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Showing 1 - 20 of 162 items
The year of magical thinking
By Joan Didion. 2005
Writer reflects on her emotional response to the unexpected death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, after a visit to…
their comatose daughter. Discusses the shock of suddenly facing a crisis, the memory of their time together as a family, and the meaning of marriage. National Book Award. Bestseller. 2005.The first major effort to portray the intellectual forces which have moulded the thinking and writing of those English-speaking historians…
who sought to explain our past during the period 1900-1970. Winner of the Governor General's Award. 1976.The Hatbox Letters
By 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.Falling out of time
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. 2014How they croaked: the awful ends of the awfully famous
By 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. 2011Dirt road: A Novel
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 bluesThe hotel years
By 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. UnratedProse and poetry: Maggie: a girl of the streets ; The red badge of courage ; Stories, sketches, and journalism ; Poetry
By Stephen Crane, J. C. Levenson. 1996
More than one hundred works of the nineteenth-century author and reporter Stephen Crane (1871-1900). Includes five novellas; dispatches from Asbury…
Park, New Jersey, and New York state; war reports from Greece during the Greco-Turkish wars and from Cuba during the Spanish-American War; and poetry. 1984Mummies: the newest, coolest, and creepiest from around the world
By Shelley Tanaka. 2005
Discusses the ways cultures in various climates and time periods have preserved the dead. Describes the process of mummification in…
the Andes mountains and dry deserts of South America, the Egyptian desert, glaciers of Canada and Italy, European peat bogs, Siberian ice, and Chinese sand dunes. For grades 3-6. 2005Les devoirs d'edmond
By Hugo Léger. 2022
« Ma maman est morte. Je le dis comme c'est arrivé, brusquement. Quelques minutes avant que la mer l'avale, on…
s'amusait tous les deux. Elle était le requin, j'étais le surfeur. On l'a retrouvée le lendemain, comme la boîte noire d'un avion. On ne meurt pas en vacances. C'est pas juste. On peut pas être très heureux et très malheureux la même journée. C'est trop rapproché. » De retour d'un voyage au dénouement malheureux, le jeune Edmond doit apprendre à vivre sans sa mère, pendant que son père essaie de cacher sa peine et que sa soeur ne semble pas vraiment comprendre que leur maman ne reviendra pas. Edmond tente de venir en aide à sa famille en faisant des grilled cheese (avec du beurre des deux côtés, comme sa maman) et toute sortes de petites tâches quotidiennes. Il en vient à se dire qu'il pourrait trouver un boulot... Il n'a peut-être que dix ans, mais ça lui permettrait de faire sa part. Sur le chemin du travail, Edmond rencontrera Raymond et son chat Dali. Au fil de leurs échanges et de sa première expérience professionnelle, il découvrira que rien ne sert de précipiter les choses, qu'il peut encore attendre avant d'être un adulte et qu'il peut prendre le temps d'être un enfant et de vivre son deuil avec ses proches.On writing
By Charles Bukowski. 2015
Collection of previously unpublished correspondence by the author of Pulp (DB 40326) and The Pleasures of the Damned (DB 66380),…
discussing the art of creation with publishers, editors, friends, and peers. Shares the joys and tribulations of not only writing, but writing for publication. 2015A Dog Called Homeless
By Sarah Lean. 2012
Praised by Newbery Medal–winning author Katherine Applegate as "graceful" and "miraculous," this Schneider Family Book Award–winning novel tells how one…
girl's friendship with a homeless dog mends a family's heart.Cally Fisher knows she can see her dead mother, but the only other living soul who does is a mysterious wolfhound who always seems to be there when her mom appears. How can Cally convince anyone that her mom is still with the family, or persuade her dad that the huge silver-gray dog belongs with them?With beautiful, spare writing and adorable animals, A Dog Called Homeless is perfect for readers of favorite middle-grade novels starring dogs, such as Because of Winn-Dixie and Shiloh.Seize the story: a handbook for teens who like to write
By Victoria Hanley. 2008
Presents creative-writing tips and exercises, from freewriting to understanding the elements of fiction. Provides examples for character development, motivation, and…
perspective. Assesses difficult aspects of writing fiction, such as creating the setting and mood, and infusing your style and voice into the story. For junior and senior high readers. 2008Life as we knew it
By Tony Johnston, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Barry Moser. 2006
Sixteen-year-old Miranda keeps a journal describing her family's struggle to survive after an asteroid hits the Moon and causes disastrous…
climate change on Earth. She records her feelings about losing contact with friends and the outside world, locating food, and keeping hope alive. For junior and senior high readers. 2006Sun & Spoon
By Kevin Henkes. 1997
After the death of his beloved grandmother, ten-year-old Spoon pockets Gram's special deck of solitaire cards as a keepsake. When…
his grandfather becomes nostalgic and searches for the missing cards, Spoon returns the deck in exchange for another memento with a very special meaning. For grades 4-7El crossover: Crossover (spanish Edition), A Newbery Award Winner (Crossover series #01)
By Kwame Alexander. 2019
"Twin fourteen-year-old basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court, as their father…
ignores his declining health. Told in hip-hop style verse." -- Provided by NLSOn a scale of 1 to 10
By Ceylan Scott. 2019
Lime Grove is home to a number of teenagers with a variety of problems: anorexia, bipolar disorder, behavior issues. Tamar…
will come to know them all very well. But there's one question she can't...won't answer: What happened to her friend Iris? As Tamar's emotional angst becomes more and more clear to her, she'll have to figure out a path to forgiveness. UnratedThe Probability of Everything
By Sarah Everett. 2023
“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book ClubNPR Books We Love…
2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's LiteratureA heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye."My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last ChanceEscarpolette (Rose)
By Sylvie Drapeau. 2022
Depuis le grave accident qui l’a plongée dans le coma, la mère de Rose ne bouge plus, ne parle plus.…
Ses yeux restent toujours fermés. Mais le docteur Chevalier croit que, peut-être, elle peut entendre. Alors Rose lui lit à voix haute des pages entières de son journal intime. Elle lui raconte tout : son école, ses peurs, ses peines, ses défis. Un soir, pour lui changer les idées, le père de Rose l’emmène au théâtre voir Le petit chaperon rouge. Rose est émerveillée. C’est le plus beau spectacle au monde! Soudain, la vie retrouve ses couleurs. C’est décidé, elle fera du théâtre! Sylvie Drapeau est une grande comédienne et une auteure. Avec Escarpolette, elle signe son premier roman pour la jeunesse.18% Gray
By Angela Rodel, Zachary Karabashliev. 2008
After Stella disappears, Zack sets off on a trip across America with his memories, a camera, and a duffle bag…
of dope. Through the lens of the old camera, he starts rediscovering himself by photographing an America we rarely see. His journey unleashes a series of erratic, hilarious, and life-threatening events interspersed with flashbacks to his relationship with Stella.