both past and present, as well as her extraordinary perceptions of the natural world.Excerpt from The Hatbox LettersThe birds rise with a muted thunder, their wings serrate the light. For an instant, a peregrine falcon zigzags through the flock. Then it drops from the belly of the rising bird-cloud. In its talons is a sandpiper, crumpled like a ball of paper. It is hard to decide which drama to observe, the escape of the falcon with its prey or the flock’s display as the birds rush seaward like a single entity, a ballooning flame that rises and falls, expands and implodes, one instant silver and the next black. The flock speeds back towards the beach, passes close to the watchers, makes a dazzling turn, fast as thought. Then, with a diminishing roar, the birds waver, their legs drop, stretch. They touch down. They fluff their feathers, Kate observes, the way humans pull coats up around necks after a shock. Trying to put ourselves back as we were.By David Grossman. 2014
Walking Man announces to his wife that he is setting out in search of their son, who has died. As…
Walking Man travels, other townspeople join him in search of their own loved ones. They all question whether death is truly the end of a person. Translated from Hebrew. 2014By Georgia Bragg, Kevin O'Malley. 2011
Guide to the deaths of nineteen notable people begins with King Tut, who died of malaria. Also covers King Henry…
VIII, whose corpse exploded; George Washington; Marie Curie, who literally worked to death; and Albert Einstein. Includes facts, oddities, and resources. Some violence. For grades 5-8 and older readers. 2011By Eduardo Galeano, Cedric Belfrage, Eduardo H Galeano. 1998
In the final installment of his Memory of Fire trilogy, Galeano concludes his exploration of Latin American history using folklore,…
poetry, letters, political analysis, and anecdotes of historical figures. Covers the Americas' modern era from 1900 to 1986. Spanish edition 1986. Some violence. 1998By Maurice Cotterell, Gilbert Cotterell. 2010
An author and a scientist explore the Mesoamerican civilization of the Maya. They analyze Mayan history, cosmology, and astronomy, with…
an emphasis on concepts of time and the predictions that the world will end in 2012. Translated from English. Spanish language. 2009By O. E. Rolvaag. 1985
From the rocky, mist-enshrouded shores of Norway to the bustling streets of Minneapolis, O. E. Rolvaag lyrically chronicles the experiences…
of Nils Vaag, a young Norwegian immigrant. Abandoning the life of a fisherman in Nordland, a region poor but full of mystical beauty, Nils emigrates to the New World in 1912. There he sweeps saloons, lives in a boardinghouse called "Babel" for the many languages used by its residents, and begins to find his way among the people of the city. UnratedBy Faith Ringgold. 2016
A timely and beautiful look at America's rich history of immigration and diversity, from Faith Ringgold, the Coretta Scott King…
and Caldecott Honor winning creator of Tar Beach. For grades K-3By Margaret Hollingsworth Clem. 2012
By Gijsbert Van Frankenhuyzen, Frank Murphy. 2000
By Trinka Hakes Noble, Jeannie Brett. 2010
By James Kelman. 2016
The story of a teenage boy, who travels with his father from Scotland to Alabama to visit with relatives after…
the death of his mother and sister, and becomes swept up into the world of zydeco and bluesBy Joseph Roth, Michael Hofmann. 2015
In 64 short essays written between 1919 and 1939, author and journalist Joseph Roth evokes life between the wars in…
his travels through hotels from Germany and Austria to Albania and the Soviet Union. UnratedBy Janet Nolan, Marie Lafrance. 2010
By Robert Schwartz, John Skewes, Michael Mullin. 2007
Pete and his dog Larry are about to take a trip to Seattle, but there's so much to see that…
Larry gets distracted and finds himself lost in the Emerald City. Join Pete as he looks for his missing friend around the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and Pioneer Square. For preschool-grade 2By Inc. Staff Scholastic, Tres Seymour. 1999
By Robert Papp, Marty Crisp. 2008
A boy who has signed on as cabin boy aboard the Titanic helps ready the ship for its maiden voyage,…
but when it is time to set sail and he cannot find the ship's cat on board, he leaves the vessel to search for her. For grades K-3