Americas

Materials from the Americas

Touching Snow

‘”The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone.\”Karina has plenty to worry about on the last day of seventh grade: finding three Ds and a C on her report card again, getting laughed at by everyone again, being sent to the principal — again. She\’d like this to change, but with her and her sisters dodging their stepfather\’s fists every day after school, she doesn\’t have time to do much self-reflecting. Finally her stepfather is taken away on child abuse charges, and Karina thinks things might turn into something resembling normal. The problem is, he\’s not gone for good. And as Karina becomes closer with a girl at the community center where her stepfather is not showing up for his parenting classes, she starts to realize a couple things. First, for all the problems her family had tried to escape by immigrating from Haiti, they brought most of them along to upstate New York. And second, if anything is going to change for this family, it is going to be up to Karina and her sisters to make it happen.M. Sindy Felin\’s debut novel is the story of a young girl\’s coming-of-age amid the violent waters that run just beneath the surface of suburbia — a story that has the courage to ask: How far will you go to protect the ones you love?

Lord Of The Deep

Fishing. This is it, the big time. Mikey’s 13, a deckhand working on a charter boat in Hawaii. Working for the best skipper anywhere, his stepdad, Bill. Before Bill came along, it was just Mikey and his mom. Now they’re a real family, and Mikey has a little brother. He can’t believe how lucky he is. And now he’s learning from the best, even though he’s only 13. Because Bill believes in him. And Mikey won’t let him down. He loves fishing and being out on the boat. But some seas, some fish, and some charter clients are a lot tougher to handle than Mikey ever imagined. Take Ernie and Cal—they chartered Bill’s boat for three days and they’re out for the adventure of their lives. Now it’s up to Mikey and Bill to deliver it.

Stuff: The Life of a Cool Demented Dude

Stuff. My head’s full of it. I don’t even know where most of it comes from. I just seem to pick it up, like my brain emits a special sort of tractor beam that locks on to pointless information. But in the face of my problems, all the extra stuff is proving useless. What problems? you ask. I shall tell you. Problem 1: The invasion of my home. Dad’s new girlfriend moved in, and, even worse, she brought along her daughter, who has no sense of humor and no taste in music. Problem 2: My girlfriend, Delfine. Her brother would break both my arms if I broke up with her. Problem 3: The new girl at school. Stunning. Gorgeous. Willowy. My Destiny (but see Problem 2). Problem 4: My comic strip. At first it was cool to anonymously author the strip in the school paper, but now that everyone suspects who they are in the strip, I run the risk of getting my legs broken in addition to my arms (see above). Clearly, I need to plan The Great Escape! Part hilarious musings, part graphic novel, stuff is the quirky exposé of a fourteen-year-old boy who, let’s face it, could use a little help.

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.

The Goatnappers

Justin’s place as the first high school freshman in twenty years to make the varsity baseball team is at risk when his math grades plummet while he is trying to cope with the abuse of a young billy goat he sold and a visit from his estranged father to Lost Goat Lane.

Questors

Three confused children are brought together then, with little training, sent off to save three worlds that were held in perfect balance until a cataclysmic disruption in the space-time continuum threatened their existence, which is just what their enemy desires.

 

 

Diamonds In The Shadow

THE FINCH FAMILY did not know that five refugees landed from Africa on the day they went to the airport to welcome the family sponsored by their church. The Finch family only knew about the four refugees they were meeting – Andre, Celestine, Mattu, and Alake – mother, father, teenage son and daughter.

Soon Jared realizes that the good guys are not always innocent, and he must make a decision that could change the fate of both families. This story presents many points of view and a fresh perspective on doing the right thing.

The Best Eid Ever

It’s Eid, and Aneesa should be happy, but her parents are thousands of miles away in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage. To cheer her up, her grandmother gives her a gift of beautiful clothes from Pakistan, one outfit for each of the three days of Eid. She even prepares lamb korma, Aneesa’s favorite dinner, which they will enjoy when they return from prayers. At the prayer hall, Aneesa meets two sisters who are not dressed in new clothes for the holiday. Aneesa discovers that the girls are refugees. With their father, they have fled from their war-torn country. Aneesa can’t stop thinking about the girls and what Eid must be like for them. That’s when Aneesa comes up with a plan to help the girls celebrate Eid and make it the best Eid holiday ever.

Darkwing

As the sun sets on the time of the dinosaurs, a new world is left in its wake. Dusk alone can fly and see in the dark, in a colony where being different means being shunned—or worse. As the leader’s son, he is protected, but does his future lie among his kin? Carnassial has the true instincts of a predator, and he is determined that his kind will not only survive but will dominate the world of beasts. An extraordinary adventure set 65 million years ago in a breathtaking animal tale that reaches out to the human in all of us.