In Chasing Blue, Sasha and her horse, Charm, have proven that they’re worthy competitors for the elite Canterwood Crest equestrian team. Things are definitely looking up . . . until Sasha finds out who her riding partner for the semester is: her archnemesis, Queen Bee Heather. Not. Good. And when Heather starts spending a little too much QT with Sasha’s almost-boyfriend, Jacob, the partnership is put to the ultimate test. The tension builds in Behind the Bit when Sasha and her team are accepted to a prestigious horse clinic. Can Sasha and Callie work together when it counts?
Chasing Vermeer joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!When a book of unexplainable occurences brings Petra and Calder together, strange things start to happen: Seemingly unrelated events connect; an eccentric old woman seeks their company; an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal, where no one is spared from suspicion. As Petra and Calder are drawn clue by clue into a mysterious labyrinth, they must draw on their powers of intuition, their problem solving skills, and their knowledge of Vermeer. Can they decipher a crime that has stumped even the FBI?
Chasing the Blues explores the roots of the blues---the music birthed in the Mississippi Delta by African Americans who fashioned a new form of musical expression grounded in their shared experience of brutal oppression. They used the power of music to survive that oppression, creating a simple-in-structure, emotionally complex form that transformed and upended culture and became the bedrock of popular song. Tracing the music back to its geographical and cultural origins in the Delta is key to understanding how the blues were shaped. Over time, the Delta blues have touched virtually every form of popular music (rock and roll, soul, R&B, country-western, gospel), creating the soundscape of our lives. What makes this book unique? Fathoming how the music flowed from living and working conditions in the heart of the Deep South; appreciating how life-changing events like the Flood of 1927 sparked a mass migration away from plantation life, spreading the blues to the cities in the North and becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movement; how blues musicians interacted, "cross-fertilizing" their music by learning, influencing, and imitating each other. The habits of travel are shifting, and there is more interest and a larger market for diving deep into destinations closer to home. Interest in Black history and culture and the role Black Americans played in shaping America is at an all-time high. By appreciating the roots of this most American style of music, readers will have a richer experience listening to songs and visiting blues' holy and sacred sites.
A Christmas wedding in Colorado? A two-week celebration with family and friends? Who does that? Photojournalist Reagan Bryant has just returned from six month stint in Afghanistan. Haunted by the tragedy that ended her last assignment, she’s searching for some peace—something to end the guilt and chase the trauma away. Two weeks at the resort hotel owned by her future sister-in-law’s father seems like the perfect escape. Shelby Sutton doesn’t trust women. They always seem more interested in her father’s money than in her. But at her sister’s request, she vows to make friends with Reagan, a woman whose sad and haunted eyes are nearly impossible to ignore.
As cash-strapped metropolitan newspapers struggle to maintain their traditional influence and quality reporting, large national and international outlets have pivoted to serving readers who can and will choose to pay for news, skewing coverage toward a wealthy, white, and liberal audience. Amid rampant inequality and distrust, media outlets have become more out of touch with the democracy they purport to serve. How did journalism end up in such a predicament, and what are the prospects for achieving a more equitable future? In News for the Rich, White, and Blue, Nikki Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of field research, she illuminates how journalists decide what becomes news and how news organizations strategize about the future. Usher shows how newsrooms remain places of power, largely white institutions growing more elite as journalists confront a shrinking job market. She details how Google, Facebook, and the digital-advertising ecosystem have wreaked havoc on the economic model for quality journalism, leaving local news to suffer. Usher also highlights how the handful of likely survivors—well-funded media outlets such as the New York Times—increasingly appeal to a global, “placeless” reader. News for the Rich, White, and Blue concludes with a series of provocative recommendations to reimagine journalism to ensure its resiliency and its ability to speak to a diverse set of issues and readers.
Whether chosen and celebrated--like going off to college or welcoming your first baby--or unexpected and anxiety-inducing--like losing a job or grappling with a broken trust--all change brings stress. Kristen Strong knows about change--especially the kind you didn't choose or expect. What she's fought hard to learn over the years is that change is not something to be feared but something to be received as a blessing from a God who, more often than not, works through change, not in spite of it. Strong has learned to see change not as a grievance but as a grace. In this hope-filled book, she shows women how when we follow God's will, we receive blessings of contentment, purpose, and renewed strength. She encourages women to see change not as the end of their story but as the scenery for this part of life's journey. And she offers practical advice for coping with change in every part of life. Anyone who has struggled to adjust to life's transitions will welcome this warm and personal perspective.
When difficult or unwanted change enters our lives, it can cause fear, anxiety, and anger to bubble up from within. We want to quiet that simmering stress, but how do we do that, especially when we know our circumstances aren't going to calm down any time soon? By regularly meeting with God and exchanging our worries and fears for his assurances that he is using our difficult change for us, not against us. Easier said than done? Not if you have Kristen Strong alongside you as your understanding guide. Offering thoughtful, humorous anecdotes and powerful prayers to recite, Strong invites you to think and feel differently about change on the inside so you can live and love differently on the outside. As the tender companion she is, Kristen will show you how not to get over difficult change but rather to get through it. She'll help you acknowledge your change, give your anxieties over to God, and abide well in the days to come--no matter what transitions life brings.
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville his journey to America, traveling from New York to the frontier city of Flint, Michigan, down the Ohio River Valley and into Mississippi, then turning east through the Old South and concluding in Washington, D.C. His journey spawned the classic Democracy in America, the book that defined "equality of opportunity" as the wellspring national character. At the end of the twentieth century, journalist David Cohen made that same journey, with one new destination—the frontier of Silicon Valley in California. Chasing the Red, White, and Blue is his account: a thought-provoking inquiry into the lives of Americans today. Talking with people at every level of society—from Manhattan real estate brokers and Washington lobbyists to supermarket clerks and illegal aliens—Cohen finds equality elusive and the poor increasingly adrift from American society. But he also finds hope alive in the most unexpected of places. Just as Democracy in America took the measure of our young republic, Chasing the Red, White, and Blue portrays a much-changed America on the cusp of a new millennium: still united by our passion for democracy, yet divided by our prejudices.
Six years ago, I had a best friend with sky-blue eyes, purposefully messy brown hair, and a body that made every single girl drool on sight. I would know--it drove me absolutely crazy...until I was the one doing the drooling. Our days were filled with stomach-hurting laughter accompanied by easy conversation, and our nights were filled with secret, awkward teenage flirting. But that was when Dawson was just my best friend. Nothing more, nothing less. And then... it was more. It's a memory I pretend to see through blurry eyes, hazed by passing years of no communication. The one night that my heart was suddenly soaring through the starry night, only to catch fire as it rapidly descended seconds later. Six years was a long time to get my heart under control. A lot has changed, and yet here I am, still drooling over Dawson--my ex best friend.
