A moving story about a river and the cycle of life, from raindrop to ocean In this beautiful and moving tribute, a river is born and carried along. It plays, sparkles, grows, moves. It rushes, falls, is still. It carries. And when a river reaches the sea, it becomes it, and then it rises up into the sky, rains down, and begins again. Not unlike life.
“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
An award-winning novel in verse about a boy who navigates the start of seventh grade and life growing up on the border the only way that feels right—through poetry. They call him Güero because of his red hair, pale skin, and freckles. Sometimes people only go off of what they see. Like the Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez, twelve-year-old Güero is puro mexicano. He feels at home on both sides of the river, speaking Spanish or English. Güero is also a reader, gamer, and musician who runs with a squad of misfits called Los Bobbys. Together, they joke around and talk about their expanding world, which now includes girls. (Don’t cross Joanna—she's tough as nails.) Güero faces the start of seventh grade with heart and smarts, his family’s traditions, and his trusty accordion. And when life gets tough for this Mexican American border kid, he knows what to do: He writes poetry. Honoring multiple poetic traditions, They Call Me Güero is a classic in the making and the recipient of a Pura Belpré Honor, a Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, a Claudia Lewis Award for Excellence in Poetry, and a Walter Dean Myers Honor.
Cass Adams is crazy, and everyone in Deacon, Kansas, knows it. But when her good-for-nothing husband, Roland, goes missing, no one suspects that Cass buried him in their unfinished koi pond. Too bad he doesn’t stay there for long. Cass gets arrested on the banks of the Spring River for dumping his corpse after heavy rain partially unearths it. The police chief wants a quick verdict—he’s running for sheriff and has no time for crazy talk. But like Roland’s corpse, secrets start to surface, and they bring more to light than anybody expected. Everyone in Cass’s life thinks they know her—her psychic grandmother, her promiscuous ex-best friend, her worm-farming brother-in-law, and maybe even her local ghost. But after years of separate silences, no one knows the whole truth. Except Roland. And he’s not talking.
Fight. Sleep. Repeat. That's life for 14-year-old SoCal skate-punk Wylie Masterson. Like most teens, Wylie struggles with authority, puberty, and family. But when you're a transgender male whose body, family, and society insist that you are female, the struggle to break out and live the life you were meant to live becomes a matter of life and death. Born Willow, Wylie wants nothing more than to escape his oppressive SoCal hometown and live the life he was meant to live-as a man, but his overly-religious mother has other plans for her "sweet, lovely daughter."
They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans is the previously untold story of perhaps the oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture. For the better part of two centuries, batture dwellers such as Macon Fry have raised shantyboats on stilts, built water-adapted homes, foraged, fished, and survived using the skills a river teaches. Until now the stories of this way of life have existed only in the memories of those who have lived here. Beginning in 2000, Fry set about recording the stories of all the old batture dwellers he could find: maritime workers, willow furniture makers, fishermen, artists, and river shrimpers. Along the way, Fry uncovered fascinating tales of fortune tellers, faith healers, and wild bird trappers who defiantly lived on the river. They Called Us River Rats also explores the troubled relationship between people inside the levees, the often-reviled batture folks, and the river itself. It traces the struggle between batture folks and city authorities, the commercial interests that claimed the river, and Louisiana’s most powerful politicians. These conflicts have ended in legal battles, displacement, incarceration, and even lynching. Today Fry is among the senior generation of “River Rats” living in a vestigial colony of twelve “camps” on New Orleans’s river batture, a fragment of a settlement that once stretched nearly six miles and numbered hundreds of homes. It is the last riparian settlement on the Lower Mississippi and a contrarian, independent life outside urban zoning, planning, and flood protection. This book is for everyone who ever felt the pull of the Mississippi River or saw its towering levees and wondered who could live on the other side.
Caldecott Honor winner Elisha Cooper invites readers to grab their oars and board a canoe down a river exploration filled with adventure and beauty. In Cooper's flowing prose and stunning watercolor scenes, readers can follow a traveler's trek down the Hudson River as she and her canoe explore the wildlife, flora and fauna, and urban landscape at the river's edge. Through perilous weather and river rushes, the canoe and her captain survive and maneuver their way down the river back home.River is an outstanding introduction to seeing the world through the eyes of a young explorer and a great picture book for the STEAM curriculum.Maps and information about the Hudson River and famous landmarks are included in the back of the book.
Karen longed for acceptance, validation and love, but had no ability to form healthy, meaningful relationships. Born into a large family already suffering the effects of two generations of residential school, and surviving her own nine years at St. Margaret Indian Residential School, Karen (like everyone she knew) had been systematically stripped of her dignity, identity, language, culture, family and community support systems. Not wanting to be alone as an adult, Karen tolerated unhealthy relationships with family and partners. Still, she was coping. But after suffering further trauma, Karen turned to alcohol and other addictions to numb her pain. Eventually, Karen found the strength to reach out for help. She learned to grieve through layers of shame and was finally able to embrace her identity. Karen also discovered what has long been known in her culture - the healing power of sharing your story. Karen would now like to share this book, her story, with you.
Follow a little fish on her epic journey downriver as she travels out into the unknown. With stunning artwork from Hanako Clulow, a lyrical narrative and a magical 'swimming fish' on every page, this is a book to treasure and revisit time and again.
They call me Chief is a novel for the whole family to read; it is the story of Johnny a young Indian boy, who finds himself caught between two cultures, that of the red man and white, it is his story of dealing with new surroundings, and racial prejudice, the strong attachment he has to his horse and his dog, a vision quest he goes through to gain his own inner strength and Indian name. The development of his athletic ability and the Friendship he has with a young white girl. Chief is an exciting and thought filled story that both young and old will enjoy.