Europe

Materials from Europe

Little Fairy Can’t Sleep

Faith, the little fairy, can’t get to sleep. It’s a lovely summer’s night and magic is in the air, so she flies off to see who else is still awake. Faith meets a mother fox and her young cubs, who can’t get to sleep, an elf father whose children can’t get to sleep, and the sandman who is filling sacks with magic dust to help children everywhere get to sleep. Finally the little fairy meets a moth-fairy prince who takes her to the source of the night’s magic – a wonderful Midsummer Night’s party – where she dances until she is so tired that she finally falls asleep.This magical, dreamlike tale makes perfect bedtime reading.

Magic Wool

Activities with unspun sheep’s wool, also known as magic wool, offer a wide range of creative possibilities for both children and adults. In this book Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke combine their talents and experience, and show how to create beautiful pictures, as well as table-top scenes featuring figures and animals. They explain the process of carding and dyeing unspun wool to make ‘magic wool’. They focus on making pictures with wool, including scenes from several well-known fairy tales and festivals, before showing how to make simple dolls and animals, building up to an entire nativity scene. Detailed instructions, diagrams and colour photographs are provided throughout.

The Princess Curse

Thirteen-year-old Reveka, an herbalist’s apprentice in the Middle Ages, attempts to break the mysterious curse on the princesses of Sylvania and instead discovers a door to the Underworld.

The Other Half of Life

A heartbreaking novel based on the true story of a World War II voyage.In May of 1939, the SS St. Francis sets sail from Germany, carrying German Jews and other refugees away from Hitler’s regime. The passengers believe they are bound for freedom in Cuba and eventually the United States, but not all of them are celebrating. Fifteen-year-old Thomas is anxious about his parents and didn’t want to leave Germany: his father, a Jew, has been imprisoned and his mother, a Christian, is left behind, alone. Fourteen-year old Priska has her family with her, and she’s determined to enjoy the voyage, looking forward to their new lives. Based on the true story of the MS St. Louis, this historical young adult novel imagines two travelers and the lives they may have lived until events, and immigration laws, conspired to change their fates.

The Lily Pond

A year after Stephie Steiner and her younger sister, Nellie, left Nazi-occupied Vienna, Stephie has finally adapted to life on the rugged Swedish island where she now lives. But more change awaits Stephie: her foster parents have allowed her to enroll in school on the mainland, in Goteberg. Stephie is eager to go. Not only will she be pursuing her studies, she’ll be living in a cultured city again—under the same roof as Sven, the son of the lodgers who rented her foster parents’ cottage for the summer. Five years her senior, Sven dazzles Stephie with his charm, his talk of equality, and his anti-Hitler sentiments. Stephie can’t help herself—she’s falling in love. As she navigates a sea of new emotions, she also grapples with what it means to be beholden to others, with her constant worry about what her parents are enduring back in Vienna, and with the menacing spread of Nazi ideology, even in Sweden. In these troubled times, her true friends, Stephie discovers, are the ones she least expected.

The Auslander

When Peter’s parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland. But Peter is Volksdeutscher-of German blood. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler Youth poster. The Nazis decide he is racially valuable. Indeed, a prominent German family is pleased to adopt such a fine Aryan specimen into their household. But despite his new “family,” Peter feels like a foreigner-an ausländer-and he is forming his own ideas about what he sees and what he’s told. He doesn’t want to be a Nazi. So he takes a risk-the most dangerous one he could possibly choose in 1942 Berlin.

Empire of Ruins

While on an assignment in Queensland, Australia, to discover the truth behind a powerful weapon known as the God Face, Modo, a teenaged, shape-changing hunchback living in Victorian London, battles the evil machinations of the Clockwork Guild and makes an astounding discovery–one that hinges on Modo’s true appearance.

The Vikings

This book focuses on the discoveries and inventions of the ancient Viking civilization in the areas of transportation, agriculture, architecture, science, and technology.

Fix Me

Orphaned as a child, terrorized by her abusive brother, and haunted by memories, Leia feels exposed, powerless, and vulnerable. When her tormented mind can stand it no longer, she escapes to the zoo, where she finds shelter and seeks refuge. The zoo is a sanctuary: a protective space for families, and a safe place for the traumatized to forget. But can she ever feel safe? Can she ever forget? Once again, Rune Michaels brings us a harrowing psychological drama that raises questions about the very nature of humanity.