In the new novel from the author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself, a middle-age couple goes all in for love at a Niagara Falls casino Stewart O'Nan's thirteenth novel is another wildly original, bittersweet gem like his celebrated Last Night at the Lobster. Valentine's weekend, Art and Marion Fowler flee their Cleveland suburb for Niagara Falls, desperate to recoup their losses. Jobless, with their home approaching foreclosure and their marriage on the brink of collapse, Art and Marion liquidate their savings account and book a bridal suite at the Falls' ritziest casino for a second honeymoon. While they sightsee like tourists during the day, at night they risk it all at the roulette wheel to fix their finances-and save their marriage. A tender yet honest exploration of faith, forgiveness and last chances, The Odds is a reminder that love, like life, is always a gamble.
Even our youngest students have lots of stories to tell, whether real or imagined. How can we create entry points for writing, so that all writers feel confident and motivated to share their stories? How can we establish a classroom community of beginning writers where equity, empathy, and compassion become part of the process and vital by-products of story writing? Enter story workshop, a structure for early literacy that amplifies the relationship between play, art, and writing. Children develop ideas and stories through choices of art materials. By creating images through play, story workshop invites children to explore the "amazingness" (Nisa, age 10) of their ideas in a variety of art forms. "Through their stories," Susan writes, "students share the meaning they make of their experiences in the world." Children in every classroom environment feel empowered to transition from play to pencil as they add words to their stories. Story Workshopincludes an abundance of classroom videos, photos, and student samples that illustrate what is possible when children use words, colors, textures, shapes and all kinds of materials to create the stories they want to tell. Watch how students' imaginations soar, their love of writing blossoms, and their connections with one another become the focal point of your classroom.
Despite putting in tons of extra work, ambitious consultant Riley Jenkins keeps losing clients who say they're looking for fresher ideas. When her firm send her on a women's leadership retreat, Riley is forced to put her phone and learn from the mysterious, kindly group leader who seems to be able to achieve so much with so little stress. Through this charming and inspiring story, bestselling author Laura Vanderkam applies everything she's learned about time-management and work-life balance.
From top CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien comes a highly personal look at her biggest reporting moments from Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the devastating Haiti earthquake, and to the historic 2008 U.S. elections and high profile interviews with everyday Americans. Drawing on her own unique background as well as her experiences at the front lines of the most provocative issues in today's society, and from her work on the acclaimed documentaries Black in America and Latino in America, O'Brien offers her candid, clear-eyed take on where we are as a country and where we're going. What emerges is both an inspiring message of hope and a glimpse into the heart and soul of one of America's most straight-talking reporters.
Inspire a lifelong love of reading with an irresistible dog named Rocket and his teacher, a little yellow bird in this sequel to the New York Times bestselling picture book, How Rocket Learned to Read. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY School Library Journal • Publishers Weekly "A perfect choice to inspire new readers and writers." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Rocket loves books and he wants to make his own, but he can't think of a story. Encouraged by the little yellow bird to look closely at the world around him for inspiration, Rocket sets out on a journey. Along the way he discovers small details that he has never noticed before, a timid baby owl who becomes his friend, and an idea for a story. Tad Hills, the creator of the beloved Duck & Goose series delivers another heartwarming story, filled with fresh, charming art making this a favorite for story time. Don’t miss the animated movie based on the bestselling Rocket books--now airing on PBS!
A Washington Post Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Selection One of Electric Literature’s Best Short Story Collections of the Year A highly anticipated collection of wildly imaginative short stories from “one of contemporary fiction’s true mad scientists” (Necessary Fiction). In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.
This book maintains a broad range of appeal to individuals and families who have experienced catastrophic struggle, illness or torment on any level, but primarily to readers with an appreciation for stories of spiritual growth and personal reconciliation. It has been posited as a combination of "Man's Search for Meaning" and "Unbroken," which is a testament to both the beautiful writing and dramatic story about the plight of a loving son and brother that is both staggering in scope and mesmerizing in tone. It has received tremendous praise from authors in the faith community (Richard Roar and Wm. Paul Young), non-fiction adventure (Hampton Sides) and the medical community (Dr. William Evans, CEO St. Jude Children's Hospital). Possibilities is testament to the fact that some stories can be both brutal and beautiful; but few stories have ever been more powerful.
Featuring a major synthesis and critique of interdisciplinary narrative theory, Story Logic marks a watershed moment in the study of narrative. David Herman argues that narrativeøis simultaneously a cognitive style, a discourse genre, and a resource for writing. Because stories are strategies that help humans make sense of their world, narratives not only have a logic but also are a logic in their own right, providing an irreplaceable resource for structuring and comprehending experience. Story Logic brings together and pointedly examines key concepts of narrative in literary criticism, linguistics, and cognitive science, supplementing them with a battery of additional concepts that enable many different kinds of narratives to be analyzed and understood. By thoroughly tracing and synthesizing the development of different strands of narrative theory and provocatively critiquing what narratives are and how they work, Story Logic provides a powerful interpretive tool kit that broadens the applicability of narrative theory to more complex forms of stories, however and wherever they appear. Story Logic offers a fresh and incisive way to appreciate more fully the power and significance of narratives.
Winner of the 2021 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Winner of the 2022 Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Finalist for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction • Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel • Finalist for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize • Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction One of NPR's Best Books of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and Library Journal Best Book of the Year in Fiction • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fictional Family of the Year • A Booklist Top Ten Book-Group Book of the Year • A Goodreads Choice Awards Best Debut Novel Nominee From an award-winning storyteller comes a stunning debut novel about a New Mexican family’s extraordinary year of love and sacrifice. "Masterly…Quade has created a world bristling with compassion and humanity. The characters and the challenges they face are wholly realized and moving; their journeys span a wide spectrum of emotion and it is impossible not to root for [them]." —Alexandra Chang, New York Times Book Review It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path. Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to. The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.
