Lenas Story

All Lena wants is to help a stray dog and hang out with her friends, Sanjay, Chelsea and Kai. All her dad wants is to make a deal with his boss. Somehow, things never quite seem to go according to plan... Join the four friends as they struggle with friendship, family and growing up. Welcome to The Street! Bloomsbury High Low books encourage and support reading practice by providing gripping, age-appropriate stories for struggling and reluctant readers, those with dyslexia, or those with English as an additional language. Printed on tinted paper and with a dyslexia friendly font, The Street is aimed at readers aged 12+ and has a manageable length (96 pages) and reading age (9+). This collection of stories can be read in any order. Produced in association with reading experts at CatchUp, a charity which aims to address underachievement caused by literacy and numeracy difficulties.

"This is the story of the first and only woman to be legally executed in the state of Georgia's electric chair. Nearly sixty years after her death, Lena Baker is not forgotten. The small picture hanging in the execution chamber of the Georgia State Prison is a reminder of the persistant question "is justice being served?" --Cover, p. 4.

Twelve-year-old Lena is aware of racism, but she lives a comfortable life in the segregated but relatively wealthy Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma; but on May 31, 1921 racial tensions explode, and men from downtown Tulsa invade Greenwood, set on killing and destroying the district--and as the violence escalates Lena, her parents, and her older sister search desperately for a safe place to hide from the mob.

In the tradition of School’s First Day of School, debut author Keith Calabrese and Pura Belpré Award winner Juana Medina share a sweet, universal story about a clever little girl whose shoes are nervous about the first day of school. Today is a big day! Today, Lena starts kindergarten. She is very excited. But there’s just one problem… Lena’s shoes are nervous. Lena doesn’t want to miss out on her first day of school, but she can’t go without her favorite shoes! How can she convince them to be brave?

Lena can’t wait to twirl and leap onstage at her school dance recital, but her family does not have the money to pay for new ballet slippers. As the day of the recital draws closer, Lena struggles to come up with a creative solution to reach her shining moment on stage, learning along the way that what you do is more important than what you wear. Lena’s passion for performing will inspire readers and aspiring ballerinas everywhere to never give up. Parents will love the story's value of individuality over artificial, materialistic ideals. With lovely illustrations, this heartwarming tale highlights the power of perseverance and the joy of creativity.

The Case of Lena S. follows the life, loves, and coming-of-age of sixteen-year-old Mason Crowe during a year in which he will learn what it truly means to be in the world. At the centre of the novel is Lena, a troubled girl who has “chosen” Mason and will teach him something of desire and despair. Impulsive, provocative, vulnerable, and sad, Lena becomes haunting for Mason in ways he does not always understand. We meet Mason’s first “love,” an older girl destined for an arranged marriage; his mother, who takes a lover; and a wise and erudite blind man with a voyeuristic streak, to whom Mason reads. Playful, and with deadpan humour, the novel brilliantly captures the yearnings of youth, as well as the tantalizing possibilities and the confounding absurdities that sometimes lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships.

2007-2008 Show Me Readers Award preliminary list (Missouri) 2005 Aesop Accolade, American Folklore Society Grandma Lena believes that something worth doing is worth doing right. So she takes good care of the turnips she plants in her garden. One turnip grows to an enormous size—Baby Pearl thinks it's a big potato! It is big enough to feed half the town. And it's so big that Grandma can’t pull it out of the ground! Even when Grandpa, Uncle Izzy, Aunt Netty, and the dog help Grandma yank and tug, the big ol’ turnip doesn’t budge. Still, this African-American family, including Baby Pearl, knows how to pull together.

The behavioral psychologist onboard a survey ship headed to a planet ripe for colonization, Dr. Grace Park must determine the origin of a strange phenomenon that is causing the crew to suffer mental breaks without losing her own mind in the process.

Set in New York's Russian émigré community, Vaclav & Lena is a timeless love story from a stunningly gifted young novelist. Vaclav and Lena, both the children of Russian émigrés, are at the same time from radically different worlds. While Vaclav's burgeoning love of performing magic is indulged by hard-working parents pursuing the American dream, troubled orphan Lena is caught in a domestic situation no child should suffer through. Taken in as one of her own by Vaclav's big-hearted mother, Lena might finally be able to blossom; in the naive young magician's eyes, she is destined to be his "faithful assistant"...but after a horrific discovery, the two are ripped apart without even a goodbye. Years later, they meet again. But will their past once more conspire to keep them apart?

Regarding William Faulkner’s novel, Light in August, the majority of critics view Lena Grove as an insignificant character. It is the intent of this thesis to right the discourse by showing that Lena Grove is a major figure: generally, symbolically, and when considered in her role as a literary device. Generally, Lena Grove functions as an eccentric individual and a Southern folk figure; symbolically she has become a pagan fertility goddess, an “opposite equal” to Joanna Burden, and a Persephone-Kore figure. As a literary device she comprises the entity who most closely offers us a set of “horizons of expectations” closest to a straightforward linear plotline. Even when we are in the “deconstructed” phases of her plotline, that is, embroiled in the construction of one of the other three plotlines, that of Joe Christmas, Byron Bunch or Reverend Gail Hightower, we consistently think of Lena Grove and wonder where she is in her journey across the South and her journey through life. In Light in August, in her own unique manner, Lena Grove is a major figure - ever present.