‘Nobody’ is a typical, inquisitive boy looking for friendship, except he is made of glass and completely see-through, which makes him invisible to everyone he meets. On his quest through a desert landscape, he discovers there are lots of advantages to his ‘invisibleness’. He can get close to every living thing, “count the freckles under a lion’s chin …strum the whiskers of a desert mouse...warm his toes under a nesting grouse.” But none of these encounters result in real friendship. Loneliness drives him to seek friendship in some unlikely creatures that aren’t always what they seem. From mud flicking elephants to a groaning rock to grooving gerbils to a close encounter with a cold-blooded murderer to a superficial stick-on friend who scarpers at the first sign of trouble. Sadly, the simple-minded creatures of the desert are unable to connect footprints in the sand with a mysterious voice. Even when disaster strikes, for them there is nothing to see because, “…there’s no mess when you’re a crumpled heap of invisibleness.” When all hope seems lost, he makes a remarkable discovery.
"Palmer was fourteen years old in September 1958 when he made the unlikely journey alone by train to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. It is impossible to read this boy’s story―‘ninth child of ten, and the sixth of seven sons’―without feeling the loneliness of that first passage away from home―a black boy crossing into a bastion of white privilege―and the scale of the transformation that awaited him."―Carrie Brown, author of The Stargazer's Sister "My friendship with Larry has been among the most enduring of my Exeter friendships, but―before I read his memoir of social and racial dislocation―I never knew the story that unfolded in the home Larry left when he came to Exeter. Larry’s remarkable family story gives me a deeper appreciation of someone I met as a teenager and have known all my life. As a teammate and a friend, I always loved Larry. Now I understand him more."―John Irving “Larry Palmer’s Scholarship Boy is a poignant exploration of family, longing, and cultural disorientation, seen through the eyes of an African American teenager sent to live and study at a prestigious New England prep school in the 1950s. This absorbing story reminds us that the questions of race and identity we wrestle with today are nothing new, and progress, when it comes at all, often comes at a snail’s pace.”―Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire “Near the end of Larry Palmer’s fine memoir Scholarship Boy his family tries to assemble for a family portrait. The picture is difficult to compose: the family members are moving hither and yon, reassembling in different configurations, struggling to honor the intricacies that govern the Palmer clan. And they are a rich and complex family, with Lear-like grand personalities. Scholarship Boy is also a book about a very brilliant young man who went to Phillips Exeter, Harvard College, and Yale Law School. It is a tale of his loneliness, his desire to honor his parents’ dictates, his difficulty in living in two worlds, and his ability, thank goodness, to find mentors, institutions, and friends to sustain him. It is also a very poignant narrative, full of pathos and love, about one family’s participation in recent African American history, including segregation, school integration, and dreams fulfilled and nullified. Honest, gracefully written, and uncompromisingly vulnerable, Larry Palmer’s book is unceremoniously generous. Palmer does not grandstand: He is never simply this or that. He is, in the best sense, simply himself: A man trying to stand in a furious whirlwind.” ―Kenneth A. McClane, W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature Emeritus, Cornell University “On the surface, this is the story of a black boy’s adventure of finding his way in the all-white, blazers, ties and sports world of an all-boys boarding school in the 1950s. Its heart, however, is the family this boy comes from. As the next to the youngest of ten, it was the older brothers and sisters who gave this scholarship boy the chops to navigate the treacherous waters of an alien world with aplomb and make the best of his opportunities. What an apt tribute that each of them gets to step into the limelight of this luminous coming-of-age memoir.”―Annette Gendler, author of Jumping Over Shadows and How to Write Compelling Stories from Family History
The price of a lie will be paid in blood. Nightland's attack on the domes left dead to be burned and debts to be settled. As the Domers struggle to rebuild, Nola tries to forget what she learned beyond the glass walls. When the chaos of the city reaches the glass, Nola is left with only one terrible chance for survival.
The award-winning author of modern classics such as Schindler’s List and Napoleon’s Last Island is at his triumphant best with this “engrossing and transporting” (Financial Times) novel about the adventures of Charles Dickens’s son in the Australian Outback during the 1860s. Edward Dickens, the tenth child of England’s most famous author Charles Dickens, has consistently let his parents down. Unable to apply himself at school and adrift in life, the teenaged boy is sent to Australia in the hopes that he can make something of himself—or at least fail out of the public eye. He soon finds himself in the remote Outback, surrounded by Aboriginals, colonials, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Determined to prove to his parents and more importantly, himself, that he can succeed in this vast and unfamiliar wilderness, Edward works hard at his new life amidst various livestock, bushrangers, shifty stock agents, and frontier battles. By reimagining the tale of a fascinating yet little-known figure in history, this “roguishly tender coming-of-age story” (Booklist) offers penetrating insights into Colonialism and the fate of Australia’s indigenous people, and a wonderfully intimate portrait of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of his son.
HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT. Sylvie is sure Carl loves her, so why hasn't he kissed her? Sylvie and Carl have always been best friends, and Sylvie's always dreamed that they'd get married someday. But when she begins to realize that Carl may be more interested in boys than girls, Sylvie struggles to hold on to the pieces of her shattered dreams. With her trademark blend of honesty, sensitivity, and humor, bestselling author Jacqueline Wilson delivers a novel for teens about first love, first heartbreak, and the power of a kiss.
Boys' Life is the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America. Published since 1911, it contains a proven mix of news, nature, sports, history, fiction, science, comics, and Scouting.
