10 new and original stories with painted illustrations by Nadia Ilchuk. Imaginative stories of day-to-day adventures with human and animal characters that teach a life lesson. The story-telling is in the style of classics like The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, The Wind in the Willows or Winnie the Pooh in which animal characters have normal yet imaginative adventures, providing a vehicle for learning about community, compassion and collaboration. The elements used to craft the stories are: • normal, every-day activities into which is woven a challenge or a difficult situation. • talking animal characters engaged with human characters, involved in adventures. • lessons relating to teamwork, safety, helping others and kindness. About 2000 words per story.
Set in the aftermath of Iran's fraudulent elections of 2009, Zahra's Paradise is the fictional graphic novel of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has vanished into an extrajudicial twilight zone.
Khalil Rafati went to Los Angeles in the 1990s and had it all. He was working with Hollywood movie stars and legendary rock musicians, but it wasn t long before he found his way into the dark underbelly of the City of Angels. When he hit rock bottom addicted to heroin and cocaine, overtaken by paranoia and psychosis, written off by his friends and family he grabbed a shovel and kept digging. At 33, Khalil was 109 pounds, a convicted felon, high school dropout, and homeless junkie living on the infamous Skid Row in downtown L.A.
2021 ARAB AMERICAN CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD WINNER Children's Africana Book Award (CABA) 2021 Honor Book NCSS 2021 Notable Social Studies Book Kanzi’s family has moved from Egypt to America, and on her first day in a new school, what she wants more than anything is to fit in. Maybe that’s why she forgets to take the kofta sandwich her mother has made for her lunch, but that backfires when Mama shows up at school with the sandwich. Mama wears a hijab and calls her daughter Habibti (dear one). When she leaves, the teasing starts. That night, Kanzi wraps herself in the beautiful Arabic quilt her teita (grandma) in Cairo gave her and writes a poem in Arabic about the quilt. Next day her teacher sees the poem and gets the entire class excited about creating a “quilt” (a paper collage) of student names in Arabic. In the end, Kanzi’s most treasured reminder of her old home provides a pathway for acceptance in her new one. This authentic story with beautiful illustrations includes a glossary of Arabic words and a presentation of Arabic letters with their phonetic English equivalents.
"In these engaging, challenging and beguiling dialogues, Pamela Cohn expertly draws from her subjects, personal biography and conceptual intent, process and nearly subconscious motivation, personal revelation and political mission. The result is a work that not only provides a road map to the furthest regions of cinematic possibility in the early 21st century but one whose spirited back-and-forth inspires the reader to think anew about artistic possibility." —Scott Macaulay, editor-in-chief of Filmmaker Magazine “Pamela Cohn has curated and conducted a series of interviews that simultaneously invite you to turn the page, and pause for a moment of reverie. Her interviews furrow the grounds where sensibilities become cinema, and attitudes become forms." —Luke Moody Lucid Dreaming is an unprecedented global collection of discussions with documentary and experimental filmmakers, giving film and video its rightful place alongside the written word as an essential medium for conveying the most urgent concerns in contemporary arts and politics. In these long-form conversations, film curator and arts journalist Cohn draws out the thinking of some of the most intriguing creators behind the rapidly developing movement of moving-image nonfiction. The collection features individuals from a variety of backgrounds who encounter the world, as Cohn says, “through a creative lens based in documentary practice.” Their inspirations encompass queer politics, racism, identity politics, and activism. The featured artists come from a multiplicity of countries and cultures including the U.S., Finland, Serbia, Syria, Kosovo, China, Iran, and Australia. Among those Cohn profiles and converses with are Karim Aïnouz, Khalik Allah, Maja Borg, Ramona Diaz, Samira Elagoz, Sara Fattahi, Dónal Foreman, Ja’Tovia Gary, Ognjen Glavonic, Barbara Hammer, Sky Hopinka, Gürcan Keltek, Adam and Zack Khalil, Khavn, Kaltrina Krasniqi, Roberto Minervini, Terence Nance, Orwa Nyrabia, Chico Pereira, Michael Robinson, J. P. Sniadecki, Brett Story, Deborah Stratman, Maryam Tafakory, Mila Turajlic, Lynette Wallworth, Travis Wilkerson, and Shengze Zhu. Can nonfiction film be defined? How close to reality can or should documentary storytelling be, and is film and video in its less restrictive iterations “truer” than traditional narratives? How can a story be effectively conveyed? As they consider these and many other questions, these passionate, highly articulate filmmakers will inspire not only cinema enthusiasts, but activists and artists of all stripes.
Elon Musk, visionary behind SpaceX and CEO of both the electric car company Tesla and the social media platform Twitter, is constantly generating headlines. But how did he get there? This riveting and beautifully designed YA biography shows how a once-bullied school boy became a figure the New York Times described as "arguably the most important and successful entrepreneur in the world." Online banking, reusable rockets, electric sports cars, improved solar power, colonizing Mars—Elon Musk is full of unique, daring, and highly-publicized ideas that he believes will help save the world. But behind his legendary drive and the mind-blowing headlines seen on CNN, Forbes, or The Wall Street Journal is the story of a bullied and beaten school boy who, through creativity and determination, decided to rewrite his narrative and find groundbreaking ways to make the world a better place. With the sense of fun and style that he has become so well-known for, of course. From hosting raves to pay for college to rewriting the rules on space travel, Elon Musk has always gone his own way, to either the dismay or admiration of the general public. And now, award-winning investigative journalist Anna Crowley Redding takes readers on a well-researched trip through Elon's life and accomplishments.
Over the course of a historic year characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and widespread social reckoning, four Black middle school boys from Beacon House in Washington, DC came together virtually, to dream. Pushing up against the hardship of current events, these new authors decided to create a collection of imaginative stories that share messages they believe the world needs to hear today about resilience, self-expression, and staying true to your dreams. In this collection, you will meet Kobe, a teenage basketball player grappling with the death of his role model; Zim, a sword-wielding orphan on a quest to save his grandmother's life; Ava, a cyborg girl who just wants to be normal; and Brandon, a boy struggling to choose between his passion and his family. This motley crew of heroes all learn to decipher their changing worlds, carrying with them necessary guidance for readers on how they can process their own. Artfully illustrated, and written in both poetry and prose, this book has something for every type of reader. Ages 9+.
For as long as anyone could remember, there have only been twelve Zodiac signs. Talah dreams of another world. One where she doesn't have to hide who she truly is. All she wants is to take the Trials and prove she's a true Zodiac. That she belongs. Training with her best friend, Mazin, Talah prepares to dive into the world of the Zodiacs. Gifted by the stars with two abilities each, the twelve signs have maintained balance in their world for centuries. When her chance finally arrives to compete in the Trials and join her people for good, she is all too eager to prove her place. But beneath the lavish parties and power lies a dark secret their history had forgotten. And with it, a boy she thought she'd never see again. Now, a thirteenth sign threatens to upend the balance... Firas has spent his whole life training for the Trials to take his true place as the Soulinus heir. But when his own family starts hunting him down, he has to learn to survive on his own. Now the leader of a people facing genocide, he must outwit a centuries-old society with powers that rival his own. Thrust into a forgotten civil war neither understand, Talah and Firas must find the balance between tradition and freedom.
