A Bottle In The Gaza Sea

Seventeen-year-old Tal Levine of Jerusalem, despondent over the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, puts her hopes for peace in a bottle and asks her brother, a military nurse in the Gaza Strip, to toss it into the sea, leading ultimately to friendship and understanding.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 3

Sacred Leaf: The Cocalero Novels

The people of Bolivia have grown coca for legitimate purposes for hundreds of years, but the demands of America’s War on Drugs now threaten this way of life. Deborah Ellis’s searing follow-up to the highly praised “I Am a Taxi” deals with this frank reality. After he manages to escape from virtual enslavement in an illegal cocaine operation, Diego is taken in by the Ricardo family. These poor coca farmers give Diego a safe haven where he recovers from his ordeal in the jungle. But the army soon moves in and destroys the family’s coca crop — their livelihood. So Diego joins their protest of the destruction of their crops and confront the army head-on by barricading the roads. While tension between the cocaleros and the army builds to a dramatic climax, Diego wonders whether he will ever find a way to return to his family. This compelling novel defies conventional wisdom on an important issue, and shows how people in one part of the world unknowingly create hardship for people in another.

The Nobel Prize

“I would like . . . to help dreamers, they find it hard to get on in life.” — Alfred Nobel. Alfred Nobel, born in Sweden in 1833, was a brilliant inventor and businessman. Although he held more than 300 patents when he died in 1896, he earned his extensive fortune and worldwide fame through his invention of dynamite and his work on armaments. He never married and was constantly on the move around Europe, visiting his manufacturing plants.His handwritten one-page last will and testament directed that the majority of his vast fortune be invested and the interest distributed to the most deserving individuals in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and peace. Between 1901 and 2009, the five Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Science were awarded 537 times.This book tells the fascinating story of how a few simple instructions in Nobel’s will were transformed into a huge philanthropic organization that holds a unique position in the modern world.The Nobel Prize covers: The life and accomplishments of Alfred Nobel His will and the establishment of the Nobel Prize Committee How the Nobel laureates are selected The establishment of the new award in Economics in 1968 Profiles of U.S. presidents and world leaders who have won the prize Lists of families and individuals who have won the prize Profiles on the lives and accomplishments of the most famous laureates The backgrounds of each of the six prizes: chemistry, physics, medicine, peace, literature and economicsThe Nobel Prize brings to life the story of the world’s most famous prize.

The Ring of Solomon (A Bartimaeus Novel)

Bartimaeus, everyoners”s favorite (wise-cracking) djinni, is back in book four of this best-selling series. As alluded to in the footnotes throughout the series, Bartimaeus has served hundreds of magicians during his 5,010 year career. Now, for the first time, fans will go back in time with the djinni, to Jerusalem and the court of King Solomon in 950s BC. Only in this adventure, it seems the great Bartimaeus has finally met his match. He’ll have to contend with an unpleasant master and his sinister servant, and runs into just a “spot” of trouble with King Solomon’s magic ring.

Amazing Greek Myths of Wonder And Blunders

From Hercules’s snake assassin slippers to Arachne’s wicked weaver rap songs, these are the mythic monsters and Hellenic heroes that have captured Western culture for centuries, but are a whole lot more fun. Each story showcases the wondrous and blunderful antics of gods and mortals in bright graphics that rival the super-heroic action of The Lightning Thief, burst with the knock-your-socks-off humor of Jeff Kinney, and still remain unerringly faithful to the original myth. Kids won’t be able to resist the bickering sheep, unruly rulers, and undercover details of Amazing Greek Myths, while teachers, librarians, and parents can relish this new way to share moral messages that remain as relevant today as they were a thousand years ago.

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat

It wasn’t too long ago that people tried all sorts of things to help sick people feel better. They tried wild things like drinking a glass full of millipedes or putting some mustard on one’s head. Some of the cures worked, and some of them…well, let’s just say that millipedes, living or dead, are not meant to be ingested. Carlyn Beccia takes readers on a colorful and funny medical mystery tour to discover that while times may have changed, many of today’s most reliable cure-alls have their roots in some very peculiar practices, and so relevant connections can be drawn from what they did then to what we do now.

Thunder Over Kandahar

A powerful novel of enduring friendship set amid the terror and chaos of present-day Afghanistan.Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burns down the school and threatens the teacher and students with death.As Tamanna faces an arranged marriage to an older man and the Taliban targets Yasmine’s western-educated family, the girls realize they must flee. Traveling through the heart of Taliban territory, the two unaccompanied young women find themselves in mortal danger. After suffering grave injuries, Tamanna from a fall and Yasmine from a suicide bombing, the girls are left without the one thing that has helped them survive — each other.Reunited years later in England, Tamanna and Yasmine discover that, despite the horrific events of the past, they are both driven to return home by memories of their families and a longing for their country.The book features stunning photographs by award-winning photojournalist Rafal Gerszak (The New York Times, BBC World News) that bring readers an immediate sense of the faces and landscape of Afghanistan.Filled with tension and drama, Thunder Over Kandahar paints a vivid portrait of the perils of contemporary Afghanistan.