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Showing 1 - 20 of 30 items
The great fire
By Jim Murphy. 1995
An account of the conflagration that levelled much of Chicago in 1871. Chronicles events from the fire's outbreak and rapid…
spread to its extinguishment by rain, as reported by survivors and in documents of the period. Examines the origins, circumstances, and official failures that contributed to the disaster. Grades 5-8. A 1996 Newbery Honor Book. c1995.Survivors!: true death-defying escapes
By Larry Verstraete. 2003
Think about your worst fears - being attacked by a wild animal, swept away by a killer storm, trapped in…
a wrecked car or a burning building. Here are 29 stories of real people who survived life-threatening situations. Each section includes Survival Tips that give readers essential information about what to do in dangerous circumstances. Some descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2004 Silver Birch Award. Grades 4-7. Bestseller 2005. 2003.Interweaves an account of the 1857 sinking of the SS Central America that carried a cargo of gold bullion and…
minted coins with the story of the shipwreck's discovery in 1988 by Tommy Thompson. Describes Thompson's feat of developing technology to locate and retrieve artifacts from a wooden-hulled ship in eight thousand feet of water. Winner of the 2000 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1998.Sand dance: by camel across Arabia's great southern desert
By Bruce Kirkby. 2000
In the winter of 1999, three Canadians and three Omani Bedu set out across Arabia's great southern desert in an…
attempt to authentically recreate the 1947 crossing by Sir Wilfred Thesiger. Here they share the adventures and misadventures they experienced while crossing the vast, desolate desert. Winner of the 2001 Torgi Talking Book of the Year Award.On board the Titanic: what it was like when the great liner sank (I was there book)
By Shelley Tanaka, Ken Marschall. 1996
The story of the Titanic, once the world's largest ocean liner, as told through the experiences of two of its…
survivors. Detailed explanations about the ship, passengers, and crew are interwoven with an account of its tragic sinking in 1912. Grades 4-7. Winner of the 1997 Silver Birch Award. c1996.At the edge: daring acts in desperate times
By Larry Verstraete. 2009
A young man in Nunavut fights off a polar bear to save his friend, a Canadian peacekeeper in the Congo…
risks his own life to save those of stranded tourists, and ordinary people show extraordinary character during the Halifax Explosion, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, the Tiananmen Square protests, and September 11, 2001. Over twenty true-life stories about life-threatening situations and the wrenching choices made by the people facing them. Winner of the 2010 Silver Birch Award for Non-fiction. Grades 5-8. Some descriptions of violence. 2009.Touch the dragon: a Thai journal
By Karen Connelly. 1992
Karen Connelly, 17 years old and bored with her life, was accepted by an exchange program which took her from…
Calgary to a small town in Thailand. She describes her assimilation into the Thai language and culture and her despair at leaving when the year came to an end. Winner of the 1993 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 1992.The shining mountain: two men on Changabang's west wall
By Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker. 1984
Recounts the endurance and determination of two British mountain climbers in making a forty-day ascent up the treacherous west wall…
of Changabang Mountain in the Indian Himalayas. Winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize. 1984.The boat who wouldn't float
By Farley Mowat. 1969
An anthology of the works of American expatriate author Paul Bowles (1910-1999). Includes The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950),…
A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard (1962), Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977), Midnight Mass (1981), and more. Edited by Daniel Halpern. Some strong language. 2002The opposite of loneliness: essays and stories
By Marina Keegan. 2014
Collection of essays and short stories by Keegan (1989-2012), who was killed in a car accident five days after her…
college graduation. In the title essay--which appeared in the graduation issue of the Yale Daily News--she reflects on the bright future awaiting the graduates. Bestseller. 2014Armageddon in retrospect: and other new and unpublished writings on war and peace
By Kurt Vonnegut. 2008
Twelve fiction and nonfiction pieces representing Vonnegut's views on violence and war and his desire for world peace. Contains both…
a 1945 letter to his family summarizing his prisoner-of-war experience in Germany and his last speech, written in 2007. Introduction by his son Mark Vonnegut. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2008Jungfrau: a selection of works from the Caine Prize for African writing
By Mary Watson. 2007
Seventh annual short story collection includes the Caine Prize winner and works shortlisted for 2006 and tales by 2007 Caine…
Prize workshop writers. In South African Mary Watson's title piece, a girl becomes jealous of her mother's impoverished students and discovers a family a secret. Some strong language. 2007A humorous look at the workplace from the creator of the "Dilbert" cartoon strip. The Dilbert Principle is that "the…
most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage--management." BestsellerOld songs in a new café: Selected Essays
By Robert James Waller. 1983
Nineteen essays written since 1983 by Waller, a folksinger and author of the bestselling Bridges of Madison County (DB 35861).…
The writings include a loving tribute to his wife, thoughts on his daughter leaving home at eighteen, a book signing on a snowy day in St. Ansgar, playing "Wabash Cannonball" for a program with Charles Kuralt, and thoughts on his fiftieth birthday. BestsellerAn anthropologist on Mars: seven paradoxical tales
By Oliver W Sacks. 1995
Case histories of people with neurological disorders who reconstruct the world according to their needs. Comfortable with his forty-five years…
of blindness, one man is confused by the sudden restoration of his sight. An autistic zoology professor is at ease with animals but cannot bear human contact. Each tale portrays a patient with a condition such as Tourette's Syndrome, deafness, or amnesia. Bestseller. Winner of the 1997 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1995.The elephant and my Jewish problem: selected stories and journals, 1957-1987
By Hugh Nissenson. 1988
Baseball in April and other stories
By Gary Soto. 1990
Eleven vignettes set in central California feature young Mexican-Americans going about the business of growing up. Fausto, who longs for…
a guitar, fraudulently receives a hefty reward when he returns a stray pet to a wealthy neighbor, but he is guilt-ridden until he relinquishes the money in church. And Marie, who declines a boring family vacation, is angry that fun was had without her. For grades 5-8 and older readersNine Florida stories (Florida sand dollar book)
By Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Kevin M. McCarthy, William L. Trotter. 1990
First published from the 1920s to 1940s in the Saturday Evening Post, these stories embody the environmental concerns of Marjory…
Stoneman Douglas. Set in various parts of South Florida, they reflect conditions, including threats to wildlife, land, and water, that endanger the uniqueness of the region. Douglas's characters range from smugglers to a farm worker, and include veiled autobiographical bits about the indomitable authorBlack enough: stories of being young & Black in America
By Coe Booth, Kekla Magoon, Rita Williams-Garcia, Varian Johnson, Tracey Baptiste, Justina Ireland, Jason Reynolds, Lamar Giles, Brandy Colbert, Dhonielle Clayton, Ibi Zoboi, Leah Henderson, Renée Watson, Nic Stone, Liara Tamani, Tochi Onyebuchi, Jay Coles. 2019
Seventeen short stories explore what it is like to be young and black, and emphasize that one person's experiences, reality,…
and personal identity are different from someone else's. Contributors include René Watson, Kekla Magoon, Jason Reynolds, and Justina Ireland. Strong language. For senior high and older readers. 2019