Eleven-year-old Thomas chases a small, crippled rabbit into the forest where he stumbles upon the entrance to a place where departed animals go. Deep in the woods, a gigantic oak has sprung up overnight! When the rabbit disappears inside, Thomas is not far behind. There he meets Francis, the proprietor of the marvelous world, a kind and gentle lover of all animals...and people. Francis takes j=him on an adventure through this delightful world filled with lots of fun and laughter, and some scary moments too.
As a Catholic boy raised on a rural dairy farm in Wisconsin, author Keith Francis Organ was taught that killing was something you never did--not even to an unborn child. Until he was nineteen, he believed people in the world were mostly good. Getting drafted into the Vietnam War forces a dismantling of that belief and renders him capable of killing. After combat in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam in 1968-69, killing seems normal--and most of his humanity is suppressed. When an injury from a booby trap sends him to a field hospital for amputation of his left leg, he is faced with starting the process of reinstalling his humanity. Once home, he finds a sympathetic mother but an insensitive environment that doesn't support the veterans of the Vietnam War and a veterans administration that allows unqualified employees to treat his injuries. His reaction is anger, isolation, and bitterness. The Tree of Souls portrays one man's journey of disillusionment and eventual enlightenment and includes recommendations to improve our society. It's a raw, honest portrayal of the experience of many during the Vietnam War and the aftermath of life once they returned home.
Costa Book of the Year: This novel of science, magic, murder, and a determined Victorian-era teenager is a “heady concoction . . . absolutely unforgettable” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Faith Sunderly leads a double life. To most people, she is modest and well mannered—a proper young lady who knows her place. But inside, Faith is burning with questions and curiosity. She keeps sharp watch of her surroundings and, therefore, knows secrets no one suspects her of knowing—like the real reason her family fled to the close-knit island of Vane. And that her father’s death was no accident. In pursuit of revenge and justice for the father she idolizes, Faith hunts through his possessions, where she discovers a strange tree. A tree that bears fruit only when she whispers a lie to it. The fruit, in turn, delivers a hidden truth. The tree might hold the key to her father’s murder. Or, it might lure the murderer directly to Faith herself, for lies—like fires, wild and crackling—quickly take on a life of their own. “Frances Hardinge has joined the ranks of those writers of young-adult fiction, like Philip Pullman, whose approach to fantasy proves so compelling that they quickly develop an adult following, and The Lie Tree is a good demonstration of why this is so . . . [a] page-turner.” —Locus “The time is nineteenth-century England just after Darwin’s theory of evolution has thrown the scientific world into turmoil; the setting is the fictional island of Vane, between land and sea; the main character is a fourteen-year-old girl caught between society’s expectations and her fierce desire to be a scientist. . . . A stunner.” —The Horn Book (starred review) “A murder mystery that dazzles at every level, shimmering all the more brightly the deeper down into it you go.” —Chicago Tribune “Haunting, and darkly funny . . . features complex, many-sided characters and a clear-eyed examination of the deep sexism of the period, which trapped even the most intelligent women in roles as restrictive as their corsets.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Hardinge, who can turn a phrase like no other, melds a haunting historical mystery with a sharp observation on the dangers of suppressing the thirst for knowledge.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
The 1970s have long been a decade regarded with a wary eye by those who never experienced it and a weary eye by those have. The 1960s had come to a shaggy, uncertain end and the only sensible reaction was to find solace in what writer Tom Wolfe termed the Me Decade. Claymont, Delaware, was a typical town in the 1970s. The clothing styles, music, pursuit of recreation and day to day life were no different than what you might find in Haddonfield, New Jersey, Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, or Jacksonville, Florida, at least on the surface, but it was also distinctly Claymont as seen through the eyes of one of its more feckless, curious and mischievous junior citizens. Meet his family, Rodney Reeves, Freddie Lang and a host of others, including the inimitably unforgettable Boomer, and their wild and wooly adventures.
To document the world's diversity of species and reconstruct the tree of life we need to undertake some simple but mountainous tasks. Most importantly, we need to tackle species rich groups. We need to collect, name, and classify them, and then position them on the tree of life. We need to do this systematically across all groups of organisms and b
Walking with trees takes us on an intimate journey with 13 native trees of Britain and Europe. Glennie leads us into their world, describes their unique characteristics, natural history, healing properties, mythologies and crafts, and opens us to their subtle 'signatures'; what each tree can teach us when our hearts are open. This is a book about our relationships with trees, their relationships with each other and the natural world around them, and the deep interconnection between trees and the web of life on earth. It reveals a transformative pathway for individuals and provides an empowering practice for active engagement in the great challenges of our time.--COVER.
Francis Daniel Pastorius was one of the first German settlers to Pennsylvania and a touchstone figure of German-American cultural heritage. This monumental anthology presents a selection of his many writings in one volume. Pastorius sailed to North America as a Pietist but found a unique home among the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Within this early modern religious context, he was a lawyer, educator, and community leader; a polymath; and a prolific writer and collector of knowledge. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Pastorius held one of the largest manuscript collections in North America and wrote voluminously in multiple languages. His collecting, curation, and dissemination represents a unique look at the ways information was stored, processed, and utilized during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in both North America and Europe. This rich selection of Pastorius’s writings on religion, education, gardening, law and community, and the colony of Pennsylvania—as well as letters, poems, and numerous encyclopedic and bibliographic works—shows the mind of a true humanist in action. Pastorius’s works have long been important to the archival study of early German settlement and the Atlantic world. Now available together, transcribed, translated, and annotated, his writings will have widespread significance to the study of early American literature and history.
