For as long as Esmerine can remember, she has longed to join her older sister, Dosinia, as a siren--the highest calling a mermaid can have. When Dosinia runs away to the mainland, Esmerine is sent to retrieve her. Using magic to transform her tail into legs, she makes her way unsteadily to the capital city. There she comes upon a friend she hasn't seen since childhood--a dashing young man named Alandare, who belongs to a winged race of people. As Esmerine and Alandare band together to search for Dosinia, they rekindle a friendship . . . and ignite the emotions for a love so great, it cannot be bound by sea, land, or air.
In a near future where a series of environmental disasters has left much of the country underwater, Pearl lives on a floating oyster farm with her father and younger sister, Clover. Following her mum's death several years earlier, Pearl refuses to set foot on land, believing her illness was caused by the poisons in the ground. Meanwhile, Clover dreams of school, friends and a normal life. Then Nat comes to spend the summer at the sea farm while his scientist mum conducts some experiments. Leaving behind the mainland, with its strict rules and regulations, he brings with him a secret. But when the sisters promise to keep his secret safe, little do they realize that they may be risking everything... A thrilling and thought-provoking ecological adventure from the author of the highly acclaimed WHERE THE WORLD TURNS WILD. Perfect for fans of THE EXPLORER, THE LAST WILD and WHERE THE RIVER RUNS GOLD. PRAISE FOR WHERE THE WORLD TURNS WILD: "A sense of the natural world's curative power runs through this adventurous story like a seam of gold." - Guardian "Some books are excellent story-telling, and some books broaden your knowledge and mind, and some just ought to be written and this book is all three. I loved it." - Hilary McKay, author of THE SKYLARKS' WAR "A brilliant adventure that pulls you headlong into Juniper and Bear's world, where survival depends upon finding the wild." - Gill Lewis, author of A STORY LIKE THE WIND "An absorbing, thought-provoking début tapping into pertinent ecological themes." - The Bookseller "Wondrous, warm-hearted, wildly exhilarating [...] The world is familiar and frightening, the relationships between characters beautifully rendered - Nicola Penfold is an author to watch." - Nizrana Farook, author of THE GIRL WHO STOLE AN ELEPHANT
A group of Jewish refugees are thrown together on board a dilapidated freighter charting a course for Australia. Fleeing terrible scenes of destruction in Europe, they are bound by a deep sense of loss and the uncertainty of their fate. As the ship lists, inner conflicts burst to the surface and romance, revenge, guilt and desperation fill the craft. There's poignancy, drama and an abiding strength of humanity as the passengers' lives play out in this unbearable hinterland between sky and sea. Now, more than sixty years since its publication in 1946, Between Sky & Sea has been resurrected to take its place among Australia's major works of diaspora fiction. Arnold Zable’s introduction highlights the chilling parallels between Bergner’s tale and the sinking of the SIEV X off the Australian coast, giving the reader pause to reflect on the unchanging plight of asylum seekers throughout history and across the globe. Herz Bergner was born in Poland in 1907 and migrated to Australia with his wife in 1938. His first book, The New House, published in 1941, was a collection of short stories about immigrants adapting to life in a new land. Herz Bergner died in 1970. ‘This novel, resurrected from its foreign country of the past, might stand as an epitaph for the 353 men, women and children drowned in 2001 when the SIEV X sank while trying to reach Australia. At the very least, Between Sky & Sea should be required reading for refugee policymakers today.’ Canberra Times ‘Beautifully written with extraordinary insight into the frailties of humanity, Bergner’s tale is as much a version of the past as it is a vision of our present...We can only hope that publishers such as Text continue to salvage the treasury of migrant literature that is no longer in print.’ Australian ‘Bergner’s astute observation of life shows in his sharp psychological dissection of this human cargo and his unflinching assessment of people’s flaws...Bergner writes with such compassion that a reader becomes infected by his characters’ yearnings.’ Herald Sun ‘There’s poignancy, drama and an abiding strength of humanity in this story.’ Australian Jewish News
In the magical time between night and day, when both the sun and the moon are in the sky, a child is born in a little blue house on a hill. And Miu Lan is not just any child, but one who can change into any shape they can imagine. The only problem is they can't decide what to be: A boy or a girl? A bird or a fish? A flower or a shooting star? At school, though, they must endure inquisitive looks and difficult questions from the other children, and they have trouble finding friends who will accept them for who they are. But they find comfort in the loving arms of their mother, who always offers them the same loving refrain: "whatever you dream of / i believe you can be / from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea." In this captivating, beautifully imagined picture book about gender, identity, and the acceptance of the differences between us, Miu Lan faces many questions about who they are and who they may be. But one thing's for sure: no matter what this child becomes, their mother will love them just the same. Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, and psychotherapist in Toronto. Her first poetry book, a Place Called No Homeland, was published in 2017. Kai Yun Ching is a community-based organizer, educator, and illustrator in Montreal. Wai-Yant Li is a ceramics artist and illustrator in Montreal.
The sickness was severe… …and there was one known potion that could save him. Was piracy the only chance they had? Zala wasn’t skilled with a sword. She wasn’t blessed with magic. But she knew the Sapphire Seas well. Plundering and raiding was an art of its own, and she got by on her wits. Yet she was running out of time. She needed the big score to save her husband. What was her next move? Before she even knew it… …the game changed. High above them, off the coast of the Ibabi Isles, a strange airship was headed their way. Zala had never seen anything like it. The battle was imminent. And she was going to need more than her bag of tricks. You’ll love this adventure inspired by the West Indies, The Swahili Coast, and Arabia, because Zala will encounter ruthless raiders, arrogant aristocrats, and imperial secrets. It will keep you turning the pages.
A Reader for Navigating the Depths of Our Lives The Universe holds us and tosses us about, only to hold us again. With Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, Mark Nepo brings us a compelling treasury of short prose reflections to turn to when struggling to keep our heads above water, and to breathe into all of our sorrows and joys. Inspired by his own journal writing across 15 years, this book shares with us some of Mark’s most personal work. Many passages arise from accounts of his own life events—moments of "sinking and being lifted"—and the insights they yielded. Through these passages, we’re encouraged to navigate our own currents of sea and sky, and to discover something fundamental yet elusive: How, simply, to be here. To be enjoyed in many ways—individually, by topic, or as an unfolding sequence—Things That Join the Sea and the Sky presents 145 contemplations gathered into 17 themes, each intended to illuminate specific situations. The themes include: Unraveling Our Fear, Beyond What Goes Wrong, The Gift of Deepening, The Practice of Relationship, What Holds Us Up, Right-Sizing Our Pain, The Reach of Kindness, Burning Off What’s Unnecessary, How We Make Our Way and many more. For those interested in either beginning or expanding their own journaling explorations, this reader also provides a guide to the practice of daily writing, with 100 compelling questions to get us started. "Joy is the sea that holds all," writes Mark, "the Unity of Being where feelings don’t separate, but surface like waves to remind us we are alive." Here, he helps us swim in those waters until we are held in the mystery of their buoyancy.
This book is a selection of modernized, paganized prayers and charms from volumes one and two of Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica, intended for use by Druids, Celtic Reconstructionists, or others interested in Celtic spiritulaity. The Carmina Gadelica is a six volume collection of prayers, charms, and folklore from Scotland assembled around 1900 by Alexander Carmichael. This book represents modernized, re-paganized versions of selected prayers and charms from the first two volumes of the series. It is designed to be used by Celtic Polytheists, Druids, or anyone else interested in Celtic Spirituality. All original deity references have been replaced with the names of Irish gods, and the language has been modernized, but otherwise the content has been kept as true to the original as possible.
Winner of the 2016 Whiting Award One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2016" One of Lit Hub's "10 must-read poetry collections for April" “Reading Vuong is like watching a fish move: he manages the varied currents of English with muscled intuition. His poems are by turns graceful and wonderstruck. His lines are both long and short, his pose narrative and lyric, his diction formal and insouciant. From the outside, Vuong has fashioned a poetry of inclusion.”—The New Yorker "Night Sky with Exit Wounds establishes Vuong as a fierce new talent to be reckoned with...This book is a masterpiece that captures, with elegance, the raw sorrows and joys of human existence."—Buzzfeed's "Most Exciting New Books of 2016" "This original, sprightly wordsmith of tumbling pulsing phrases pushes poetry to a new level...A stunning introduction to a young poet who writes with both assurance and vulnerability. Visceral, tender and lyrical, fleet and agile, these poems unflinchingly face the legacies of violence and cultural displacement but they also assume a position of wonder before the world.”—2016 Whiting Award citation "Night Sky with Exit Wounds is the kind of book that soon becomes worn with love. You will want to crease every page to come back to it, to underline every other line because each word resonates with power."—LitHub "Vuong’s powerful voice explores passion, violence, history, identity—all with a tremendous humanity."—Slate “In his impressive debut collection, Vuong, a 2014 Ruth Lilly fellow, writes beauty into—and culls from—individual, familial, and historical traumas. Vuong exists as both observer and observed throughout the book as he explores deeply personal themes such as poverty, depression, queer sexuality, domestic abuse, and the various forms of violence inflicted on his family during the Vietnam War. Poems float and strike in equal measure as the poet strives to transform pain into clarity. Managing this balance becomes the crux of the collection, as when he writes, ‘Your father is only your father/ until one of you forgets. Like how the spine/ won’t remember its wings/ no matter how many times our knees/ kiss the pavement.’”—Publishers Weekly "What a treasure [Ocean Vuong] is to us. What a perfume he's crushed and rendered of his heart and soul. What a gift this book is."—Li-Young Lee Torso of Air Suppose you do change your life. & the body is more than a portion of night—sealed with bruises. Suppose you woke & found your shadow replaced by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful & gone. So you take the knife to the wall instead. You carve & carve until a coin of light appears & you get to look in, at last, on happiness. The eye staring back from the other side— waiting. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Ocean Vuong attended Brooklyn College. He is the author of two chapbooks as well as a full-length collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. A 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellow and winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, Ocean Vuong lives in New York City, New York.
In the small Palestinian farming village of Beit Daras, the women of the Baraka family inspire awe. Nazmiyeh is brazen and fiercely protective of her clairvoyant little sister, Mariam, with her mismatched eyes, and of their mother, Um Mahmoud, known for the fearsome djinni that sometimes possesses her. When the family is forced by the newly formed State of Israel to leave their ancestral home, only Nazmiyeh and her brother survive the long road to Gaza. Amidst the violence and fragility of the refugee camp, Nazmiyeh builds a family, navigates crises, and nurtures what remains of Beit Daras's community. But her brother continues his exile's journey to America, where, upon his death, his granddaughter Nur grows up alone, in a different kind of exile, the longing for family and roots eventually beckoning her to Gaza. Internationally bestselling author Susan Abulhawa's powerful new novel explores the legacy of dispossession across continents and generations. With devastatingly clear-eyed vision of political and personal trauma, The Blue Between Sky and Water is the story of flawed yet profoundly courageous women, of separation and heartache, endurance and renewal.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Love, In English comes a captivating story about finding yourself and finding love in the most beautiful places after a chance encounter leads two people on a life-changing adventure. Joshua Miles has spent his early twenties spinning his wheels. Working dead-end jobs and living at home has left him exhausted and uninspired, with little energy to pursue his passion for graphic art. Until he meets Gemma Henare, a vivacious out-of-towner from New Zealand. What begins as a one-night stand soon becomes a turning point for Josh. He can’t get Gemma out of his head, even after she has left for home, and finds himself throwing caution to the wind for the first time in his life. It’s not long before Josh is headed to New Zealand with only a backpack, some cash, and Gemma’s name to go on. But when he finally tracks her down, he finds his adventure is only just beginning. Equally infatuated, Gemma leads him on a whirlwind tour across the beautiful country, opening Josh up to life, lust, love, and all the messy heartache in between. Because, when love drags you somewhere, it might never let go—even when you know you have to say goodbye.
