Sunday Rain

An imaginative adventure for any child hoping to make a new friend, and for when a new place doesn’t yet feel like home. Elliott has just moved into a new house. He spends his days with his fictional friends, immersed in a book. When an inviting Sunday rain gathers the local kids to play in the puddles, Elliott longs to join in, but he's too shy to go outside. Soon, Elliott discovers that new friendships are like a new book—you just have to plunge into the adventure. "While a storm rages on the other side of the ship curtains at his bedroom window, Elliott buries himself in a book. A princess endlessly fights a dragon and a watercolor sea keeps 'swallowing the royal boat,' with Elliott at the helm. Later, he peeks out shyly at two puddle-jumping children on the sidewalk. 'Make some friends while I finish unpacking,' his mother urges. He joins them with a toy boat. Soon the S.S. Elliott is life-size, the puddles are an ocean and the dragon is a kite. Elliott's new house feels like home."—The New York Times Book Review, 8 Picture Books about Imagination and Identity "The imagination-fueled adventures will restore your faith in the kindness of kids"—Parents Magazine, 5 Parents-Approved Children's Books to Read Right Now “A quiet, sweet story blending common themes of moving, imagination, and friendship”—Kirkus Reviews “A gorgeous book demonstrating perfectly, with understanding and empathy, the importance of gentle encouragement to face our fears and the positive effects which result from leaping right into life and right into those glorious, rainy day puddles!”—Book Monsters “Moving may be hard, but new places can offer friendly guides to worlds of adventure, if we're brave enough to seek them out!”—Jennifer Broedel, children's author

Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey’s mopes and Kurt Cobain’s grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.

The delectable new installment in the bestselling and already beloved adventures of Isabel Dalhousie and her no-nonsense housekeeper, Grace. When friends from Dallas arrive in Edinburgh and introduce Isabel to Tom Bruce – a bigwig at home in Texas – several confounding situations unfurl at once. Tom’s young fiancée’s roving eye leads Isabel to believe that money may be the root of her love for Tom. But what, Isabel wonders, is the root of the interest Tom begins to show for Isabel herself? And she can’t forget about her niece, Cat, who’s busy falling for a man whom Isabel suspects of being an incorrigible mama’s boy. Of course Grace and Isabel’s friend Jamie counsel Isabel to stay out of all of it, but there are irresistible philosophical issues at stake – when to tell the truth and when to keep one’s mouth shut, to be precise – and philosophical issues are meat and drink to Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. In any case, she’s certain of the ethical basis for a little sleuthing now and again – especially when the problems involve matters of the heart.

The invention of the electric telegraph in the early forties of the nineteenth century made possible the rapid collection of the meteorological data essential to the construction of a weather chart.

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day," a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace. Was it drought? Pestilence? War? Forced migration, mass murder or suicide? Conflicting theories have abounded for years, capturing the North American imagination for eons. Join Craig Childs as he draws on the latest scholarly research, as well as a lifetime of exploration in the forbidden landscapes of the American Southwest, to shed new light on this compelling mystery. He takes us from Chaco Canyon to the highlands of Mesa Verde, to the Mongollon Rim; to a contemporary Zuni community where tribal elders maintain silence about the fate of their Lost Others; and to the largely unexplored foothills of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, where abundant remnants of Anasazi culture lie yet to be uncovered.

Although her parents love walking in the rain, Baby Duck does not--until Grandpa shares a secret with her.

From the author of "Babies on the Go" comes an intergenerational story of howa good attitude can chase away the blues at any age. Full color.

This book provides a collection of chapters from prominent mathematics educators in which they each discuss vital issues in mathematics education and what they see as viable directions research in mathematics education could take to address these issues. All of these issues are related to learning and teaching mathematics. The book consists of nine chapters, seven from each of seven scholars who participated in an invited lecture series (Scholars in Mathematics Education) at Brigham Young University, and two chapters from two other scholars who are writing reaction papers that look across the first seven chapters. The recommendations take the form of broad, overarching principles and ideas that cut across the field. In this sense, this book differs from classical “research agenda projects,” which seek to outline specific research questions that the field should address around a central topic.

A young boy describes, in text and photographs of his facial expressions, the different emotions he feels each day.

"Astonishing...With the intensity of a perfect balance between the mythic and the real, The Rain Heron keeps turning and twisting, taking you to unexpected places. A deeply emotional and satisfying read. Beautifully written." --Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne. One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021. A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup d'état. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the contours of what was once a normal life. But her quiet stability is disrupted when an army unit, led by a young female soldier, comes to the mountains on government orders in search of a legendary creature called the rain heron—a mythical, dangerous, form-shifting bird with the ability to change the weather. Ren insists that the bird is simply a story, yet the soldier will not be deterred, forcing them both into a gruelling quest. Spellbinding and immersive, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron is an astounding, mythical exploration of human resilience, female friendship, and humankind’s precarious relationship to nature. As Ren and the soldier hunt for the heron, a bond between them forms, and the painful details of Ren’s former life emerge—a life punctuated by loss, trauma, and a second, equally magical and dangerous creature. Slowly, Ren's and the soldier’s lives entwine, unravel, and ultimately erupt in a masterfully crafted ending in which both women are forced to confront their biggest fears—and regrets. Robbie Arnott, one of Australia’s most acclaimed young novelists, sews magic into reality with a steady, confident hand. Bubbling with rare imagination and ambition, The Rain Heron is an emotionally charged and dazzling novel, one that asks timely yet eternal questions about environment, friendship, nationality, and the myths that bind us.