How To Scratch a Wombat: where to find it…what to feed it…why it sleeps all day

For more than thirty years, author Jackie French has lived in the Australian bush, coexisting with wild wombats. In this cross between memoir and natural history, Jackie shares her often hilarious adventures with her wombats neighbors and describes their physiology, history, and habits. Bruce Whatley adds pencil drawings in both comic and realistic styles.

Leaving Glorytown: One Boy’s Struggle Under Castro

Eduardo F. Calcines was a child of Fidel Castro’s Cuba; he was just three years old when Castro came to power in January 1959. After that, everything changed for his family and his country. When he was ten, his family applied for an exit visa to emigrate to America and he was ridiculed by his schoolmates and even his teachers for being a traitor to his country. But even worse, his father was sent to an agricultural reform camp to do hard labor as punishment for daring to want to leave Cuba. During the years to come, as he grew up in Glorytown, a neighborhood in the city of Cienfuegos, Eduardo hoped with all his might that their exit visa would be granted before he turned fifteen, the age at which he would be drafted into the army. In this absorbing memoir, by turns humorous and heartbreaking, Eduardo Calcines recounts his boyhood and chronicles the conditions that led him to wish above all else to leave behind his beloved extended family and his home for a chance at a better future.

Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.

The Secret Of Priest’s Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story (Holocaust)

According to legend, a group of Jewish families survived the Holocaust by hiding out for months in the 77 miles of caves in Ukraine known as Priest’s Grotto. Cavers Taylor and Nicola chronicle their trip to explore the caves and uncover the story of the survivors.

Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest: Where Birds Begin

Bird lovers of all ages will feel right at home with Irene Kelly’s latest nature title. How does a bird make its nest? Very carefully! Many birds build intricate nests out of twigs, leaves, feathers, mud–even dollar bills and clothespins. Some nests are gigantic, housing hundreds of birds or weighing as much as a car, while others are just large enough to keep one egg safe and warm. Whether simple or fancy, every species finds a unique way and clever place to raise its young.

Capoeira: Game! Dance! Martial Art!

CAPOEIRA—it’s a game, a dance, a martial art! It’s a way of expressing oneself through movement and music. With action-packed photographs and accessible text, readers are introduced to this exciting, popular game. At Madinga Academy in Oakland, California, a group of girls and boys practice the acrobatic moves of capoeira. Then they begin to play games to the infectious, rhythmic beat of traditional music and singing. On to Brazil to experience capoeira in its historic birthplace, where it dates back four hundred years. Capoeira developed as a way of fighting among enslaved Africans, was outlawed the the government, and was permitted once again in 1930 as a martial art and game. Back in Oakland, at an end-of-year ceremony, students receive their colored ropes indicating their levels of accomplishment. They also look forward to next year, and the fun of expressing themselves through the game, dance and martial art of capoeira.

Iran (Global Hotspots)

Introduces Iran, discussing its history, the Islamic government which currently controls the country, and the turbulent relationship the country has with the Western powers over its support of terrorism and its development of nuclear power.