"Eleven year old Anna is dreading spending her summer vacation on her grandma's old rundown farm, until one day she discovers a ladder made of light, streaming down to earth from a cloud. Anna just has to find out what is at the top! As she starts to climb the ladder, it begins to shake. Anna holds on for dear life as the ladder is whisked up into the clouds. Anna now finds herself in the mysterious land beyond the clouds -- with no way of getting back home"--Back cover.
Meet Gudrid, a Viking girl, just 15 years old, but she already knows what she wants. That doesn’t include staying home and weaving sails day after day for her father’s boat. The sea is in her blood and she dreams of sailing to a distant land where none of her people have ever set foot. Her foster mother has taught her all the healing ways and the ancient magic of her Viking people. Gudrid can see the future, heal disease, and speak with spirits, but is powerless until she can be more than just the Chief’s daughter. She wants to make her own choices and live her own life. Explore Gudrid’s world as she battles for her own sense of self, her survival at the edge of the world and her discovery of love and love’s many faces as we voyage with her. Sail through the storm to the new found land in the year 1000AD with Gudrid and her people. Their compelling story of desire, sorrow, terror and love with a cast of unforgettable characters will intrigue, disturb and draw you deeply into the Viking world.
In the tradition of Iron and Silk and Touch the Dragon, Jamie Zeppa’s memoir of her years in Bhutan is the story of a young woman’s self-discovery in a foreign land. It is also the exciting début of a new voice in travel writing. When she left for the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan in 1988, Zeppa was committing herself to two years of teaching and a daunting new experience. A week on a Caribbean beach had been her only previous trip outside Canada; Bhutan was on the other side of the world, one of the most isolated countries in the world known as the last Shangri-La, where little had changed in centuries and visits by foreigners were restricted. Clinging to her bags full of chocolate, hair conditioner and Immodium, she began the biggest challenge of her life, with no idea she would fall in love with the country and with a Bhutanese man, end up spending nine years in Bhutan, and begin a literary career with her account of this transformative journey. At her first posting in a remote village of eastern Bhutan, she is plunged into an overwhelmingly different culture with squalid Third World conditions and an impossible language. Her house has rats and fleas and she refuses to eat the local food, fearing the rampant deadly infections her overly protective grandfather warned her about. Gradually, however, her fear vanishes. She adjusts, begins to laugh, and is captivated by the pristine mountain scenery and the kind students in her grade 2 class. She also begins to discover for herself the spiritual serenity of Buddhism. A transfer to the government college of Sherubtse, where the housing conditions are comparatively luxurious and the students closer to her own age, gives her a deeper awareness of Bhutan’s challenges: the lack of personal privacy, the pressure to conform, and the political tensions. However, her connection to Bhutan intensifies when she falls in love with a student, Tshewang, and finds herself pregnant. After a brief sojourn in Canada to give birth to her son, Pema Dorji, she marries Tshewang and makes Bhutan her home for another four years. Zeppa’s personal essay about her culture shock on arriving in Bhutan won the 1996 CBC/Saturday Night literary competition and appeared in the magazine. She flew home to accept the prize, where people encouraged her to pursue her writing. Her letters from Bhutan also featured on CBC’s Morningside. The book that grew out of this has been published in Canada and the United States to ecstatic reviews, followed by British, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish editions. Although cultural differences finally separated Jamie and Tshewang in 1997 while she was writing the book and she returned to Canada, she will always feel at home in Bhutan. Zeppa shares her compelling insights into this land and culture, but Beyond the Sky and the Earth is more than a travel book. With rich, spellbinding prose and bright humour, it describes a personal journey in which Zeppa acquires a deeper understanding of what it means to leave one’s home behind, and undergoes a spiritual transformation.
South of the Clouds offers a fascinating, intimate portrait of China by telling the story of an American man who ventures into its hidden realms---romance, politics, the criminal underworld, and Tibet. As he matures from a wide-eyed student into a journalist and a seasoned observer, he develops a passion for uncovering secrets, about China and about himself. The author navigates his way past forbidding walls to peek inside the dark corners of Chinese society, relying on a remarkable collection of friends and acquaintances who help guide the way: an embittered policeman in Xian, a gay professor in Shanghai, and a Buddhist monk in Tibet, who presides at an ancient burial ritual where the corpse is carved up and fed to wild vultures. The Tiananmen Square massacre, people smuggling, and the Falun Gong movement are among the political and social upheavals that the author explains as he witnesses China's uncertain road toward capitalism and its place in the modern world. Along his travels, the author wrestles with his own cultural identity, his sexuality, and his spiritual bearings. He finds an erotic outlet in the Chinese "Sauna Massage" and a stirring emotional connection with Jin Xing, a brilliant choreographer and China's first openly transsexual citizen. Ultimately, he discovers the answer to lifelong questions on a mountaintop in Tibet. Seth Faison, with a subtle understanding of Chinese culture, brings past and present events to life in a thought-provoking account of this mysterious nation and its people.
Gavin Meckler has slipped sideways in time again to a far more treacherous future than he has ever faced before. Ever since Gavin left the world of 2011 and landed 200 years in the future, he has navigated the garden lands of Gardenia, escaped a world run by women in the Squares, and now finds himself in a floating city in the Clouds. In this possible alternative future, the planet is ravaged by a brutal climate – crippling storms, sweeping winds and an unforgiving sun. Earth's inhabitants have had to adapt, creating a highly sophisticated society where the human race has two options: to live on the earth's scarred surface in enormous culverts, reinforced to withstand the ravages of the weather... or to float above it all. It is a classless society where everyone must experience life both on the earth and in the clouds... and where they claim to know how and why Gavin has travelled 200 years beyond his own time. Will Gavin finally understand the truth behind his journey? Can he find his way back to the life he left behind in 2011? Is there even a world to go back to?...
Meet Gudrid, a Viking girl, just 15 years old, but she already knows what she wants. That doesn't include staying home and weaving sails day after day for her father's boat. The sea is in her blood and she dreams of sailing to a distant land where none of her people have ever set foot. Her foster mother has taught her all the healing ways and the ancient magic of her Viking people. Gudrid can see the future, heal disease, and speak with spirits, but is powerless until she can be more than just the Chief's daughter. She wants to make her own choices and live her own life. Explore Gudrid's world as she battles for her own sense of self, her survival at the edge of the world and her discovery of love and love's many faces as we voyage with her. Sail through the storm to the new found land in the year 1000AD with Gudrid and her people. Their compelling story of desire, sorrow, terror and love with a cast of unforgettable characters will intrigue, disturb and draw you deeply into the Viking world....
The Land Beyond is a contemporary fantasy set in the twenty-first century. This is the second book of The Land series. Readers see Josie, the protagonist, pursuing more unusual adventures in the lands beyond. Parallel to her adventures is Josie’s interaction with the other characters in the story. She discovers as she grows older, that friendship love and trust are never constant. Attitudes and lifestyles also change. In her interaction with others, there are moments when Josie realises that she must make choices This causes her to re-think her relationship with some of the people she interacts with.
"The Skies Above explains nearly any and everything weather-related...enlightening and a worthwhile source" -- Portland Book Review 2022 National Outdoor Book Award Silver Medalist in Nature/Environment Full-color photography and illustrations Details seasonal events, from Nor’easters and northern lights to fire whirls and tornadoes Sidebars dive into fascinating facts, quirky phenomena, historic weather events, myths, and more Written by self-professed weather geek Dennis Mersereau, The Skies Above is designed to inspire equal parts amazement and curiosity. Accessible science, illuminating illustrations, and stunning photography bring the meteorological world to life. From basics such as weather fronts and types of precipitation to more unusual occurrences like polar vortexes, meteor showers, solar eclipses, and the spectacular mammatus clouds that signify a supercell thunderstorm, Mersereau tracks key phenomena across the seasons and demystifies celestial events visible to the naked eye but still enigmatic to most. He also delves into how climate change affects weather, forecasts, and other events, such as devastating wildfires and historic hurricanes churning across the Atlantic Ocean. The Skies Above provides readers with a deeper understanding of the processes and events that fill our skies, which not only soothes the anxiety produced by raucous storms, but instills a stronger and more meaningful appreciation of the beauty of days both stormy and calm.
A novella set in post–climate disaster Alberta; a woman infected with a mysterious parasite must choose whether to pursue a rare opportunity far from home or stay and help rebuild her community The world is nothing like it once was: climate disasters have wracked the continent, causing food shortages, ending industry, and leaving little behind. Then came Cad, mysterious mind-altering fungi that invade the bodies of the now scattered citizenry. Reid, a young woman who carries this parasite, has been given a chance to get away — to move to one of the last remnants of pre-disaster society — but she can’t bring herself to abandon her mother and the community that relies on her. When she’s offered a coveted place on a dangerous and profitable mission, she jumps at the opportunity to set her family up for life, but how can Reid ask people to put their trust in her when she can’t even trust her own mind? With keen insight and biting prose, Premee Mohamed delivers a deeply personal tale in this post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella that reflects on the meaning of community and asks what we owe to those who have lifted us up.
