Materials from Europe
When Addis Berner Bear arrives in the city, it’s so big and confusing, and so loud and fast, that he forgets why he has come. With help from some, and hindrance from others, Addis Berner Bear must rediscover why he’s there and what he’s supposed to do. His great realization that he’s a trumpet player gives true meaning to his life and brings pleasure and joy to others.
MapHead, a twelve year old from a parallel world, who can flash any map across his head but cannot quite grasp human language, comes to meet his human mother, and by searching for her, he discovers himself.
Dr. Meow’s Big Emergency is the first in a series of books which all take place in the friendly Whoops-a-Daisy World. In this exciting adventure, Tom Cat has hurt his leg, and Doctor Meow must help him right away. Doctor Meow and her helpers are good neighbors, and good friends, too!
“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up . . . But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world.” –Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933 By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany’s young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.
In Maddy Smith’s world, order rules. Chaos, old gods, fairies, goblins, magic, glamours–all of these were supposedly vanquished centuries ago. But Maddy knows that a small bit of magic has survived. The “ruinmark” she was born with on her palm proves it–and makes the other villagers fearful that she is a witch (though helpful in dealing with the goblins-in-the-cellar problem). But the mysterious traveler One-Eye sees Maddy’s mark not as a defect, but as a destiny. And Maddy will need every scrap of forbidden magic One-Eye can teach her if she is to survive that destiny.
On an island that houses the asylum where lawbreakers are imprisoned, two teenagers rebel against a rigidly controlled society where dreams are considered antisocial and all citizens over the age of fourteen take a drug to control their behavior.
This series of biographical vignettes is narrated by Hannah, a lower-middle-class Jewish girl living in a small Russian town. Despite prejudice and political unrest in Russia and the crisis of World War I, Hannah remains optimistic and eager for the future–giving up new clothes for piano lessons, strengthening her relationship with her sister, and learning to face a world in turmoil. Based on the author’s own life, this is a fascinating personal account of a young girl’s transition into womanhood in the early twentieth century.
Tom Tin and his four convict companions are only too glad when they come upon a deserted ship. The boys clamber aboard, not knowing whether they’ve been saved or set on a course toward doom. But after rescuing two men stranded on a melting iceberg, Tom begins to suspect that these unsavory sailors are dangerous castaways from this very vessel. The more Tom questions the men, the more they dislike him. So, when Tom overhears them plotting to get rid of him, he knows they mean it. But the other boys don’t feel threatened – at least not until the sailors attempt to sell them as slaves, a decision that ends with death for some and with Tom sailing the ship home to England. Soon Tom discovers that he has to cast away every ill-intentioned companion from his voyage home before he can truly be free.
The adventure that began in The Convicts and continued in The Cannibals has its conclusion in The Castaway.
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.
It’s migration time and as a mother gull dives into the water to catch a herring she’s caught in an oil slick! Thinking of the egg she is about to lay she manages to extract herself and fly to the nearest port. Exhausted, she lands on a balcony where Zorba the cat is sunning himself. Zorba wants to get help, but the gull knows it’s too late and she extracts three promises from him: 1) That he won’t eat the egg, 2) that he’ll take care of the chick until it hatches, and 3) that he’ll teach it to fly. Well the first two are hard enough, but the third one is surely impossible.