Acorns Everywhere

An energetic squirrel hoards acorns but forgets where he hid them after being distracted by a berry-gathering bear.

During daily walks, I have gathered a lot of thoughts about my fellow walkers. Oftentimes I have thought, "What's their story?" as I have passed by them and said hello. The manner in which a person responds to a greeting is quite telling. Watching a person's mannerisms, eye contact, and general facial expressions tell a passerby a lot. These forty short stories are a fictional reflection of the day-to-day stories that anyone could be experiencing as they walk the daily walk of life in this modern time in America, in the beautiful park with the oaks.

Tracks is a pilgrimage into the wild, beautiful, and lonely places around us. Donald C. Jackson invites the reader to share the trail with him and discover connections to different vistas not only in the South but also in distant lands and on exotic waters. Through the many stories of this avid hunter, fisher, and trapper, Tracks travels into the swamps and wetlands, hills and tundra, forests and jungles, and on rivers, ponds, tropical lagoons, and the sea. Frog gigging adventures reveal the magic of summer nights in the Deep South. Running a trap line for racoons leads to a tiny Mississippi farm on a crystal clear winter night. Duck hunts evoke the mystery of whistling wings at sunrise, a sound that becomes almost sacramental. Big game hunts in Alaska blend with squirrel hunts along the Mississippi River and late afternoon deer hunts on the outskirts of a college town. In the Gulf of Mexico, Jackson explores science and beauty of life at sea on a fisheries research ship. Filled with experiences from decades of teaching, conservation activities, hunting, fishing, and wilderness adventures, Tracks brings into focus the natural thrill of participating fully as part of the chain of life in wild places.

Six years after a conflict that extinguished all mage-light, Eiden Myr is in chaos. Wild weather destroys crops; drought bakes some regions while others are flooded; mountains quake, poisoned rivers rise; disease and pestilence spread. In a dying trader town, three little girls fight to protect a secret that could cost them their lives, while a young lad-of-all-crafts finds that local murders are the first clue to a chilling conspiracy. In the far north, the remnants of the realm's warders struggle to compensate for mage-light's loss. In the south, a military race is remembering its origins. Along the shoreline, a band of guerrilla fighters, posted to repel invasion, prepares to battle for mastery of the realm-while one woman, a disgraced soldier, summons the courage to defy them all. On a remote island, a new breed of scholars strives to plumb the mysteries of ancient texts before they crumble apart. Who among them is the binder destined to reshape the shattered world.

A ridiculed night editor for a prestigious newspaper. An overburdened nuclear engineer. A female fighter pilot. A religiously impassioned young reporter. A sergeant major thrust into the responsibilities of a secretive command. Moving from a newsroom in the American capital to a cockpit over Afghanistan, from an Iranian cemetery to a military intelligence office in suburban Washington, The Room and The Chair by Lorraine Adams—award-winning author of Harbor—is an unforgettable, groundbreaking novel about the often overlooked actors in today’s dangerous world.

It is 1993. South Africa is on the brink of total transformation and in Walmer Estate, a busy suburb on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, fourteen-year-old Alia Dawood is about to undergo a transformation of her own. She watches with fascination and fear as the national drama unfolds, longing to be a part of what she knows to be history in the making. As her revolutionary aspirations strengthen in the months before the elections, her intense, radical Uncle Waleed reappears, forcing her parents and sister Nasreen to confront his subversive and dangerous past. Nadia David’s first novel moves across generations and communities, through the suburbs to the city centre, from the lush gardens of private schools to the dingy bars of Observatory, from landmark mosques and churches to the manic procession of the Cape Carnival, through evictions, rebellions, political assassinations and first loves. The book places one family’s story at the heart of a country’s rebirth and interrogates issues of faith, race, belonging and freedom. An Imperfect Blessing is a vibrant, funny and moving debut

Whether used for thematic story times, program and curriculum planning, readers' advisory, or collection development, this updated edition of the well-known companion makes finding the right picture books for your library a breeze. Generations of savvy librarians and educators have relied on this detailed subject guide to children's picture books for all aspects of children's services, and this new edition does not disappoint. Covering more than 18,000 books published through 2017, it empowers users to identify current and classic titles on topics ranging from apples to zebras. Organized simply, with a subject guide that categorizes subjects by theme and topic and subject headings arranged alphabetically, this reference applies more than 1,200 intuitive (as opposed to formal catalog) subject terms to children's picture books, making it both a comprehensive and user-friendly resource that is accessible to parents and teachers as well as librarians. It can be used to identify titles to fill in gaps in library collections, to find books on particular topics for young readers, to help teachers locate titles to support lessons, or to design thematic programs and story times. Title and illustrator indexes, in addition to a bibliographic guide arranged alphabetically by author name, further extend access to titles.

From famed chef Alice Waters, a treat for anyone who loves France, food, adventure—or all three! Fanny is a girl who knows a lot about food and cooking since she’s grown up in and around the famous restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. When Fanny’s mother, Alice Waters, the chef and owner of Chez Panisse, starts to watch her favorite old French movies, Fanny knows soon they’ll be packing their bags and traveling to France for a visit. In this sparkling book of whimsical stories, Fanny recounts some of her most fun-filled adventures with French friends and food. Join Fanny as she helps cook a huge bouillabaisse in Provence; learns how to make fresh cheese from a shepherd high up in the Pyrenees mountains; hunts for wild oysters off the coast of Bordeaux, and discovers how one chicken can feed nine people, if served a certain way. Fanny in France is also a beginner’s cookbook with forty simple, French-inspired recipes that encourage children and adults anywhere to cook and share delicious snacks and meals with family and friends using basic methods and the most sustainable ingredients.