Joanne Walker has survived an encounter with the Master at great personal cost, but now her father is missing--stolen from the timeline. She must finally return to North Carolina to find him--and to meet Aidan, the son she left behind long ago.
★ “Historical fiction at its finest.” –The Horn Book “There has never been a better time to read about healing, of both the body and the heart.” –The New York Times Book Review Echo Mountain is an acclaimed best book of 2020! An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Horn Book Fanfare Selection • A Kirkus Best Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year • A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year • A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year After losing almost everything in the Great Depression, Ellie’s family is forced to leave their home in town and start over in the untamed wilderness of nearby Echo Mountain. Ellie has found a welcome freedom, and a love of the natural world, in her new life on the mountain. But there is little joy after a terrible accident leaves her father in a coma. An accident unfairly blamed on Ellie. Ellie is a girl who takes matters into her own hands, and determined to help her father she will make her way to the top of the mountain in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as “the hag.” But the hag, and the mountain, still have many untold stories left to reveal. Historical fiction at its finest, Echo Mountain is celebration of finding your own path and becoming your truest self. Lauren Wolk, the Newbery Honor– and Scott O'Dell Award–winning author of Wolf Hollow and Beyond the Bright Sea, weaves a stunning tale of resilience, persistence, and friendship across three generations of families. “Soothing and exquisitely written.” –People “This is a book that will soothe readers like a healing balm.” –The Wall Street Journal “Brilliant.” –Lynda Mullaly Hunt, bestselling author of Fish in a Tree
‘The history of women is left to us in folklore and tradition, in faintly-remembered lullabies and the half-forgotten touch of a grandmother’s hand, in recipes, ancestral jewellery, and cautionary tales about the limits of a woman’s empowerment. Mountain Echoes describes the Kumaoni way of life through the eyes of four highly-talented and individualistic women. Their recollections mirror a social universe that no longer exists, that has been dissolved in the mainstream of modernization and urbanization, of democracy, education and emancipation. Shivani, Tare Pande, Jiya, and Shakuntala Pande were all alive and well when this book was first published in 1998. In the midst of all the rapid and unrecognizable charge that surrounds us, their stories and their memories are distilled into an even more precious evocation of times past.’
“One of our greatest American poets. In particular he has captured the spirit and language of the Appalachian South . . . like no other.” —Lee Smith, New York Times-bestselling author James Still first achieved national recognition in the 1930s as a poet. Although he is better known today as a writer of fiction, it is his poetry that many of his essential images, such as the “mighty river of earth,” first found expression. Yet much of his poetry remains out of print or difficult to find. From the Mountain, From the Valley collects all of Still’s poems, including several never before published, and corrects editorial mistakes that crept into previous collections. The poems are presented in chronological order, allowing the reader to trace the evolution of Still’s voice. Throughout, his language is fresh and vigorous and his insight profound. His respect for people and place never sounds sentimental or dated. Ted Olson’s introduction recounts Still’s early literary career and explores the poetic origins of his acclaimed lyrical prose. Still himself has contributed the illuminating autobiographical essay “A Man Singing to Himself,” which will appeal to every lover of his work. “Still’s is the distinctive voice of Appalachia, and we are most fortunate to have his best work in this single beautiful volume.” —Louisville Courier-Journal “Still works in traditional lyric forms and with traditional lyric tools. Rarely does a poem need a second page. The best poems are tight and demonstrate a quiet mastery, even a humble virtuosity.” —Journal of Appalachian Studies
A Time Magazine 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time selection! A Reader’s Digest Best Children’s Book of All Time! This stunning fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore is a companion novel to Starry River of the Sky and the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award finalist When the Sea Turned to Silver In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life's questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family's fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest for the ultimate answer. Grace Lin, author of the beloved Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat returns with a wondrous story of adventure, faith, and friendship. A fantasy crossed with Chinese folklore, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a timeless story reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz and Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Her beautiful illustrations, printed in full-color, accompany the text throughout. Once again, she has created a charming, engaging book for young readers.
“In climbing the Seven Summits, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado did nothing less than take back her own life—one brave step at a time. She will inspire untold numbers of souls with this story, for her victory is a win on behalf of all of us.”—Elizabeth Gilbert Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her page-turning, pulse-raising memoir chronicling her journey to Mount Everest. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. Something about the brute force required for the ascent—the risk and spirit and sheer size of the mountains and death’s close proximity—woke her up. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest. “The Mother of the World,” as it’s known in Nepal, allows few to reach her summit, but Silvia didn’t go alone. She gathered a group of young female survivors and led them to base camp alongside her. It was never easy. At times hair-raising, nerve-racking, and always challenging, Silvia remembers the acute anxiety of leading a group of novice climbers to Everest’s base, all the while coping with her own nerves of summiting. But, there were also moments of peace, joy, and healing with the strength of her fellow survivors and community propelling her forward. In the Shadow of the Mountain is a remarkable story of heroism, one which awakens in all of us a lust for adventure, an appetite for risk, and faith in our own resilience.
From the Nobel Prize-winning writer and acclaimed author of Snow Country comes a beautiful rendering of the predicament of old age—about an elderly Tokyo businessman who must face the failures of his memory and the sudden upsurges of passion that illuminate the end of a life. “A rich, complicated novel.... Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata’s is the closest to poetry.” —The New York Times Book Review By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he associates the distant rumble he hears from the nearby mountain with the sounds of death. In between are the complex relationships that were once the foundations of Shingo’s life: his trying wife; his philandering son; and his beautiful daughter-in-law, who inspires in him both pity and the stirrings of desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments, Kawabata has crafted a novel that is a powerful, serenely observed meditation on the relentless march of time. Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker
A “dazzling first novel” about Japanese Americans and their Wyoming neighbors in the era of WWII internment camps (Chicago Tribune). A renowned chronicler of life in the West, Gretel Ehrlich turns her talents to a moment in history when American citizens were set against each other, offering “a novel full of immense poetic feeling for the internal lives of its varied characters and the sublime high plains landscape that is its backdrop” (The New York Times Book Review). This is the story of Kai, a graduate student reunited with his old-fashioned parents in the most painful way possible; Mariko, a gifted artist; Mariko’s husband, a political dissident; and her aging grandfather, a Noh mask carver from Kyoto. It is also the story of McKay, who runs his family farm outside the nearby town; Pinkey, an alcoholic cowboy; and Madeleine, whose soldier husband is missing in the Pacific. Most of all, Heart Mountain is about what happens when these two groups collide. Politics, loyalty, history, love—soon the bedrocks of society will seem as transient and fleeting as life itself. Set at the real-life Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, this powerful novel paints “a sweeping, yet finely shaded portrait of a real West unfolding in historical time” (The Christian Science Monitor).