Nothing Left to Burn

Nothing Left to Burn

Author: Jay Varner

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2010-09-21

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1616200294

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Nothing Left to Burn is a remarkable memoir that looks into the life of a family that has spent years harboring secrets, both dark and volatile. It eloquently tells the story of a son’s relationship with his father, the fire chief and a local hero, and his grandfather, a serial arsonist. When Jay Varner, fresh out of college, returns home to work for the local newspaper, he knows that he will have to deal with the memories of a childhood haunted by a grandfather who was both menacing and comical and by a father who died too young and who never managed to be the father Jay so desperately needed him to be. In digging into the past, he uncovers layers of secrets, lies, and half-truths. It is only when he finally has the truth in hand that he comes to an understanding of the forces that drove his father, and of the fires that for all his efforts his father could never extinguish.


Booker T. Washington Papers Volume 2

Booker T. Washington Papers Volume 2

Author: Booker T Washington

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1972-10

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 9780252002434

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The University of Illinois Press offers online access to "The Booker T. Washington Papers," a 14-volume set published by the press. Users can search the papers, view images, and purchase the print version of the volumes. Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an African-American educator who was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia.


Horse Trouble

Horse Trouble

Author: Kristin Varner

Publisher: First Second

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1250861195

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An American Library Association 2021 Best Graphic Novel for Children Twelve-year-old Kate is laser-focused on her one true passion: horseback riding. But try as she might, she can't hide from life's problems in the stable. There's nothing Kate loves more than being around horses. But her best friend is allergic to them, so Kate has to take riding lessons without her. Kate's forced to navigate some of life's hardships—like the mean girls at the stable who tease her and her body insecurities—all on her own. To make matters worse, Kate is continually falling off her horse. To Kate, her tween years feel like one unfair punishment after another. Can she get over it all...and get back on her horse? Horse Trouble, the debut graphic novel from children's book artist Kristin Varner, is an oh-so-relatable graphic novel with humor and heart.


Oceans of Kansas

Oceans of Kansas

Author: Michael J. Everhart

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-09-11

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 0253027152

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“Excellent . . . Those who are interested in vertebrate paleontology or in the scientific history of the American midwest should really get a copy.” —PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the vast inland sea that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Giant sharks, marine reptiles called mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later. Michael J. Everhart vividly captures the history of these startling finds over the decades and re-creates in unforgettable detail these animals from our distant past and the world in which they lived—above, within, and on the shores of America’s ancient inland sea. “Oceans of Kansas remains the best and only book of its type currently available. Everhart’s treatment of extinct marine reptiles synthesizes source materials far more readably than any other recent, nontechnical book-length study of the subject.” —Copeia “[The book] will be most useful to fossil collectors working in the local region and to historians of vertebrate paleontology . . . Recommended.” —Choice


La Raza Cosmética

La Raza Cosmética

Author: Natasha Varner

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0816537151

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In the decades following the Mexican Revolution, nation builders, artists, and intellectuals manufactured ideologies that continue to give shape to popular understandings of indigeneity and mestizaje today. Postrevolutionary identity tropes emerged as part of broader efforts to reunify the nation and solve pressing social concerns, including what was posited in the racist rhetoric of the time as the “Indian problem.” Through a complex alchemy of appropriation and erasure, indigeneity was idealized as a relic of the past while mestizaje was positioned as the race of the future. This period of identity formation coincided with a boom in technology that introduced a sudden proliferation of images on the streets and in homes: there were more photographs in newspapers, movie houses cropped up across the country, and printing houses mass-produced calendar art and postcards. La Raza Cosmética traces postrevolutionary identity ideals and debates as they were dispersed to the greater public through emerging visual culture. Critically examining beauty pageants, cinema, tourism propaganda, photography, murals, and more, Natasha Varner shows how postrevolutionary understandings of mexicanidad were fundamentally structured by legacies of colonialism, as well as shifting ideas about race, place, and gender. This interdisciplinary study smartly weaves together cultural history, Indigenous and settler colonial studies, film and popular culture analysis, and environmental and urban history. It also traces a range of Indigenous interventions in order to disrupt top-down understandings of national identity construction and to “people” this history with voices that have all too often been entirely ignored.


Pink Cupcake Magic

Pink Cupcake Magic

Author: Katherine Tegen

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

Published: 2014-01-28

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 1466860243

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Zoe loves cupcakes, especially pink ones, and princesses, especially magic ones. Unfortunately her greedy brother Ralph loves cupcakes too—he spoils everything! One day Zoe bakes a wish into her cupcakes. Suddenly she is a real princess! But Ralph is still up to his old tricks. Will Princess Zoe finally find a way to give Ralph what he deserves? Katherine Tegen's humorous text and Kristin Varner's magical artwork will satisfy every sister who has ever been plagued by a brother, and every child who believes in the power of magic!


Raceless

Raceless

Author: Georgina Lawton

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0063009498

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A Bustle Most Anticipated Debut of the Year From The Guardian’s Georgina Lawton, a moving examination of how racial identity is constructed—through the author’s own journey grappling with secrets and stereotypes, having been raised by white parents with no explanation as to why she looked black. Raised in sleepy English suburbia, Georgina Lawton was no stranger to homogeneity. Her parents were white; her friends were white; there was no reason for her to think she was any different. But over time her brown skin and dark, kinky hair frequently made her a target of prejudice. In Georgina’s insistently color-blind household, with no acknowledgement of her difference or access to black culture, she lacked the coordinates to make sense of who she was. It was only after her father’s death that Georgina began to unravel the truth about her parentage—and the racial identity that she had been denied. She fled from England and the turmoil of her home-life to live in black communities around the globe—the US, the UK, Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Morocco—and to explore her identity and what it meant to live in and navigate the world as a black woman. She spoke with psychologists, sociologists, experts in genetic testing, and other individuals whose experiences of racial identity have been fraught or questioned in the hopes of understanding how, exactly, we identify ourselves. Raceless is an exploration of a fundamental question: what constitutes our sense of self? Drawing on her personal experiences and the stories of others, Lawton grapples with difficult questions about love, shame, grief, and prejudice, and reveals the nuanced and emotional journey of forming one’s identity.