Betti On The High Wire

Ten-year-old Babo has grown up on an abandoned circus camp in a war-torn country, believing her circus-star parents will come back any day now. So she's none too happy when an American couple adopts her, calls her Betti, and takes her away from her fellow parentless friends, to a very confusing America. Betti misses her old home, and she's worried her real parents will never be able to find her. She's determined to run away, but as she gets to know her new parents, little sister, and even a new friend, Betti starts to feel like maybe she could be happy in her new American home.

Continually increasing demands on infrastructures mean that maintenance and renewal require timely, appropriate action that maximizes benefits while minimizing cost. To be as well informed as possible, decision-makers must have an optimal understanding of an infrastructure's condition-what it is now, and what it is expected to be in the future. Wri

When the Soviet Union invades its tiny neighbor Finland in November 1939, Marko volunteers to help the war effort. Even though his leg was weakened by polio, he can ski well, and he becomes a messenger on the front line, skiing in white camouflage through the forests at night. The dark forest is terrifying, and so are the odds against the Finns: the Russians have 4 times as many soldiers and 30 times as many planes. They have 3000 tanks, while the Finns have 30. But a tank is no help in the snowy forest–a boy on skis is. And the Russians don’t know winter the way the Finns do, or what tough guerrilla warriors the Finns are. Marko teams up with another messenger, Karl. Gradually Marko learns that Karl’s whole family was killed by the Russians. And Karl has a secret–he’s really Kaari, a girl who joined up to get revenge for her family’s deaths.

One day, a mysterious stranger arrives at a boardinghouse of the widow Gateau—a sad-faced stranger, who keeps to himself. When the widow’s daughter, Mirette, discovers him crossing the courtyard on air, she begs him to teach her how he does it. But Mirette doesn’t know that the stranger was once the Great Bellini—master wire-walker. Or that Bellini has been stopped by a terrible fear. And it is she who must teach him courage once again. Emily Arnold McCully’s sweeping watercolor paintings carry the reader over the rooftops of nineteenth-century Paris and into an elegant, beautiful world of acrobats, jugglers, mimes, actors, and one gallant, resourceful little girl.

Prankster twins Edgar and Ellen think they have found kindred spirits when they join the circus to escape from their mysterious caretaker and the one-eyed creature Pet, but they soon discover that it is hard to tell friend from foe.

Overweight thirteen-year-old Celeste begins a campaign to lose weight in order to make sure she does not win the Miss HuskeyPeach modeling challenge, in which her mother and aunt have entered her--against her wishes.

"Long Term Durability of Structural Materials" features proceedings of the workshop held at Berkeley, CA in October, 2000. It brought together engineers and scientists, who have received grants from the initiative NSF 98-42, to share their results on the study of long-term durability of materials and structures. The major objective was to develop new methods for accelerated short-term laboratory or in-situ tests which allow accurate, reliable, predictions of the long-term performance of materials, machines and structures. To achieve this goal it was important to understand the fundamental nature of the deterioration and damage processes in materials and to develop innovative ways to model the behavior of these processes as they affect the life and long-term performance of components, machines and structures. The researchers discussed their approach to include size effects in scaling up from laboratory specimens to actual structures. Accelerated testing and durability modeling techniques developed were validated by comparing their results with performance under actual operating conditions. The main mechanism of the deterioration discussed included environmental effects and/or exposure to loads, speeds and other operating conditions that are not fully anticipated in the original design. A broad range of deterioration damage, such as fatigue, overload, ultraviolet damage, corrosion, and wear was presented. A broad range of materials of interest was also discussed, including the full spectrum of construction materials, metals, ceramics, polymers, composites, and coatings. Emphasis was placed on scale-dependence and history of fabrication on resulting mechanical behavior of materials.

Fantastic illustrations with a fresh, contemporary look enrich this debut novel about a 10-year-old aspiring artist stuck living with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who clearly don't recognize her genius. A humorous and heartfelt reminder that "a brilliant artist is never afraid," this book reveals that sometimes our greatest masterpieces are the bonds we unexpectedly forge with the people in our lives.

Life-Cycle Civil Engineering: Innovation, Theory and Practice contains the lectures and papers presented at IALCCE2020, the Seventh International Symposium on Life-Cycle Civil Engineering, held in Shanghai, China, October 27-30, 2020. It consists of a book of extended abstracts and a USB card containing the full papers of 230 contributions, including the Fazlur R. Khan lecture, eight keynote lectures, and 221 technical papers from all over the world. All major aspects of life-cycle engineering are addressed, with special emphasis on life-cycle design, assessment, maintenance and management of structures and infrastructure systems under various deterioration mechanisms due to various environmental hazards. It is expected that the proceedings of IALCCE2020 will serve as a valuable reference to anyone interested in life-cycle of civil infrastructure systems, including students, researchers, engineers and practitioners from all areas of engineering and industry.