Award-winning author April Pulley Sayre explores everyone's favorite impertinent birds--seagulls--examining their intelligence, behavior, and surprisingly widespread habitat in this STEAM nonfiction picture book. Did you know that seagulls sometimes live far from the sea--near a lake or farm, or even in a desert? Or that they are omnivores, eating everything from fish and clams, to grasshoppers and mice, and even to blueberries? Or that they dance? These birds are full of surprises! Join April Pulley Sayre as she poetically describes the curious behaviors and wide-ranging habitats of one of the most graceful birds to soar in the sky.
Following a romantic shipboard marriage, Joanna Morcant has everything her heart could desire: a dashing new husband and an adorable baby son.But an unforeseen tragedy leaves Joanna destitute and with no choice but to return to her childhood home, the Isle of Portland off the Dorset coast, a place which holds disturbing memories from Joanna's troubled past.Just as Joanna is starting to make a new life for herself and her young son, Toby, the past rises up to haunt her once again. Toby's grandfather, the dissolute Lord Durrington, has vowed to take the child and make him his heir - whether Joanna agrees or not. And he's not the only sinister figure to emerge, determined to cause trouble.But in Joanna's darkest hour, a knight in shining armour will ride to her rescue - and that knight is someone she least expects.
A red color sun rose lazily out from the Eastern horizon, casting its early dim light upon the calm waters of the ocean Bay marking the beginning of a new summer morning. The warm sun rays slowly mixed with the cool air abandoned from the night before, inspiring a gentle breeze to start blowing towards the land. Seamore, a young seagull, had his head tucked under his warm wing when he first felt the gentle sea-breeze ruffling his feathers. He sleepily peeked out from under his wing at the bright new morning sun and thought to himself, "How good it feels to be awakened by a gentle warm breeze," comparing his thought and memory to some of the cold winter mornings he had experienced in the past. Seamore was perched on the top of an old wooded dock piling where seagulls normally stand or 'roost' when sleeping, he had one of his legs tucked up and pressed against his warm body to protect it from the chilly night air. He then slowly stood up from his perch, shook himself vigorously, ruffling his feathers, stretched his wings out widely, and then gave a loud screeching "SQUACK!" sound from deep within his throat which broke the morning silence, and startled some seagulls across the bay. Seamore was like all the other seagulls you may have seen at the beach. He flew around the Bay most of the day searching for things to eat. But, there was one thing that made Seamore very different from all the other seagulls. Seamore WAS AFRAID OF THE WATER!!!
So many of the poems in Sea Change merge the natural with the emotional to form a collage of intensely human experiences that speak to our greatest desires. For anyone who has felt the passion, warmth, and pain of human love, Sea Change will touch deep wellsprings of emotion. Praise for Sea Change: Sea Change is a seductive read that takes you on a winding, passionate journey to the sea where the language of love is spoken through the wind and sun and the stars and moon where regardless of how deep the pain is love is always just around the corner, Leaves falling, waves crashing, birds flying, seasons turning, worlds colliding and lovestill beckons. Norm Dolch E. E. Cummings wrote, Its always ourselves we find at the sea. In the poems of Roger Weis, with the attention to the natural world and its natural rhythms, I found myself and found myself spellbound. Pamela Parker
