World Geography

Ra relishes his role as the Pharaoh's beloved - and spoiled - cat. So when an amulet goes missing from the palace, Ra plans to keep enjoying his snacks and nap in the sun. But Ra's friend Khepri, a wise and industrious scarab beetle, insists on investigating in order to save the young servant girl who has been framed for the crime. Once Ra gets going, he decides that being a Great Detective isn't so bad; in fact, he doesn't mind being hailed as "Protector of the Weak and Defender of Justice." The comically mismatched duo is on the case!

This title is the third in the series of delightful stories about Anna Hibiscus, a little girl who lives in Africa. Anna Hibiscus is looking forward to visiting her grandmother in Canada, where she will see snow for the first time! But before she goes, she must find suitable clothes to keep her warm in the cold winter weather, and say goodbye to the family she loves. Anna Hibiscus, the first book in the series, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2008.

In this contemporary story, Tash lives in Tibet, where as a practicing Buddhist she must follow many rules to avoid the wrath of the occupying Chinese soldiers. Lately, things have been relatively peaceful, as long as Tash and her family hide their religion and don't mention its leader, the Dalai Lama. Then a man publicly sets himself on fire in protest. Soldiers seize Tash's parents. She narrowly escapes, and soon she and her best friend, Sam, along with two borrowed yaks, flee across the mountains, where they face blizzards, hunger, a treacherous landscape, and the threat of capture.

Sand and stone are Earth's fragmented memory. Each of us, too, is a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. One life-defining lesson Lauret Savoy learned as a young girl was this: the American land did not hate. As an educator and Earth historian, she has tracked the continent's past from the relics of time; but the paths of ancestors toward her - paths of free and enslaved Africans, colonists from Europe, and peoples indigenous to this land - lie largely eroded and lost. In this provocative and powerful mosaic of personal journeys and historical inquiry across a continent and time.

Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa. Amazing Africa. Anna Hibiscus has never been away from her home in Africa, surrounded by her parents and baby brothers, as well as all of her aunts and uncles and cousins. But now she is going to Canada to visit her grandmother for Christmas. She has never met Granny Canada and she can't wait to see snow! Canada is very cold and it takes Anna a little while to get used to wearing lots of clothes and eating different types of food. She also has to get used to Granny's dog, Qimmac.

Corinne La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining, yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

At the start of 1991, 11-year-old Ali Fadhil was consumed by his love for soccer, video games, and American television shows. Then, on January 17, Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, went to war with 34 nations led by the United States. Over the next 43 days, Ali and his family survived bombings, food shortages, and constant fear. Ali and his brothers played soccer on the abandoned streets of their Basra neighborhood, wondering when or if their medic father would return from the war front. Cinematic, accessible, and timely, this is the story of one ordinary kid's view of life during war.

Billy Chan was having the summer most twelve-year-olds dream about—bonding with his very own dragon. But Billy's friend Dylan has been kidnapped by the Dragon of Death, and the only way to save him is to travel through time with his friends and their dragons. Will Billy, Charlotte, Ling-Fei, and the dragons get to Dylan in time? And can they work together to stop the Dragon of Death from destroying the past?

This is a collection of four linked stories about family life set in modern west Africa. Anna Hibiscus lives in amazing Africa with her family in a wonderful house in a beautiful garden in a big city. Join Anna as she sings for the president, gets in a terrible tangle with her hair, and visits the other side of the city.

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the listener from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness". This uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is.

In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing t….

Life on the Rush farm in South Dakota is not easy. Even so, over the past four years, Ethan Cooper and his siblings have grown to feel they belong with their adoptive family. Then Chad Rush makes an unexpected announcement. The family is moving again - this time to Mexico! Ethan is scared. What dangers will they face in another country? What will it be like to live on an oil homestead instead of a farm? And what about his dreams of getting an education? He can't leave his siblings after he's promised they would stay together - can he?

In this trickster tale from Africa, Annasi learns the value of being a good host. He also learns the truth of the old saying, "What goes around comes around."

Something evil has taken over. Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle are in England, visiting a cousin at Barnavelt Manor. Lewis quickly becomes friends with the housekeeper's son, and as the two boys explore a garden maze, Lewis accidentally unleashes demonic forces that summon the ghost of an evil wizard bent on destroying his entire family. Can Lewis fight the maniacal wizard, or will all the Barnavelts perish?

Corinne LaMer defeated the wicked jumbie Severine months ago, but things haven't exactly gone back to normal in her Caribbean island home. Everyone knows Corinne is half-jumbie, and many of her neighbors treat her with mistrust. When local children begin to go missing, snatched from the beach and vanishing into wells, suspicious eyes turn to Corinne. To rescue the missing children and clear her own name, Corinne goes deep into the ocean to find Mama D'Leau, the dangerous jumbie who rules the sea.

World War II was the most destructive war in history. Millions upon millions of people died, including innocent civilians. Both sides—the Allies and Axis Powers—pursued secret plans, tactics, and weapons to destroy each other resulting in horrors on a scale never before seen. Secrets of World War II reveals little-known stories of the people, weapons, and battles that have affected the maps on our walls and the allegiances in our hearts.

Rising from poverty-stricken Louisville in the 1950s, Ali became one of the world's greatest athletes. Beginning life as Cassius Clay, Ali would struggle against opponents both in and out of the ring. Segregation and racism stood as obstacles in his path, but as he climbed the boxing ranks, his social conscience grew. He refused to be pigeonholed as a stereotypical black athlete in the 1960s and changed his name to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam.

McKenna Barney is trying to hide her worsening eyesight and has been isolating herself for the last year. But at the request of her little sister, she signs up for a commemorative mail run race in the Canadian wilderness - a race she doesn't know if she can even see to run. Winning would mean getting her disease - and her sister's - national media coverage, but it would also pit McKenna and her team of eight sled dogs against racers from across the globe for three days of shifting lake ice, sudden owl attacks, snow squalls, and bitterly cold nights.

In this brilliant fictional tour de force, which the New York Times called "a deft, poignant novel," Newbery Medal–winning author Paul Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen participants. Northern and Southern, male and female, white and black. Here are voices that tell of the dreams of glory, the grim reality, the hopes, horror, and folly of a nation discovering the true nature of war.

Humans are heading up and out, and we’re taking our power struggles with us. Soon, what happens in space will shape human history as much the mountains, rivers and seas have on Earth. It’s no coincidence that Russia, China and the USA are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics. In this gripping book, bestselling author Tim Marshall lays bare the new geopolitical realities to show how we got here and where we’re going.