Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 23 items
Autumn Bird and the Runaway
By Melanie Florence, Richard Scrimger. 2022
Two kids from different worlds form an unexpected friendship.Cody’s home life is a messy, too-often terrifying story of neglect and…
abuse. Cody himself is a smart kid, a survivor with a wicked sense of humour that helps him see past his circumstances and begin to try to get himself out.Autumn is, quite literally, on the other side of the tracks from him. Her home life is loving and secure, and she is “in” with the popular girls at school, even if she has a secret life as a glasses-wearing, self-professed comic book nerd at home. And even if the pressure to fit in at school requires hours of time spent making herself look “perfect.”Returning home from a movie one evening, Autumn comes across Cody, face down in the laneway behind her house. All Cody knows is that he can’t take another beating from his father like the one he just narrowly escaped. He can’t go home, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go either. Autumn won’t turn her back on him, even if they never really were friends at school. She agrees to let him hide out in her dad’s art studio at night.Over the next couple of days of Autumn sneaking Cody food and bandages, his story comes out. And so does hers.Told in alternating narratives, Autumn Bird and the Runaway is a breathtaking collaboration by two of Canada’s finest writers of books for young readers. Infused with themes of identity, belonging and compassion, it’s a story that reminds us that we are all more than our circumstances, and we are all more connected than we think.After the Rain: Virginia's Civil War Diary Book 2 (My America Series)
By Mary Pope Osborne. 2001
In the final months of the Civil War, Virginia and her family move to Washington, D.C. where the cold winter…
brings uncertainty and hardship. Virginia takes a job as a servant in a wealthy home to help her family. But, just as things start to improve as her father gets a job, and the war finally comes to an end, the tragic assassination of Ginny's beloved President Lincoln occurs. In this, her second diary chronicling the Civil War, Ginny learns that life is constantly changing. Indeed, even as Lincoln dies, her nephew is born. Throughout, Ginny faces life with hope and courage.Hard Times
By Robert Vaughan. 1993
The stock Market crash of 1929 abruptly thrusts the nation into chaos, as unemployed people grow more desperate for a…
livelihood. As nearly ever sector of the economy collapses and dust storms rage in the West, only the most determined can make it. While desperation and despair wrack the nation, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal continues to inspire hope in some but arouses cynicism in others. Wealthy and handsome John Canfield refuses to set aside his patriotism in the face of disaster. He embarks on an important and clandestine mission for the President himself, resolving to help his country while he still has the power to do something. Gutsy reporter Shaylin McKay is one of the few women in the news business. As she risks her life as a war correspondent in Civil War-torn Spain, she confronts the realities of battle and the possibilities of human endurance. Del Murtaugh is a man with no particular occupation or destination--displaced and penniless, he is driven from the dustbowl of Oklahoma to the dissipated lifestyle of Hollywood's dreamers and schemers. This fourth volume of THE AMERICAN CHRONICLES painstakingly recreates the dramatic conflicts of the 1930's, evoking both the hard times and the joyful ones.The Lost Generation
By Robert Vaughan. 1992
In this, the third, explosive volume of Robert Vaughan's AMERICAN CHRONICLES, prohibition and gangland wars define the era. The 1920's…
were perhaps the most exciting and glamorous decade of the century, as America leaves behind the strife and deprivations of war, while the Jazz Age brings the young, dissolute, and decadent into the smoky interiors of basement speakeasies. Idealistic young journalist Kendra Mills risks her career--and her life--to expose the criminal underside of American society. Novelist Eric Twainbough finds himself thrust into the limelight when his work unexpectedly becomes successful. Gangster Kerry O'Braugh, an Irish-Sicilian immigrant, finds a way out of a harsh reformatory so that he can to become the kingpin of St. Louis gangland.Dawn of the Century
By Robert Vaughan. 1992
In Volume One of The American Chronicles, Robert Vaughan panoramically evokes America at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, poised…
on the brink of greatness and fraught with the tumult of rapid change. In a time of robber-baron industrialists and rapid territorial expansion both at home and abroad, the new music called "ragtime" is the soundtrack for a confident nation of ambitious dreamers. It is 1904 and the nation's eyes are on the St. Louis World's Fair, which features an astounding variety of modern marvels. The enormous exhibition brings together the best minds the country has to offer, each of them with something to lose and opportunities to seize: Bob Canfield, a young and wealthy landowner who is willing to risk his honor and his fortune to make a profit out of the desert; Eric Twainbough, a solitary young cowboy riding the rails East from Wyoming, innocently bringing disaster with him; Terry Perkins, a reporter desperate to get the scoop on the story in St. Louis; Connie Bateman, one of the politically conscious new women fighting for freedom, bravely defending their right to equality.1970: "I" Hotel
By Karen Tei Yamashita. 2010
"I Hotel" is the third novella of I Hotel, a National Book Award finalist and epic of America's struggle for…
civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown. Yamashita's cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, caught in riptides of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil.The Cold War
By Robert Vaughan. 1992
The launch of Sputnik. Rock 'n' roll fever. The struggle for civil rights. Robert Vaughan's seventh volume of the American…
Chronicles has America entering the fifties amidst the fright of a cold war with Russia and a fiery war in Korea. Prizewinning war correspondent Shaylin McKay and African-American war hero Travis Jackson have a date with destiny. Back home, sexy screen siren Marcella Mills and Hollywood's leading lady Demaris Hunter find both their careers and their emotions harnessed to the rising fame of a sensual country boy with a guitar. Two brothers, Deon and Artemus Booker, are splitting their famous family apart by choosing different paths---one on the white man's basketball courts of the NBA, and the other off to Alabama to stand up for justice and equal rights with a young Martin Luther King, Jr., as the American Chronicles go on.Time Between Trains
By Anthony Bukoski. 2011
"This collection stands as a lovely and bittersweet tribute to a small corner of America."--The Dallas Morning News In his…
fourth collection, Anthony Bukoski brings to life once again the working-class town of Superior, Wisconsin, telling thirteen well-crafted and linked tales of its immigrant inhabitants. These characters, like the Jewish railroad track inspector in the exquisite title story, occupy a definite place in the community, and the only predicament several of them share is that they are impossibly in love. Anthony Bukoski has published five short story collections, including Twelve Below Zero: New and Expanded Edition (Holy Cow! Press, 2008). He lives near Superior, Wisconsin.1974
By Karen Tei Yamashita. 2010
"I-Migrant" is the seventh novella of I Hotel, a National Book Award finalist and epic of America's struggle for civil…
rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown. Yamashita's cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, caught in riptides of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil.1968
By Karen Tei Yamashita. 2010
"Eye Hotel" is the first novella of I Hotel, a National Book Award finalist and epic of America's struggle for…
civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown. Yamashita's cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, caught in riptides of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil.NW London: Roman
By Zadie Smith. 2013
Una novela magistral e íntima de la vida moderna de Londres. Los protagonistas de la historia, Leah, Natalie, Felix y…
Nathan, crecieron entre edificios de protección oficial y, ahora en la treintena, la ambición y el azar los han llevado a alcanzar posiciones sociales muy distintas. Los encuentros y desencuentros entre ellos ponen de manifiesto sus diferencias raciales, la validez del ascenso social, su actitud ante cuestiones de fondo como la maternidad, la amistad, la lealtad. Al tiempo que va desvelando los secretos de sus personajes, Zadie Smith ofrece al lector un recorrido por una zona de Londres tan cautivadora como violenta, donde las animosas avenidas enmarcan lóbregas callejas y errar el camino puede conducir a un callejón sin salida. Así pues, el incesante flujo de personas de todo tipo y color, individuos obligados a reinventarse día a día, año tras año, conforman un auténtico laboratorio de prueba de la sociedad mixta y universal que el futuro nos depara. Finalista del Premio Orange y del National Book Critics Circle Award, esta última novela de Zadie Smith viene a confirmar su sólida posición entre los autores más destacados del panorama narrativo en lengua inglesa. Dueña de una brillante combinación de sentido del humor, inteligencia y empatía, y de una especial sensibilidad para captar las facetas más peculiares de la naturaleza humana, Zadie vuelca como nadie la diversidad de voces, rostros y emociones de los habitantes del noroeste de Londres, barrio donde se crio y uno de los enclaves urbanos con mayor índice de multiculturalidad no sólo de Inglaterra, sino del mundo. Reseñas:«Esta novela es un compañero inesperado e irónico de Dientes blancos: un retrato más sombrío y matizado de la cultura multirracial.»Joyce Carol Oates «La brillante escritora Zadie Smith es la sucesora legítima de Dickens.»The Independent «Una novela excepcional, desternillante y, a veces, algo macabra. NW London es una declaración de amor, lírica y muy cómica, a la zona noroeste de Londres. Al igual que Dickens, Zadie Smith posee un don para los diálogos y para combinar la indignación social con el humor que le permite crear intensas obras literarias.»The Sunday Telegraph «Una soberbia novela, vital y airada.»The Telegraph «Una novela de amplio espectro, compleja, sobre las fuerzas que envenenan nuestros sueños de promoción económica [...]. Brillante [...], una radiografía del Londres contemporáneo.»The Washington PostTropic of Violence
By Nathacha Appanah. 2016
Marie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts an abandoned baby and names him Moïse, raising him as a…
French boy. As he grows up, Moïse struggles with his status as an "outsider" and to understand why he was abandoned as a baby. When Marie dies, he is left alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, ending up in the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte, nicknamed "Gaza".Narrated by five different characters, Tropic of Violence is an exploration of lost youth on the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Shining a powerful light on problems of violence, immigration, identity, deprivation and isolation on this island that became a French département in 2011, it is a remarkable, unsettling new novel that draws on the author's own observations from her time on Mayotte.Cold White Sun
By Sue Farrell Holler. 2019
A stranger-than-fiction story based on the real-life experiences of a young boy who was smuggled out of Ethiopia amid political…
unrest to start a new life from nothing in Calgary, Alberta.Tesfaye lives behind the safe walls of his family’s compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His father is an important man, Tesfaye goes to one of the best schools in the city, his mother and older sisters keep him fed and cared for. He and his beloved brother, Ishi, can spend their time playing soccer, racing chickens and spying on the guests — as long as they stay away from the sharp horns of the family’s goat and avoid their father’s fiery temper.When rebel forces take over the capital, life becomes more complicated. Tesfaye’s father’s cousin takes him to live in the former imperial palace, and Tesfaye becomes the most favored son. His father takes him along when he gives political speeches and distributes leaflets. It is all very exciting, even if Tesfaye doesn’t pay attention to what the leaflets actually say.And then suddenly his father is arrested, and Tesfaye’s own life is in peril. His mother sends him into hiding in her father’s village, until even that is too dangerous. Tesfaye is put in the care of a human smuggler and embarks on an uncertain, confusing and terrifying journey through Kenya, Europe and finally to Canada, where he is put on a Greyhound bus with ten dollars and instructions to stay on the bus until someone tells him to get off. You are safe now, says the smuggler. You are in Canada. This country will protect you.And so begins his new life in North America, sheltered for a while by fellow expats, threatened by the authorities, shunted from a group home to foster care. But through it all he is plagued by confusion and grief, wondering whether he will ever know what has happened to the family he left behind.Key Text Featuresauthor’s notemaphistorical contextCorrelates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.Flower Children
By Robert Vaughan. 1996
The 1960's have gone down in history as a decade of social and political upheavals, when Americans grappled with the…
moral dilemmas and social divisions caused by the Vietnam war, the struggle for civil rights, and the radicalism of the nation's youth. In the ninth volume of Robert Vaughan's stunning AMERICAN CHRONICLES, a panoramic picture of the American experience unfolds from the perspective of Americans from all walks of life.Cocky and charismatic Bob Parker courts death every day, piloting a chopper in Vietnam. Living each day as though it is his last, he parties recklessly and fights furiously, determined to make it through the war and return home. Heiress Tina Canfield wants only to escape the confines of her wealthy, prominent and conservative family. She longs to join the throngs of young people tuning in, turning on and dropping out. When Tina runs away to join the summer of love in San Francisco, she is unprepared for the heartbreak that freedom can sometimes bring. African-American vet Andrew Jackson finds himself a changed man after a long tour of duty in the US Army. He is as yet unaware of the enormous changes that have occurred at home in the South, as protests and violence explode in the streets of Alabama.The New Frontier
By Robert Vaughan. 1995
Vietnam. The Bay of Pigs. A November afternoon in Dallas pierced by gunshots. Robert Vaughan's eighth title in the American…
Chronicles series opens with the calamitous changes that define a generation and bid good-bye to innocence. With the charismatic young president in office, idealism and optimism run free, the youths of America believe in all possibilities. Deon Booker, a proud African-American, joins Mississippi's Freedom Riders on an unforgettable journey to a shocking revelation. His companion, heiress Alicia Canfield, finds no protection in her new law degree from the horrors of racial hatred and mob aggression. In Hollywood, screen gem Marcella Mills sees only the excitement---not the risk---of a clandestine affair that must be buried in official secrecy. Half a world away, Special Forces officer Jared Hawkins finds his conscience and his soul in peril carrying out orders in the jungle hell of Vietnam, as he joins in the loss of innocence of an entire generation.Happy Feet
By Richard Michelson. 2005
On March 12, 1926, the doors of the Savoy Ballroom swung open in Harlem. It was a night to remember,…
when blacks and whites, rich and poor, all came together todance! This inspiring story of the world-famous dancing palace and home of the Lindy Hoppers is told from a father to his son, Happy Feet. It's Happy Feet's favorite story--after all, he was born on the very night the Savoy opened. And he hopes that one day he'll make his own dancing debut at the legendary ballroom . . . because with a lot of hard work and a little Savoy magic,anythingis possible. Includes an author's note with biographies of Swing-Era dancers.Marching to the Mountaintop
By Ann Bausum, Jim Lawson. 2012
In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by…
that city's segregated force of trash collectors. Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life. His assassination in Memphis on April 4 not only sparked protests and violence throughout America; it helped force the acceptance of worker demands in Memphis. The sanitation strike ended eight days after King's death.The connection between the Memphis sanitation strike and King's death has not received the emphasis it deserves, especially for younger readers. Marching to the Mountaintop explores how the media, politics, the Civil Rights Movement, and labor protests all converged to set the scene for one of King's greatest speeches and for his tragic death.From the Hardcover edition.The General's Cook: A Novel
By Ganeshram Ramin. 2018
Philadelphia 1793. Hercules, President George Washington’s chef, is a fixture on the Philadelphia scene. He is famous for both his…
culinary prowess and for ruling his kitchen like a commanding general. He has his run of the city and earns twice the salary of an average American workingman. He wears beautiful clothes and attends the theater. But while valued by the Washingtons for his prowess in the kitchen and rewarded far over and above even white servants, Hercules is enslaved in a city where most black Americans are free. Even while he masterfully manages his kitchen and the lives of those in and around it, Hercules harbors secrets-- including the fact that he is learning to read and that he is involved in a dangerous affair with Thelma, a mixed-race woman, who, passing as white, works as a companion to the daughter of one of Philadelphia's most prestigious families. Eventually Hercules’ carefully crafted intrigues fall apart and he finds himself trapped by his circumstance and the will of George Washington. Based on actual historical events and people, The General's Cook, will thrill fans of The Hamilton Affair, as they follow Hercules' precarious and terrifying bid for freedom.The Hamilton Affair: A Novel
By Elizabeth Cobbs. 2016
A New York Times Bestseller and one of the best historical fiction books of 2016 and 2017!“A juicy answer to…
Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton…” --CosmopolitanSet against the dramatic backdrop of the American Revolution, and featuring a cast of legendary characters, The Hamilton Affair tells the sweeping, tumultuous, true story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, from passionate and tender beginnings of their romance to his fateful duel on the banks of the Hudson River.Hamilton was a bastard and orphan, raised in the Caribbean and desperate for legitimacy, who became one of the American Revolution's most dashing--and improbable--heroes. Admired by George Washington, scorned by Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton was a lightning rod: the most controversial leader of the new nation. Elizabeth was the wealthy, beautiful, adventurous daughter of the respectable Schuyler clan--and a pioneering advocate for women. Together, the unlikely couple braved the dangers of war, the perils of seduction, the anguish of infidelity, and the scourge of partisanship that menaced their family and the country itself.With flawless writing, brilliantly drawn characters, and epic scope, The Hamilton Affair tells a story of love forged in revolution and tested by the bitter strife of young America, and will take its place among the greatest novels of American history ever written.The Warmest December: Gathering Of Waters, Glorious, The Warmest December, And Nowhere Is A Place
By Bernice L. McFadden. 2012
"McFadden's reissued second novel takes an unflinching look at the corrosive nature of alcoholism . . . This is not…
a story of easy redemption . . . McFadden writes candidly about the treacherous hold of addiction."--Publishers Weekly"Riveting. . . . So nicely avoids the sentimentality that swirls around the subject matter. I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes."--Toni Morrison, author of Beloved"The sharpness of the prose and power of the story make it hard to stop reading even the most brutal scenes . . . The story feels real perhaps because it’s familiar . . . Or maybe, as Frey points out, the story is too vivid to be read purely as fiction. But in this Precious-style novel, genre is the least of our concerns."--Bust magazine"This is a story that cuts across all race and social strata in its need to be told."--The Dallas Morning NewsThe Warmest December is the incredibly moving story of one Brooklyn family and the alcoholism that determined years of their lives. Narrated by Kenzie Lowe, a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, as she visits her dying father and finds that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make.Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels.