A look at the geography, history, government, economy, people, lifestyles, religion, language, and culture of the world’s most populous nation.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction genre
Philippines
An illustrated overview of the history, geography and culture of the Philippines and the people who inhabit these tropical islands.
Sacred River: The Ganges of India
With the help of colorful, detailed watercolors, Ted Lewin tells of his amazing experiences among the Hindu pilgrims who journey annually to the Ganges river, the most sacred in India.
Titanic: The Search for the Lost Fugitives
Readers become investigators in this interactive mystery about one of history’s most ill-fated voyages. While looking through documents connected with the Titanic’s maiden trip, a journalist discovers that he might be related to a pair of fugitives who disappeared from his hometown and perished in the disaster. Readers follow the trail of evidence in clues hidden in codes and symbols in order to discover the identities of the runaways and the reasons for their flight. Along the way, they will build critical problem-solving skills and encounter many different levels of clues and information in the atmospheric artwork and narrative text. Foldout panels help translate the symbols, and kids will love the specially created code wheel which will allow them to create and decode their own secret messages.
Equal Rights Is Our Minimum Demand
On June 12, 2005, hundreds of women gathered outside Tehran University in Tehran, Iran. These women were protesting an issue that Iranian women have battled for more than one hundred years: gender inequality. Living in a conservative Muslim culture, Iranian women are subjected to discriminatory laws that serve the male-dominated society. In the 1900s, Iranian women began protesting unjust laws and fighting for equality. For a time, under monarchs wishing to modernize, Iran became more lenient. Women began dressing as they wished, mixing socially with men, and working outside their homes. But after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, harsh punishments for moral offenses again became law. Iranian women continue to struggle against an oppressive regime, but they refuse to stop protesting. Iranian women have been punished and discriminated against by their patriarchal government, but yet they maintain their pursuit of equal rights.
Buried Alive!
In August 2010, thirty-three miners were buried alive, two thousand feet below the surface of the earth. After seventeen tense days, just as hope was nearly gone, rescuers made contact with the men. Joy broke out around the world whenall thirty-three men were alive! But it would be long weeks before they emerged from the mine. What did the miners feel, trapped in the steamy darkness so far underground? What did they eat? How did they get along? And most important, how did they survive in those seventeen days when death lingered so near, and after, during the long wait for rescue? This amazing true story about problem-solving, community, and real-life heroes is made kid-friendly by veteran nonfiction writer Elaine Scott.
Gangs
Street gangs have exploded in popularity worldwide. Tattoos, baggy pants, tagging, gangsta style clothes — this unspoken threat is always just around the corner in most of the world’s major cities. In search of a sense of identity and belonging that their world has denied them, young people are pushed into gangs by a witch’s brew of violence, guns, drugs, racism, poverty, families under pressure, and ever-widening slums. Gangs exposes the roots of the problem, from the bidonvilles of France to the favelas of Brazil. It offers a startling analysis of the complicity of the adult world, as well as hard-hitting reforms that might just undermine the appeal of gang life. Most of all, it shows that we fail to understand gangs at our peril.
Children of the Holocaust
At the start of World War II, there were about 1.6 million Jewish children living in Europe. Fewer than one in 10 of those children survived German leader Adolf Hitlers reign of terror. More than 100,000 Jewish children did survive, however through a combination of strength, cleverness, the help of others, and, more often than not, simple good luck. Children of the Holocaust tells the stories of these young people.
Jewish Migration
Jewish Migration will look at young migrants from pogrom-era Russia to the USA, at World War II era escapes to safe countries, at the Kindertransport to England, and at post-war resettlement in Palestine, and contemporary Russian Jews arriving in Israel today.
Hey Canada!
Gran has decided that she is taking nine-year-old Alice and eight-year-old Cal on a road trip across Canada “before she’s old and creaky.” With a sparkling combination of poems, silly songs, tweets and blogs, the trio records the trip for readers everywhere to share. Starting in St. John’s Newfoundland, where they have a “find-it” list that includes a moose and an iceberg and going all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the gang offers a delightful way to learn about vast, varied, and surprising Canada. The book combines narrative, poems, photos, comics about historical events such as the battle at Fortress Louisburg, maps (including provincial flags, birds, and flowers), in a lively, easily accessible format.