The Benefits of Being an Octopus
The Benefits of Being an Octopus

Author: Ann Braden

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1510737529

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Edutopia's "25 Essential Middle School Reads from the Last Decade," NPR Best Book of 2018, Bank Street List for Best Children's Books of 2019, Named to the Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher List, Maine's Student Book Award List, Louisiana Young Reader's Choice Award List, Rhode Island Middle School Book Award 2020 List, 2020 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award Nominee, 2021 South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominee, 2020-2021 Truman Award​ (Missouri) Nominee, Middle School Virginia Readers’ Choice Titles for 2020–2021​, Charlie May Simon Award 2020–2021 List, South Carolina Book Awards Nominee, 2020–2021, and 2023 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award nominee​. Some people can do their homework. Some people get to have crushes on boys. Some people have other things they've got to do. Seventh-grader Zoey has her hands full as she takes care of her much younger siblings after school every day while her mom works her shift at the pizza parlor. Not that her mom seems to appreciate it. At least there's Lenny, her mom's boyfriend—they all get to live in his nice, clean trailer. At school, Zoey tries to stay under the radar. Her only friend Fuchsia has her own issues, and since they're in an entirely different world than the rich kids, it's best if no one notices them. Zoey thinks how much easier everything would be if she were an octopus: eight arms to do eight things at once. Incredible camouflage ability and steady, unblinking vision. Powerful protective defenses. Unfortunately, she's not totally invisible, and one of her teachers forces her to join the debate club. Even though Zoey resists participating, debate ultimately leads her to see things in a new way: her mom’s relationship with Lenny, Fuchsia's situation, and her own place in this town of people who think they're better than her. Can Zoey find the courage to speak up, even if it means risking the most stable home she's ever had? This moving debut novel explores the cultural divides around class and the gun debate through the eyes of one girl, living on the edges of society, trying to find her way forward.

The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus
The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus

Author: Jacques Cousteau

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2007-10-30

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1596914173

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The last book by the legendary explorer, activist, filmmaker, and oceanographer offers a call for action to preserve our world, its wildlife, and its natural wonders for future generations, looking at the impact of human action on our precarious environment.

True Tales of Puget Sound
True Tales of Puget Sound

Author: Dorothy Wilhelm

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2019-01-14

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1439666008

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From the shores of Gig Harbor to the slopes of Mount Rainier, the towns surrounding Puget Sound all have incredible stories to share. How did Old Fort Nisqually, now perched on a lofty bluff above Tacoma, move twenty-two miles from its original 1843 site in DuPont? Did Eatonville's copper-infused paint inspire the phrase "painting the town red"? Read about the famed Pie Goddess of Enumclaw and about a cookbook compiled by Emma Smith DeVoe of Parkland that included helpful tips from suffragettes. Join author Dorothy Wilhelm, of the television show My Home Town, as she explores these beloved town tales and uncovers the rest of the story.

Under Heaven's Bridge
Under Heaven's Bridge

Author: Ian Watson

Publisher: Gateway

Published: 2011-09-29

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0575114460

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A multinational expedition has landed on the planet Onogoro, a cold and dour world circling one star of a binary pair. Their objective is to investigate a strange alien race, known to the human visitors as the Kybers. These aliens, dwelling in a great network of ruined palaces, are partly biological creatures and partly machines, with the ability to switch themselves off at will. Expedition scientists discover that the Kyber's sun is soon to blaze up in a nova, yet the Kybers are not alarmed.

The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge
The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge

Author: Brad Strickland

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2002-03-18

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 110165967X

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What is it about the old Wilder Creek Bridge that makes Lewis Barnavelt so curious-and so afraid? When Lewis and his best friend Rose Rita Pottinger set out to explore the bridge and the deserted farm nearby, they discover shocking secrets—and a horrifying monster. Even Lewis's Uncle Jonathan and the magical Mrs. Zimmermann may not be able to vanquish this ferocious creature! "[Strickland's] characters ring true in this entertaining page-turner that will captivate readers." —VOYA "A wonderful blend of mystery, adventure, ghosts, and friendship." —School Library Journal

The Bridge of Beyond
The Bridge of Beyond

Author: Simone Schwarz-Bart

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 159017691X

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This is an intoxicating tale of love and wonder, mothers and daughters, spiritual values and the grim legacy of slavery on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe. Here long-suffering Telumee tells her life story and tells us about the proud line of Lougandor women she continues to draw strength from. Time flows unevenly during the long hot blue days as the madness of the island swirls around the villages, and Telumee, raised in the shelter of wide skirts, must learn how to navigate the adversities of a peasant community, the ecstasies of love, and domestic realities while arriving at her own precious happiness. In the words of Toussine, the wise, tender grandmother who raises her, “Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn’t ride you, you must ride it.” A masterpiece of Caribbean literature, The Bridge of Beyond relates the triumph of a generous and hopeful spirit, while offering a gorgeously lush, imaginative depiction of the flora, landscape, and customs of Gua­deloupe. Simone Schwarz-Bart’s incantatory prose, interwoven with Creole proverbs and lore, appears here in a remarkable translation by Barbara Bray.

Shadows of the Dead
Shadows of the Dead

Author: Spencer Kope

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1250178355

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The best tracker in the world, a man with a secret and a special set of skills, must find two nearly untraceable killers before time runs out for their victims, in Spencer Kope's Shadows of the Dead. A woman—abducted and found in the trunk of a car after a high-speed chase—regains consciousness in the ICU to reveal two crucial pieces of information: the man who kidnapped her is not the same as the man who left her in the woods, and she's not the first victim—in fact, she is number eight. Magnus “Steps” Craig is part of the elite three-man Special Tracking Unit of the FBI. Known for his ability to find and follow trails over any surface, Steps is called in on cases that require his unparalleled skills. But there’s a secret to his talent. Steps has a kind of synesthesia where he can see the ‘essence’ of a person—what he calls ‘shine’—on everything they’ve touched. Brought in to track the driver through a dense forest after the blood hounds have lost his trail, Steps and his partner Jimmy find the driver laughing maniacally, babbling about souls, and hiding a pristinely maintained box of eight posed rats. Now the Special Tracking Unit must chase two villains—through not just the real world, but the dark web as well—tracking an enemy they can't see, as time runs out for the unknown victims.

The Beast Under The Wizard's Bridge - The House With a Clock in Its Walls 8
The Beast Under The Wizard's Bridge - The House With a Clock in Its Walls 8

Author: John Bellairs

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1848128738

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When Lewis and his best friend Rose Rita set out to explore old Wilder Creek Bridge and the deserted farm nearby, they discover shocking secrets: the destruction of the bridge threatens to release a horrifying monster, the legacy of a long-dead evil magician. Even Lewis's Uncle Jonathan and the magical Mrs Zimmermann may not be able to vanquish this ferocious creature! For fans of Goosebumps.

Artifact Collective: an attempt to consciousness
Artifact Collective: an attempt to consciousness

Author: Nick Stokes

Publisher: Nick Stokes

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1797045830

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ARTIFACT COLLECTIVE is an attempt to create consciousness in a book. You begin. You are trapped in the dark under a great weight. You cannot move. His, her, their, our, your, and my consciousnesses take shape through speculation into your condition. Are you buried alive? Why? Are you alive? Are you accelerating through space in a you-shaped windowless vessel? What is your shape? Are you a flicker of light on the horizon of a black hole? Where is she? Has he lost all he loved? Speculation via thought becomes reality. Including historical, scientific, and found materials and images, ARTIFACT COLLECTIVE is a fictional and non-fictional exploration of quantum theory, cosmology, possible futures, intellectual property, interwoven presents, the commons, the individual and collective mind, and the self. ARTIFACT COLLECTIVE is a corpus. It is an artifact. ARTIFACT COLLECTIVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Boy on the Bridge
Boy on the Bridge

Author: Andrew Marble

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0813178045

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His life and career were the embodiment of the American dream. Born in Poland, John Shalikashvili (1936–2011) descended from aristocratic European families that served with distinction in both battle and government for centuries. After barely surviving the Warsaw Uprising, he and his family fled to Germany during World War II to escape advancing Soviet troops and emigrated to the United States in 1952. Shalikashvili was drafted into the army as a private in 1958 and rose steadily through the ranks, serving in every level of unit command from platoon to division. In 1993 Shalikashvili was tapped by President Bill Clinton to replace General Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becoming the first immigrant, first draftee, and first Officer Candidate School graduate to hold the position. This first-ever biography of Shalikashvili's riches-to-rags-and-back-to-riches story reveals how his distinctive background helped him become one of the United States's greatest military leaders. He exhibited a unique and unconventional leadership style—employing expertise, humility, straightforwardness, and empathy—that he adroitly used to resolve or prevent destructive conflict. His distinctive leadership style greatly benefited the United States, Europe, and beyond: as when he led the rescue of 500,000 Kurdish refugees in the first Gulf War's aftermath; when he represented Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell in helping secure loose nukes in the former Soviet republics; as he joined forces with fellow immigrant Madeleine Albright on the Partnership for Peace initiative and NATO enlargement program in the 1990s; and in retirement, when he helped end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, thereby finally allowing gay servicemembers to serve openly without fear of dishonorable discharge.