Download or read book The Camel Bookmobile written by Masha Hamilton and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiona Sweeney wants to do something that matters, and she chooses to make her mark in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya. By helping to start a traveling library, she hopes to bring the words of Homer, Hemingway, and Dr. Seuss to far-flung tiny communities where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease. Her intentions are honorable, and her rules are firm: due to the limited number of donated books, if any one of them is not returned, the bookmobile will not return. But, encumbered by her Western values, Fi does not understand the people she seeks to help. And in the impoverished small community of Mididima, she finds herself caught in the middle of a volatile local struggle when the bookmobile's presence sparks a dangerous feud between the proponents of modernization and those who fear the loss of traditional ways.
Download or read book My Librarian is a Camel written by Margriet Ruurs and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2005-08-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you get books from a public library in your town or even in your school library? In many remote areas of the world, there are no library buildings. In many countries, books are delivered in unusual way: by bus, boat, elephant, donkey, train, even by wheelbarrow. Why would librarians go to the trouble of packing books on the backs of elephants or driving miles to deliver books by bus? Because, as one librarian in Azerbaijan says, "Books are as important to us as air or water!" This is the intriguing photo essay, a celebration of books, readers, and libraries.
Download or read book Once Upon a Camel written by Kathi Appelt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A delight to the senses.” —Kirkus Reviews Perfect for fans of The One and Only Ivan, this exquisite middle grade novel from Newbery Honoree and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt follows a creaky old camel out to save two baby kestrel chicks during a massive storm in the Texas desert—filled with over a dozen illustrations by Caldecott winner Eric Rohmann. Zada is a camel with a treasure trove of stories to tell. She’s won camel races for the royal Pasha of Smyrna, crossed treacherous oceans to new land, led army missions with her best camel friend by her side, and outsmarted a far too pompous mountain lion. But those stories were from before. Now, Zada wanders the desert as the last camel in Texas. She’s not, however, alone. Two tiny kestrel chicks are nestled in the fluff of fur between her ears—kee-killy-keeing for their missing parents—and a dust storm the size of a mountain is taking Zada on one more grand adventure. And it could lead to this achy old camel’s most brilliant story yet.
Download or read book 31 Hours written by Masha Hamilton and published by Unbridled Books. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman in New York awakens knowing, as deeply as a mother’s blood can know, that her grown son is in danger. She has not heard from him in weeks. His name is Jonas. His girlfriend, Vic, doesn’t know what she has done wrong, but Jonas won’t answer his cell phone. We soon learn that Jonas is isolated in a safe-house apartment in New York City, pondering his conversion to Islam and his experiences training in Pakistan, preparing for the violent action he has been instructed to take in 31 hours. Jonas’s absence from the lives of those who love him causes a cascade of events, and as the novel moves through the streets and subways of New York we come to know intimately the lives of its characters. We also learn to feel deeply the connections and disconnections that occur between young people and their parents not only in this country but in the Middle East as well. Carried by Hamilton’s highly-lauded prose, this story about the helplessness of those who cannot contact a beloved young man who is on a devastatingly confused path is compelling on the most human level. In our world, when a family loses track of an idealistic son an entire city could be in danger. From the author of The Distance Between Us.
Download or read book Staircase of a Thousand Steps written by Masha Hamilton and published by Berkley. This book was released on 2002-05-07 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in Transjordan just before the 1967 war with Israel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps is a "remarkably well-written...thoroughly absorbing novel" (Arizona Daily Sun) that takes us to a place where memory whispers like fear, where visions of a long-ago forbidden love affair haunt a precocious young girl — and where the flare of old rivalries can be as sudden as searing as the desert wind.
Download or read book Library on Wheels written by Sharlee Glenn and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you can’t bring the man to the books, bring the books to the man. Mary Lemist Titcomb (1852–1932) was always looking for ways to improve her library. As librarian at the Washington County Free Library in Maryland, Titcomb was concerned that the library was not reaching all the people it could. She was determined that everyone should have access to the library—not just adults and those who lived in town. Realizing its limitations and inability to reach the county’s 25,000 rural residents, including farmers and their families, Titcomb set about to change the library system forever with the introduction of book-deposit stations throughout the country, a children’s room in the library, and her most revolutionary idea of all—a horse-drawn Book Wagon. Soon book wagons were appearing in other parts of the country, and by 1922, the book wagon idea had received widespread support. The bookmobile was born!
Download or read book The Wednesday Sisters written by Meg Waite Clayton and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-06-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of this beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family. “This generous and inventive book is a delight to read, an evocation of the power of friendship to sustain, encourage, and embolden us. Join the sisterhood!”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature—Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens–and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year. As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.
Download or read book Kabul Beauty School written by Deborah Rodriguez and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-04-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born. With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup. Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style. With warmth and humor, Rodriguez details the lushness of a seemingly desolate region and reveals the magnificence behind the burqa. Kabul Beauty School is a remarkable tale of an extraordinary community of women who come together and learn the arts of perms, friendship, and freedom.
Download or read book The God of Animals written by Aryn Kyle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her stunning debut, Kyle produces an emotionally powerful coming-of-age story that deftly and movingly captures not only the complexity of love, loss, and human relationships but also the fierce and powerful bond between horses and humans.
Download or read book Ready to Fly How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina written by Lea Lyon and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lyrical, inspiring, and affecting text paired with bright, appealing illustrations make Ready to Fly perfect for aspiring ballerinas everywhere who are ready to leap and to spread their wings! Ready to Fly is the true story of Sylvia Townsend, an African American girl who falls in love with ballet after seeing Swan Lake on TV. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share at home or in the classroom. Although there aren’t many ballet schools that will accept a girl like Sylvia in the 1950s, her local bookmobile provides another possibility. A librarian helps Sylvia find a book about ballet and the determined seven-year-old, with the help of her new books, starts teaching herself the basics of classical ballet. Soon Sylvia learns how to fly—how to dance—and how to dare to dream. Includes a foreword from Sylvia Townsend, a brief history of the bookmobile, an author’s note, and a further reading list.
Download or read book The Here and Now written by Ann Brashares and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is an epic star-crossed romance about a girl who might be able to save the world . . . if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to. Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love. The world Prenna James comes from is in ruins. She and the others who escaped are here to prevent humanity’s destruction. But if they don’t follow The Rules, everything that matters will be gone: Friends. Families. Dreams. Love. Ethan Jarves can never know Prenna’s secret. That she’s not from another place. She’s from another time. "This gripping story is set in a world unlike any other and inhabited by beautifully imagined characters that stay with you long after the last page.” – Sara Shepard, bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars “An appealing romantic thriller . . . [also] a potent reminder that we inherit the future we buy with our actions today.”—Cassandra Clare for the New York Times Book Review “Fast-paced, gripping, and romantic.”—Publishers Weekly “Lightning-paced . . . like a cinematic blockbuster.”—Kirkus Reviews “The Here and Now could just as easily sit among the time-travel sci-fi, coming-of-age, or romantic thrillers of YA. Honestly, even though I really don't know how to categorize it, I loved it.”—Happily Ever After/USA Today
Download or read book The World s Strongest Librarian written by Josh Hanagarne and published by Avery. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the public librarian author's inspiring story as a Mormon youth with Tourette's Syndrome who after a sequence of radical and ineffective treatments overcame nightmarish tics through education, military service, and strength training.
Download or read book The Library Card written by Jerry Spinelli and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 1998 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lives of four young people in different circumstances are changed by their encounters with books. Four humorous, poignant stories about how books changed the lives of several youngsters.
Download or read book The Last Bridge written by Teri Coyne and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For ten years, Alexandra 'Cat' Rucker has been on the run from her past. With an endless supply of bourbon and a series of meaningless jobs, Cat is struggling to forget her Ohio hometown and the rural farmhouse she once called home. But a sudden call from an old neighbor forces Cat to return to the home and family she never intended to see again. It seems that Cat's mother is dead. What Cat finds at the old farmhouse is disturbing and confusing: a suicide note, written on lilac stationery and neatly sealed in a ziplock bag, that reads: 'Cat, He isn't who you think he is. Mom xxxooo' One note, ten words--one for every year she has been gone--completely turns Cat's world upside down. Seeking to unravel the mystery of her mother's death, Cat must confront her past to discover who 'he' might be: her tyrannical, abusive father, now in a coma after suffering a stroke? Her brother, Jared, named after her mother's true love (who is also her father's best friend)? The town coroner, Andrew Reilly, who seems to have known Cat's mother long before she landed on a slab in his morgue? Or Addison Watkins, Cat's first and only love? The closer Cat gets to the truth, the harder it is for her to repress the memory and the impact of the events that sent her away so many years ago" -- Publisher's description.
Download or read book Nomadland Surviving America in the Twenty First Century written by Jessica Bruder and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for Chloé Zhao's 2020 Golden Lion award-winning film starring Frances McDormand. "People who thought the 2008 financial collapse was over a long time ago need to meet the people Jessica Bruder got to know in this scorching, beautifully written, vivid, disturbing (and occasionally wryly funny) book." —Rebecca Solnit From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads. Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.
Download or read book Thirteen written by Kelley Armstrong and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Hemlock Island--the epic finale of the #1 New York Times bestselling Otherworld series. A war is brewing and the first battle has already been waged. After rescuing her half brother from supernatural medical testing, Savannah Levine—a young witch of remarkable power and a dangerous pedigree—is battered, but still standing. The Supernatural Liberation Movement took him hostage, and they have a maniacal plan to expose the supernatural world to the unknowing. Savannah is fighting to save her world as witches, werewolves, necromancers, vampires, half-demons, and all the forces of good and evil—including the genetically modified werewolves known as hell hounds—enter the fray. Uniting Savannah with Adam, Elena, Clay, Paige, Lucas, Jaime, Hope, and other denizens of the Otherworld, Thirteen is a thrilling conclusion to this blockbuster series.
Download or read book Blue Gold written by Elizabeth Stewart and published by Annick Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coltan, or “blue gold,” is a rare mineral used in making cell phones and computers. Across continents, the lives of three teen girls are affected by the “blue gold” trade. Sylvie’s family had to lee the Democratic Republic of the Congo after her father was killed by a rogue militia gang in the conlict for control of coltan. The refugee camp where she now lives is deplorable, and Sylvie yearns for a way out—to save not only herself, but her remaining family. Laiping labors in a Chinese factory, soldering components for cell phones. She had left her small village to make her fortune, but the factory conditions are crushing, and the constant pressure to send money home adds to her misery. Yet when Laiping tries to improve her situation, she sees what happens to those who dare question the electronics company’s policies. Fiona is a North American girl who, in one thoughtless moment, takes a picture on her cell phone she comes to regret. In the aftermath, she learns not only about trust and being true to oneself, but the importance of ighting for what is right. All three teens are unexpectedly linked by these events. Elizabeth Stewart conducted extensive research to authentically capture the experiences of all three girls. The result is an intense and powerful story about their struggles to create better lives for themselves in the face of the world’s increasing appetite for coltan.
