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Showing 1 - 20 of 238 items
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.By Della Parker. 2016
'Brims with laughs, love, family and friendship. You will love this heartwarming read!' Trisha Ashley. Meet the Reading Group: six…
women in the seaside village of Little Sanderton come together every month to share their love of reading. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss . . . and don't forget the glass of red!Grace knows that the holiday season is going to be different this year. No turkey, no tinsel, no gorgeously wrapped gifts under the tree . . . how on earth is she going to break it to her little boys that Christmas is effectively cancelled? And can she bear to tell anyone her embarrassing secret? Enter the Reading Group: Grace's life might have turned upside down but there's no problem they can't solve.By David Henry Hwang. 1998
A new play by the author of M. Butterfly which premieres on Broadway in April. Golden Child travels across time…
and place from contemporary America to mainland China in 1918 and depicts the challenges of a culture in transition to the influences of western civilization.By Charles Margerison. 2012
Mahatma, meaning great soul, is the name by which we all know the inspirational Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi. In this unique…
life story from The Amazing People Club, you are invited to share in the thoughts and mindset of this resolute peace lover. His compassion and respect for those around him played a pivotal part in history as he promoted non-violence towards all living beings. During his life he endured many hardships in his ambition to free the people of India and obtain equal rights. There is much that we can learn from this amazing character who is fondly remembered as the Father of the Indian Independence Movement. His story comes to life through BioViews®. These are short biographical narratives, similar to interviews. They provide an easy way of learning about amazing people who made major contributions and changed our world.By Derrick A. Bell. 1996
Just like the songs of a gospel choir, the pieces in this book give voice to the hardships faced by…
African Americans. Through allegorical stories and fictional encounters, dreams and dialogues, it presents fresh perspectives on the different issues that concern blacks. Despite their tough subjects, however, these stories resound with laughter and compassion and a continuing theme of Christian love.By Tom Cho. 2014
First published to acclaim in Australia, Look Who's Morphing by Asian Australian writer Tom Cho is a funny, fantastical, often…
outlandish collection of stories firmly grounded in popular culture. Often with his family, the book's central character undergoes a series of startling physical transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music and books, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, a gay white male stud, and Whitney Houston's bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, the von Trapp family's caretaker, a Ford Bronco 4x4--and in the book's lavish climax, a one-hundred-foot-tall guitar-wielding rock star performing for an adoring troupe of fans in Tokyo.Throughout the stories, there is a pervasive questioning of the nature of identity, whether cultural, racial, sexual, gender, or all of the above, and the way it is constructed in a world filled with the white noise of pop culture. Look Who's Morphing is a stylish, highly entertaining literary debut in which nothing--not even one's body--can be taken for granted.Tom Cho is a trans writer who began writing fiction in his mid teens in Australia, where he was influenced by the YA series Sweet Valley High. His stories have appeared in publications in Australia and elsewhere, and he has performed at events and festivals around the world, including in the award-winning show Hello Kitty, which combines literature with power ballads. Look Who's Morphing is his first book.By Emma Wolf, Barbara Cantalupo. 2002
Widely regarded as a literary genius in her day, the Jewish American author Emma Wolf (1865-1932) wrote vivid stories that…
penetrated the struggles of women and people of faith, particularly Jews, at the turn of the twentieth century. This reissue of the 1916 revised edition of one of her most popular novels, Other Things Being Equal, first published in 1892, introduces Wolf to a new generation of readers, immersing them in an interfaith love story set in her native San Francisco in the late nineteenth century. The novel's protagonist, Ruth Levice, a young intellectual from an upper-class Jewish family, meets Dr. Herbert Kemp, a Unitarian, and falls in love. The novel's force lies in its unwillingness to adhere to ideological stands. A woman need not give up marriage and home to be strong, independent, and unconventional; a Jew does not have to be orthodox to remain close to her heritage and her faith.By Sally Wiener Grotta. 2013
As a child, Judith Ormand was the only Jew -- and the only Black -- in a small insular Pennsylvania…
mountain village where she was raised by her white Christian grandparents. Now, she must reluctantly break her vow to never return to the town she learned to hate. During her one week visit, she buries and mourns her beloved grandmother, is forced to deal with the white boy who cruelly broke her heart, and is menaced by an old bully who threatens worse. But with her traumatic discovery of a long buried secret, Judith finds more questions than answers about the prejudice that scarred her childhood. A free Study Guide for Jo Joe, for book clubs, teachers and other book discussion groups is available from the publisher Pixel Hall Press.About Black Bear, PennsylvaniaJo Joe.is set in the fictional Pocono Mountains village of Black Bear, Pennsylvania. Black Bear was created as a literary folie à deux by Daniel Grotta and Sally Wiener Grotta. Both Daniel and Sally are dipping into the same pool of invented locale and characters to write a series of separate stories and novels that will eventually paint a full picture of the diversity of life and relationships in a small mountain village. However, every Black Bear story stands alone, as a separate story that doesn't require knowing anything about the town from previous stories. The first Black Bear story was Honor a novella by Daniel Grotta. Both Jeff Smith and his curmudgeonly father-in-law AH Engelhardt from Honor, play key roles in Jo Joe. Daniel Grotta's novel Black Bear One, about the adventures, foibles and complicated relationships of the town's volunteer ambulance corps, will be published in 2015. Members of the ambulance crew include Jeff Smith from Honor and Joe Anderson and Rabbi David of Jo Joe.By Thomas. 2006
To forgive may be divine . . . The daughter of two Hollywood superstars, Divine Matthews-Hardison lives the privileged life…
most fifteen-year-olds only dream of: she's all about designer clothes, awards ceremonies, parties, and having a name that opens doors. Divine could be a model, an actress, anything she wants. But when you live in the spotlight, there's nowhere to hide when your family falls apart. Her father is in trouble with the law, her mother has her own demons, and no one has room for Divine -- no one except her uncle, a Georgia pastor with a modest country home and a big heart. . . . but can Divine ever forgive? Divine can't believe she's been sent to live with her mom's family in the sticks. Doing chores, getting an allowance, and church-going are hardly what she's used to, and she lets everyone -- from her patient Uncle Reed and Aunt Phoebe to her cousins, Alyssa and Chance -- know she's not trading in her Gucci bags for a feedbag any time soon. But as the love and faith of a good family take hold in her heart, miraculous changes start to occur. And when the chance comes to return to her high-flying life, Divine is faced with her toughest decision: Now that she's found the one thing she's never had, could she ever leave it behind?By L. Ronald Hubbard. 2013
Lee Weston, un joven Emilio Estevez con un Colt al cinto, es tan atractivo como irascible, y tiene motivos de…
sobra para estar enfadado. Tras el asesinato de su padre y el incendio del rancho familiar, se enfrenta a Harvey Dodge, el hombre que está convencido que es el asesino. Sin embargo, es Lee quien acaba malherido y al borde de la muerte. Pero es atendido y devuelto a la vida... por la hermosa hija de Harvey. ¿Puede una gran pérdida llevar a un gran amor? La respuesta se encuentra en el salvaje corazón del Lejano Oeste.By Jacquelin Thomas. 2007
Divine is used to getting what she wants.... Thanks to her loving Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Reed, Divine Matthews-Hardison has…
a place to call home after the Hollywood life she was accustomed to fell apart at the seams. Getting away from the spotlight that nearly destroyed her own parents, Divine has changed for the better -- though there's still enough diva in Divine to keep life in Temple, Georgia, very lively, from mall shopping with her cousin Alyssa and her fashion-challenged aunt, to worshipping at her uncle's church, to dating. But what if it's too much too soon? Divine has boys on the brain and she's itching for a social life -- at least as much as is allowed under Uncle Reed's watchful eyes. She knows she's too young for the kind of secretive drama her cousin Chance is going through with his girlfriend, but still.... Turning to the internet, Divine gets a major crush on sixteen-year-old Sean, who sounds and looks like the perfect guy. But she is about to learn a difficult -- and potentially dangerous -- lesson: Things are not always what they appear to be....By Erin Vaganos, Elizabeth Turnbull. 2013
In this first book of the bilingual Janjak and Freda series, cousins Janjak and Freda go with their godmother on…
an exciting adventure to Haiti's famous Iron Market. While there, they make many new friends, taste new fruits, and show the value of helping others when a runaway goat causes havoc in the market. The colorful text and beautiful illustrations will leave children dreaming up their own adventures. This story is told in such a way that the characters, scenery, and plot will be meaningful to both English speaking children and Creole speaking children. Rather than a literal translation, the Creole text has been rewritten by Wally Turnbull to provide the most authentic experience for Creole speakers.By Marjolijn De Jager, Michelle Mielly, Werewere Liking. 2007
"....An expansive, eclectic, and innovative novel."--Women's Review of BooksA modern-day Things Fall Apart, The Amputated Memory explores the ways in…
which an African woman's memory preserves, and strategically forgets, moments in her tumultuous past as well as the cultural past of her country, in the hopes of making a healthier future possible.Pinned between the political ambitions of her philandering father, the colonial and global influences of encroaching and exploitative governments, and the traditions of her Cameroon village, Halla Njokè recalls childhood traumas and reconstructs forgotten experiences to reclaim her sense of self. Winner of the Noma Award--previous honorees include Mamphela Ramphele, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Ken Saro-Wiwa--The Amputated Memory was called by the Noma jury "a truly remarkable achievement . . . a deeply felt presentation of the female condition in Africa; and a celebration of women as the country's memory."Since 1978, Cameroon-born artiste extraordinaireWerewere Liking has been living in the Ivory Coast, where she established the Village Ki-Yi, a self-supporting center for the performing and fine arts. A singer, dancer, actor, playwright, songwriter, and author of two titles previously published in the United States, Liking has been honored across the globe for her writing and theater work; she has performed at such venues as The Kennedy Center.Marjolijn de Jager teaches French, Dutch, and literary translation at New York University and works as an independent literary translator, most recently on Assia Djebar's Children of the New World.Michelle Mielly received her PhD from Harvard University and is now teaching in the Department of Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University.By Zoë Wicomb, Carol Sicherman. 2000
Zoë Wicomb's complex and deeply evocative fiction is among the most distinguished recent works of South African women's literature. It…
is also among the only works of fiction to explore the experience of "Coloured" citizens in apartheid-era South Africa, whose mixed heritage traps them, as Bharati Mukherjee wrote in the New York Times, "in the racial crucible of their country."Wicomb deserves a wide American audience, on a part with Nadine Gordimer and J.M.Coetzee." - Wall St. JournalWicomb is a gifted writer, and her compressed narratives work like brilliant splinters in the mind, suggesting a rich rhythm and shape."-Seattle Times"[Wicomb's] prose is vigorous, textured, lyrical. . . . [She] is a sophisticated storyteller who combines the open-endedness of contemporary fiction with the force of autobiography and the simplicity of family stories."-Bharati Mukherjee, New York Times Book ReviewFor course use in: African literature, African studies, growing up female, world literature, women's studiesZoe Wicomb was born in 1948 and raised in Namaquland, South Africa. After 20 years voluntary exile, she returned to South Africa in 1991 to teach at the University of the Western Cape. She currently lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. Marcia Wright is professor of history at Columbia University and a member of the executive committee for the Women Writing Africa series. Carol Sicherman is professor emerita of English at Lehman College, CUNY.By Paul Yee. 2015
For more than thirty years, Paul Yee has written about his Chinese-Canadian heritage in award-winning books for young readers as…
well as adult non-fiction. Here, in his first work of fiction for adults, he takes us on a harrowing journey into a milestone event of Canadian history: the use of Chinese coolies to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia in hazardous conditions.After the CPR is built in 1885, Yang Hok, a former coolie, treks along the railway to return his half-Chinese/half-Native son to the boy's mother where he confronts the conflicts arising from road-building among the Chinese and Native peoples. Hok's guide on the often perilous trip, Sam Bing Lew, also of mixed Chinese-Native blood, urges Hok to take his son to China, while Hok has dreams of finding fortune in America. The two men agree on little, as many issues fester between Chinese and Natives at a time when both races were disdained as inferior by whites ("redbeards").This far-reaching novel crackles with the brutal, visceral energy of the time-a period marked by contraband, illegal gambling, disfigurement, and death. It also depicts the bawdy world of Chinese "bachelors," whose families remained in China while they worked in Canada, and who enjoyed more freedom to live their lives without restraint. Yang Hok is not an easy man to like; but through the blood and sweat of his experience, he aspires to become the "superior man" he knows he should be. Boldly frank and steeped in history, A Superior Man paints a vivid portrait of the experience of the Chinese in North America in the 19th century.Paul Yee's twenty-seven books for young people include the Governor General's Award-winning Ghost Train. This is his first novel for adults.By Audrey Mckim. 1970
By telling a fun story about a little girl named Judy, this multicultural children's book is a great introduction to…
Korean culture and festivals.When Judy and her parents spent a year in Korea, she had a wonderful time. Every new moon her friends Sookie and Kim introduced Judy to another of Korea's many traditional festivals and customs. There were so many that Judy quite rightly said: "There are more fun days for children in Korea than in any other country."You can read about the day specially reserved for making kimchi pickles, the snowman who can talk Korean and English, and the summer moon when the children have fun at a yudu picnic party by the river.The delightful illustrations show you the many adventures Judy has with her new friends.By Sau-Ling Wong, Hualing Nieh. 1981
This extraordinary novel tells the story of two women-Mulberry and Peach-who are really one. Mulberry is a young Chinese-American woman…
who has fled the turmoil of postwar China to settle in the United States. Unable to forget the terrors she has witnessed or to resolve the conflicts between her new life and her old, she copes by developing a second personality: the fearless, tough-talking, sexually uninhibited Peach. While Mulberry clings to her cultural and ethical roots, Peach renounces her past to embrace the American way of life with a vengeance. These two women-both in flight-speak to their readers through an innovative narrative structure, combining journal entries, interior dialogue, letters, poetry, and myth. Mulberry's past-mainly her experiences during the Japanese occupation of China and the years of civil war between Communists and Nationalists-haunts the text. Separated from her family, she seeks refuge in the home of wealthy cousins, who try desperately to maintain their rigid traditions as warrign forces close in around Peking and the house is systematically looted. Mulberry escapes downriver in a boat carrying a strange assortiment of refugees. But her escape to Taiwan only brings new terrors: when her new husband is targeted by the police, Mulberry msut go into hiding with him in a tiny attic room. There her young daughterm who cannot remember life "outside", descends into a fantasy world of her own invention and unwittingly ensures her family's doom, Mulberry's journal entires alternate with a series of letters from Peach to "the man from the USA immigration service." Peach has embarked on a cross-country journey in flight from possible deportation. Pregnant and penniless, she lives by her wits while taunting her pursuers and ridiculing her alter ego Mulberry, whom she seeks, finally, to conquer. In Mulberry and Peach Hualing Nieh offers a rare perspective, through the eyes of a young refugee woman, of the upheavals of contemporary China (where the book was banned upon its first publication in 1976). Through her experimental, highly effective narrative, she also presents an unforgettable portrait of the pain of cultural dislocation and the anguish of psychological disintegration.By David Henry Hwang. 2000
David Henry Hwang has the potential to become the first important dramatist of American public life since Arthur Miller, and…
maybe the best of them all. -Detroit NewsDavid Henry Hwang has created an extraordinary body of work over the last twenty years: the Tony Award-winning play, M. Butterfly; the OBIE Award-winning and 1998 Tony nominated Golden Child; the libretti to The Voyage (included here) and 1000 Airplanes on the Roof (both for composer Philip Glass); and the book to Aida, which he coauthored. He has received fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and The Pew /TCG National Artists Residency Program.This eight-play collection includes:FOB: "fresh off the boat" explores the conflicts between old and new worldsThe Dance and the Railroad: a haunting play about the inhuman conditions of railroad workers in the 1860s American WestFamily Devotions: a biting work which probes the religious conflicts in a modern Chinese-American familyThe Sound of a Voice: a meditation on the traditional roles of man and woman set in feudal JapanThe House of Sleeping Beauties: a reworking of a novella by Yasunari KawabataThe Voyage: the libretto to the opera by Philip Glass, which examines Columbus's arrival in AmericaBondage: a one-act set in an S&M parlor, which examines racial stereotypes and sexual mythsTrying to Find Chinatown: a two-person play, in which two Asian-American men-one searching for his Asian heritage, the other trying to shake himself free-meet by chance in New York City"David Henry Hwang knows America-its vernacular, its social landscape, its theatrical traditions. He knows the same about China. In his plays, he manages to mix both of these conflicting cultures until he arrives at a style that is wholly his own. Hwang's works have the verve of the well-made American stage comedies and yet, with little warning, they bubble over into the mystical rituals of Asian stagecraft. By at once bringing West and East into conflict and unity, this playwright has found the perfectBy Craig Cravens, Magdaléna Platzová. 2014
"Told in clear and beautiful prose, Aaron's Leap is a deeply moving portrait of love, sacrifice, and the transformative power…
of art in a time of brutal uncertainty." -SIMON VAN BOOY, author of The Illusion of SeparatenessBased on the real-life story of Bauhaus artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Aaron's Leap is framed by the lens of a twenty first-century Israeli film crew delving into the extraordinary life of a woman who taught art to children in the Nazi transport camp of Terezín and died in Auschwitz. Aided by the granddaughter of one of the artist's pupils, the filmmakers begin to uncover buried secrets from a time when personal and artistic decisions became matters of life-and-death. Spanning a century of Central European history, the novel evokes the founding impulses, theories, and personalities of the European Modernist movement (with characters modeled after Oskar Kokoschka, Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel) and shows what it takes to grapple with a troubled history, "leap" into the unknown, and dare to be oneself.Magdaléna Platzová was raised in Prague and has lived in Washington, DC and New York City, where she taught literature at NYU, and now lives in Lyon, France. She is the author of a children's book, two collections of short stories, and three novels, including Aaron's Leap, a Lidové Noviny Book of the Year Award finalist, hailed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as a novel that "must be counted among the best written by contemporary Czech writers." It is her first book to be published in English.By Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Zygmunt Miloszewski. 2012
"A Grain of Truth, like every great crime novel, digs up more unsettling questions than it does answers; it also…
demonstrates the seemingly endless possibilities of the form itself to serve as smart social criticism." --Maureen Corrigan, on NPR's Fresh AirPraise for the first novel in the Teodor Szacki series:"In Entanglement Miloszewski takes an engaging look at modern Polish society in this stellar first in a new series starring Warsaw prosecutor Teodor Szacki. Readers will want to see more of the complex, sympathetic Szacki."-Publishers WeeklyIt is spring 2009, and prosecutor Szacki is no longer working in Warsaw-he has said goodbye to his family and to his career in the capital and moved to Sandomierz, a picturesque town full of churches and museums. Hoping to start a "brave new life," Szacki instead finds himself investigating a strange murder case in surroundings both alien and unfriendly.The victim is found brutally murdered, her body drained of blood. The killing bears the hallmarks of legendary Jewish ritual slaughter, prompting a wave of anti-Semitic paranoia in the town, where everyone knows everyone. The murdered woman's husband is bereft, but when Szacki discovers that she had a lover, the husband becomes the prime suspect. Before there's time to arrest him, he is found murdered in similar circumstances. In his investigation Szacki must wrestle with the painful tangle of Polish-Jewish relations and something that happened more than sixty years earlier.Zygmunt Miloszewski was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1975. His first novel The Intercom was published in 2005 to high acclaim. In 2006 he published The Adder Mountains; in 2010, the crime novel Entanglement; and this year its sequel, A Grain of Truth.