The Quill

Gather round for soup fit for the king in this vibrant twist on a classic fable. With brightly colored art and engaging characters, this retelling of the well-known Stone Soup story will captivate young readers. Noko the traveling porcupine arrives in a village. He's denied food and a place to sleep by all the animals he meets. Finally he's granted a fire and a large pot of water. He adds a few of his quills to make his famous quill soup, which he says the king loves! Slowly but surely, everyone contributes ingredients--carrots, beans, and more. Will the soup feed them all?

What would happen if a cheetah had roller skates and a jet pack? This and other questions came up as the author and his seven-year-old daughter observed birds and animals in and around their orchard. What do they really think of us? Why are there predators? Do the prey species know they are prey, and do they feel it is unfair? Does rattlesnake taste like chicken to a raptor? Do animals go to heaven? Are there many rabbits, or do we see the same one again and again? Should you try to catch a bird with a broken wing? These important questions are answered in this book.

Quill and Cross in the Borderlands examines nearly four hundred years of history, folklore, literature, and art concerning the seventeenth-century Spanish nun and writer Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, identified as the legendary “Lady in Blue” who miraculously appeared to tribes in colonial-era New Mexico and taught them the rudiments of the Catholic faith. Sor María, an author of mystical Marian works, became renowned not only for her alleged spiritual travel from her cloister in Spain to the New World, but also for her writing, studied and implemented by Franciscans on both sides of the ocean. Working from original historical accounts, archival research, and a wealth of literature on the legend and the historical figure alike, Anna M. Nogar meticulously examines how and why the legend and the person became intertwined in Catholic consciousness and social praxis. In addition to the influence of the narrative of the Lady in Blue in colonial Mexico, Nogar addresses Sor María’s importance as an author of spiritual texts that influenced many spheres of New Spanish and Spanish society. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands focuses on the reading and interpretation of her works, especially in New Spain, where they were widely printed and disseminated. Over time, in the developing folklore of the Indo-Hispano populations of the present-day U.S. Southwest and the borderlands, the historical Sor María and her writings virtually disappeared from view, and the Lady in Blue became a prominent folk figure, appearing in folk stories and popular histories. These folk accounts drew the Lady in Blue into the present day, where she appears in artwork, literature, theater, and public ritual. Nogar’s examination of these contemporary renderings leads to a reconsideration of the ambiguities that lie at the heart of the narrative. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands documents the material legacy of a legend that has survived and thrived for hundreds of years, and at the same time rediscovers the historical basis of a hidden writer. This book will interest scholars and researchers of colonial Latin American literature, early modern women writers, folklore and ethnopoetics, and Mexican American cultural studies.

The fate of empire is to crumble from within. A heinous murder in a small village reveals a terrible truth. Sorcery, once thought dead in Enhover, is not. Evidence of an occult ritual and human sacrifice proves that dark power has been called upon again. Twisting threads of clues lead across the known world to the end of a vast empire, and then, the trail returns home. Duke Oliver Wellesley, son of the king, cartographer, and adventurer, has better things to do than investigate a murder in a sleepy fishing hamlet. For Crown and Company, though, he goes where he's told. As the investigation leads to deeper and darker places, he'll be forced to confront the horrific spectres rising from the shadows of his past. When faced with the truth, will he sacrifice what is necessary to survive? Samantha serves a Church that claims to no longer need her skills. She's apprenticed to a priest-assassin that no one knows. Driven by a mad prophecy, her mentor has prepared her for a battle with ultimate darkness, except, sorcery is dead. When all is at stake, can she call upon an arcane craft the rest of the world has forgotten? The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Do not ask when, ask who.

Held prisoner by the Burner forces in Philadelphia, Jess and his friends struggle to stay alive in the face of threats from both sides ... but a stunning escape guarantees worse is coming. The Library now means to stop them by any means necessary, and they'll have to make dangerous allies and difficult choices to stay alive.They have only two choices: face the might of the Great Library head on, or be erased from life, and the history of the world, for ever.Win or die.

Describes and illustrates technique in an attempt to bring about an appreciation of the complexity of the art of porcupine-quill work.

"...we have tried here to present designs known to be Sioux, for use in Sioux schools. The purpose of the book is a practical one. Though we have striven for accuracy, our aim has not been an exhaustive scientific study. Rather, it has been to bring together a representative collection of designs and to explain them, so that practical workers, both students and teachers, may be able to recognize the bead and quillwork of the western Sioux and to make it for themselves. The art has changed in the past and those who understand its style and uses may use their imaginations to develop it still more, while keeping it Indian and Sioux."--Introduction, page 9.