The river cuts right across the known world, from the impassable Far Precipices to the sea. The people on one bank are cut off from those on the other, for the black current has the power to stop them crossing. Only women can travel repeatedly up and down the river, but when Yaleen joins the boating guild and becomes a riverwoman, she is singled out to follow an even more extraordinary path...
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A fiery tour de force... I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful." -Alison Borden, The Denver Post From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, the story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip--a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.
“This stunningly illustrated book, rendered in deep blues and greens, charts a river’s meandering course through cities, farms and jungles.” —Entertainment Weekly A Winner of the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award There’s a river outside my window. Where will it take me? So begins the imaginary journey of a child inspired by the view outside her bedroom window: a vast river winding through a towering city. A small boat with a single white sail floats down the river and takes her from factories to farmlands, freeways to forests, out to the stormy and teeming depths of the ocean, and finally back to the comforts—and inspirations—of home. This lush, immersive book by award-winning picture book creator Marc Martin will delight readers of all ages by taking them on a transcendent and aspirational journey through an imaginative landscape. “A subtle study of how imagination allows children to safely explore the unknown without ever leaving home.” —Publishers Weekly
All the Gears' previous titles in the First North American series have been national bestsellers. Now, People of the River is finally available in mass-market. This gripping saga tells of the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley. In a time of many troubles, a warchief and his people have lost all hope. But hope is revived with a young girl learning to Dream of Power.
The government sends Brian back to the Canadian wilderness in this beloved follow-up to the award-winning classic Hatchet from three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Gary Paulsen! Two years after Brian Robeson survived fifty-four days alone in the Canadian wilderness, the government wants him to head back so they can learn what he did to stay alive. This time Derek Holtzer, a government psychologist, will accompany him. But a freak storm leaves Derek unconscious. Brian's only hope is to transport Derek a hundred miles down the river to a trading post. He's survived with only a hatchet before--now can Brian build a raft and navigate an unknown river? For the first time it's not only Brian's survival that's at stake. . . An IRA-CBC Children’s Choice A Parents Magazine Best Book of the Year “Vividly written, a book that will, as intended, please the readers who hoped that Paulsen, like Brian, would ‘do it again.’” —Kirkus Reviews Read all the Hatchet Adventures! Brian's Winter The River Brian's Return Brian's Hunt
In this history of the black peasants of Amazonia, Oscar de la Torre focuses on the experience of African-descended people navigating the transition from slavery to freedom. He draws on social and environmental history to connect them intimately to the natural landscape and to Indigenous peoples. Relying on this world as a repository for traditions, discourses, and strategies that they retrieved especially in moments of conflict, Afro-Brazilians fought for autonomous communities and developed a vibrant ethnic identity that supported their struggles over labor, land, and citizenship. Prior to abolition, enslaved and escaped blacks found in the tropical forest a source for tools, weapons, and trade--but it was also a cultural storehouse within which they shaped their stories and records of confrontations with slaveowners and state authorities. After abolition, the black peasants' knowledge of local environments continued to be key to their aspirations, allowing them to maintain relationships with powerful patrons and to participate in the protest cycle that led Getulio Vargas to the presidency of Brazil in 1930. In commonly referring to themselves by such names as "sons of the river," black Amazonians melded their agro-ecological traditions with their emergent identity as political stakeholders.
From the acclaimed author of Floating in My Mother’s Palm and Children and Fire, a stunning story about ordinary people living in extraordinary times—“epic, daring, magnificent, the product of a defining and mesmerizing vision” (Los Angeles Times). Trudi Montag is a Zwerg—a dwarf—short, undesirable, different, the voice of anyone who has ever tried to fit in. Eventually she learns that being different is a secret that all humans share—from her mother who flees into madness, to her friend Georg whose parents pretend he’s a girl, to the Jews Trudi harbors in her cellar. Ursula Hegi brings us a timeless and unforgettable story in Trudi and a small town, weaving together a profound tapestry of emotional power, humanity, and truth.
