Kiki Dances

Kiki wants to be many things - a cowboy, a magician, a tightrope walker, but most of all a ballet dancer. Grades 1-2.

“Papi’s there, around any corner,” says the eight-year-old girl at the heart of Papi. “But you can’t sit down and wait for him cuz that’s a longer and more painful death.” Living in Santo Domingo, she waits for her father to come back from the United States and lavish her with the glorious rewards of his fame and fortune—shiny new cars and polo shirts, gold chains and Nikes. But when Papi does come back, he turns out to be more “like Jason, the guy from Friday the 13th," than a prince. Papi is a drug dealer, a man who is clearly unreliable and dangerous but nevertheless makes his daughter feel powerful and wholly, terrifyingly alive. Drawing on her memories of a childhood split between Santo Domingo and visits with her father amid the luxuries of the United States, Rita Indiana mixes satire with a child’s imagination, horror with science fiction, in a swirling tale of a daughter’s love, the lure of crime and machismo, and the violence of the adult world. Expertly translated into English for the first time by Achy Obejas, who renders the rhythmic lyricism of Indiana’s Dominican Spanish in language that propels the book forward with the relentless beat of a merengue, Papi is furious, musical, and full of wit—a passionate, overwhelming, and very human explosion of artistic virtuosity.

An assault on the senses, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car. High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. 'If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance' Observer

When eight-year-old Kiki travels to Taos Pueblo, the reservation where her parents grew up, she confronts her identity as both a Tiwa Indian and a big city girl.

Dance Dance Dance—a follow-up to A Wild Sheep Chase—is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through Murakami’s Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs. As Murakami’s nameless protagonist searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, he is plunged into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread. In this propulsive novel, featuring a shabby but oracular Sheep Man, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work today fuses together science fiction, the hardboiled thriller, and white-hot satire.

Teach kids as young as 5 years old the basic programming skills necessary to code, including sequencing and loops, without a computer. It's never too early to learn computer coding. My First Coding Book is a playful introduction to offline coding and programming that will give young children a head start. Filled with puzzles, mazes, and games to teach the basic concepts of sequences, algorithms, and debugging, this book will help children develop critical thinking, logic, and other skills to cement lifelong computer literacy, which is extremely valuable and sought-after in today's world. With its unique approach and colorful and creative imagery, My First Coding Book makes learning and fun one and the same and will have children playing their way to programming proficiency. Supporting STEM education initiatives, computer coding teaches kids how to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically, and is quickly becoming a necessary and sought-after skill. DK's computer coding books are full of fun exercises with step-by-step guidance, making them the perfect introductory tools for building vital skills in computer programming.

Legsinaugurated William Kennedy's brilliant cycle of novels (including Billy Phelan's Greatest Gameand Ironweed) set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth, Legsbrilliantly evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany. Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond's attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the more elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s. Diamond and his gangster entourage emerge as emblematic figures from an era of American innocence-and corruption.

This book is about dance’s relationship to language. It investigates how dance bodies work with the micromovements elicited by language’s affective forces, and the micropolitics of the thought-sensations that arise when movement and words accompany one another within choreographic contexts. Situating itself where theory meets practice—the zone where ideas arise to be tested, the book draws on embodied research in practices within the lineages of American postmodern dance and Japanese butoh, set in dialog with affect-based philosophies and somatics. Understanding that language is felt, both when uttered and when unspoken, this book speaks to the choreographic thinking that takes place when language is considered a primary element in creating the sensorium.

The show must go on. It’s back to show business as usual at Duke’s Academy of Performing Arts. Things are finally working out for Nettie, with her voice restored, her gorgeous boyfriend, Fletch, by her side and the lead role in the college musical. That is, until Fletch is offered the opportunity of a lifetime miles away from London and a TV company invades Dukes, pitting Nettie against old enemy Jade Upton and pulling her friends apart. As she tries to juggle the impossible pressure to perform and following her heart, Nettie discovers secrets about her mother that make her question everything she ever knew. Will Fletch come back? Will the stage ever feel like home? And will she ever find out the truth about her mother? Nettie is determined to find out. Dance Like No One's Watching by Vanessa Jones will show that Nettie is not helpless, and we'd better listen.