The ne'er-do-well sire of a starving brood suddenly discovers a family connection to the aristocracy, and his selfish scheme to capitalize on their wealth sets a fateful plot in motion. Jack Durbeyfield dispatches his gentle daughter Tess to the home of their noble kin, anticipating a lucrative match between the lovely girl and a titled cousin. Innocent Tess finds the path of the d'Urberville estate paved with ruin in this gripping tale of the inevitability of fate and the tragic nature of existence.
Subtitled A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, Thomas Hardy's sympathetic portrait of a blameless young woman's destruction first appeared in 1891. Its powerful indictment of Victorian hypocrisy, along with its unconventional focus on the rural lower class and its direct treatment of sexuality and religion, raised a ferocious public outcry. Tess of the D'Ubervilles is Hardy's penultimate novel; the pressures of critical infamy shortly afterward drove the author to abandon the genre in favor of poetry. Like his fictional heroine, the artist fell victim to a rigidly oppressive moral code.
Today, Tess is regarded as Hardy's masterpiece, embodying all of the most profoundly moving elements of its creator's dark vision. No perspective on 19th-century fiction is complete without a consideration of this compelling tale, now available in an inexpensive and high-quality edition.
Nancy’s husband, Kingfisher, was shot and killed in the 1755 battle with the Creek Indians. She picked up her dead husband’s musket and led the Cherokee to victory. Because of this, she was honored with the highest ranking any Cherokee woman could attain, Ghighuaa.
Nancy’s life stood for peace but she always warned her people of many bad things to come. She became the first woman to ever talk at a peace treaty with the white man. Her words helped her people retain some of their lands. She spoke: "You know that women are always looked upon as nothing, but we are your mothers, you are our sons, our cry is all for peace, let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women´s sons be ours, our sons be yours, let your women hear our words."
Shortly after her death, President Jackson ordered the Cherokee to move to Oklahoma on the famous deadly "Trail of Tears".
Orphaned fifteen-year-old Judith Sparrow brings two secrets to her uncle's house in South Carolina: one, that her grief-stricken mother died in a madhouse, the other that she has disobeyed the only condition to living in her uncle's home -- nothing green is allowed in the house.
Judith can't bear to part with the photograph of her mother in its lovely green silk frame. Surely this one small defiance will not jeopardize the happiness she finds in South Carolina -- with a family at last, and new friends, especially Zeke Carey, the miller's son.
But Uncle Geoffrey's house holds a secret of its own. And Judith's small picture frame, hidden away at the bottom of her trunk, unleashes a powerful force that seems determined to bring that secret into the open. Or is Judith simply following her mother down the path toward madness?
Ryan Walker has always known what he wants to be -- a cowboy, like his father was before being injured in a riding accident. But when Ryan's older brother, Gil, becomes a member of the Mountain Patriots Association, a militia group that wants to keep Wyoming free from immigrants, minorities, and government interference, Ryan finds himself questioning things he's taken for granted all his life. As tensions in the community build to inevitable violence, Ryan is torn between his love for the world in which he grew up and his sense of fairness and decency. How can he stand up for what is right when he's not sure what that is?
The modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an “All-Time Greatest Novel” and Newsweek hailed as a “Top 100 Book of All Time.” Philip Pullman takes readers to a world where humans have animal familiars and where parallel universes are within reach.
Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal--including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want.
But what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other...
A masterwork of storytelling and suspense, Philip Pullman's award-winning The Golden Compass is the first in the His Dark Materials series, which continues with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
A #1 New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the Guardian Prize for Children's Fiction
Published in 40 Countries
"Arguably the best juvenile fantasy novel of the past twenty years." —The Washington Post
"Very grand indeed."—The New York Times
"Pullman is quite possibly a genius." —Newsweek
"An unusual and satisfying mystery that will be enjoyed by a wide audience."
-School Library Journal, starred review
"Employs suspense, action, superstition, and mystery to entrance readers with this tale of 18th-century Japan and a boy's search for honor...This is a remarkable novel."
-Kirkus Reviews, pointer review
Brooklyn, New York, 1943: a time and place so remarkable that a mere five years later, Howie Crispers, wise at sixteen, can look back to record its fleeting intensity, already long behind him in memory.
In 1943, Howie's pop is in the merchant marine, dodging Nazi U-boat wolf packs an the brutal North Atlantic sea. Denny, Howie's best friend, has a father in the Eighth Army, battling Nazi general Rommel in North Africa. Every day the boys face reminders of war -- scary headlines, blackouts, scrap collections, warstamp drives.
Saturday mornings, Denny and Howie both leave their worries and responsibilities behind at the 25-cent kid movies. During the week, they depend on Miss Rolanda Gossim, their teacher. She may be strict, but she's kind and a lot prettier than any movie pinup. She occupies the boys' fantasies and makes the war bearable for Class Five-B at Brooklyn's P.S. 8. When Howie discovers she's about to be fired, he needs to find out why, and -- with the help of Denny and the rest of their class -- he makes plans to keep her on the job.
By turns hilarious, sad, and surprising, Avi's latest tale is a touching story of innocent love and yearning that's rich with authentic Brooklyn voices and poignant memories of the early 1940s -- days when unexpected, even shocking events took place without warning, days when, no matter what happened, you could explain it all with a simple phrase: "Don't you know there's a war on?"
In 1867, Otter travels from Three Willows Village in China to California -- the Land of the Golden Mountain. There he will join his father and uncle.
In spite of the presence of family, Otter is a stranger among the other Chinese in this new land. And where he expected to see a land of goldfields, he sees only vast, cold whiteness. But Otter's dream is to learn all he can, take the technology back to the Middle Kingdom, and free China from the Manchu invaders.
Otter and the others board a machine that will change his life -- a train for which he would open the Dragon's Gate.
Newbery Honor Book Dragonwings by Lawrence Yep takes readers on an adventure-filled journey across the world.
Inspired by the story of a Chinese immigrant who created a flying machine in 1909, Dragonwings touches on the struggles and dreams of Chinese immigrants navigating opportunity and prejudice in San Francisco.
Moon Shadow only knows two things about his father, Windrider: he lives in San Francisco and used to craft beautiful kites.
One day shortly after his eighth birthday, Cousin Hand Clap arrives with a letter from Windrider asking Moon Shadow to join him in San Francisco. When Moon Rider arrives in America he learns that his father makes a living doing laundry and dreams of building a flying machine just like the Wright Brothers. But making this fantastical dream a reality proves to be no easy task, as intolerance, poverty, and even an earthquake stand in their way.
Fifteen-year-old Macey Clare has always loved her quiet, beautiful Connecticut hometown. It's the place where her grandparents live, the place where her mother grew up. Macey is looking forward to the summer to come. She's hoping for fun and romance with her neighbor's perfect grandson Austin. But when Macey wants to research the facts behind who set fire to a barn across the street from her grandparent's home, she is shocked no one wants to answer questions about the place that burned down 38 years ago. And when a tragedy strikes a new friend who lives in the inner city, something clicks in Macey. She must discover her own true colors and face whatever it is she is going to find. Can she stand alone and take responsibility for the present while uncovering the past?