![]() Not only was this a fascinating art history lesson, but it also taught her about the emotional use of color and instilled in her a deep appreciation for painting.Īside from art, Selina’s childhood was also filled with books Richard Scarry, Curious George, and anything by Judy Blume were a few of her favorites, and summers were spent at a Jewish sleep-away camp where her social activist spirit was ignited-as well as a love of folk music. When Selina was in elementary school her entire family would attend her father’s painting class where they learned about 19th Century Impressionists and German Expressionists and were asked to chose paintings and copy them using acrylics. Growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia with a Turkish Jewish father who spoke seven languages and taught painting, and a Jewish mother who worked in the family’s century-old metal recycling business, she was surrounded by the melody of words and stories from different places and varied visual possibilities. It is no wonder that award-winning writer-illustrator Selina Alko now spends her days melding words and mixed-media art to convey stories of hope and inspiration-as well as an alternative viewpoint. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() We learn that she expended “many thousands of words” on an aborted doctoral thesis before relocating to the countryside, whence she chronicles the minutiae of her reduced circumstances with professorial pedantry and a mock-heroic style. ![]() The young woman discloses, in typically obfuscating fashion, that “it wouldn’t be entirely unwarranted to suggest that she might, overall, have the appearance and occasionally emanate the demeanour of someone who grows things”, despite having actually “propagated very little”. Her soliloquies are peppered with asides to an implied reader – “if you want to know” – cheekily drawing attention to the amount of information being withheld. One of the most striking aspects of this extraordinary book is how well we get to know the narrator – whose brain and body we inhabit – yet how little we know about her. For all this propinquity, we would be hard-pressed to recognise her, should she suddenly emerge from her rural retreat. We come to share the “savage swarming magic” the narrator feels under her skin by focusing at length on her “mind in motion” (the only exception being the final story, told in the third person). They are all told, it seems, by the same female character, whose semi-reclusive existence the tales revolve around. ![]() C laire-Louise Bennett’s highly acclaimed debut, initially published in Ireland earlier this year, is a collection of 20 stories – the shortest of which runs to a couple of sentences. ![]() ![]() ![]() Readers enjoyed peering into the world of art and antiquities in early-1900s New York high society. But, it is also the story of a beautiful, intelligent and witty black woman, living as white (Sherilyn R). The story provides a fascinating look at the process of building and collecting a library of rare books, manuscripts and art. Even though her father was the first African American man to graduate from Harvard University, she lived her whole life as a white woman (Elizabeth K). She went from working at the library at Princeton University to becoming the personal librarian to J.P. The fascinating story of Belle da Costa Greene begins for the reader in 1905. The book is a collaboration between the novelists Marie Benedict and Victoria Murray. The Personal Librarian drew a robust positive response from our First Impressions reviewers, receiving a rating of 4 or 5 stars from 70 out of 77 readers. ![]() A fictional glimpse into the life of Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman passing as white who managed banker J.P. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Edwards Award and has been honored for her battles for intellectual freedom by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the National Council of Teachers of English. Laurie was selected by the American Library Association for the 2009 Margaret A. Two more books, Shout and The Impossible Knife of Memory, were long-listed for the National Book Award. Two of her books, Speak and Chains, were National Book Award finalists, and Chains was short-listed for the prestigious Carnegie medal. ![]() Laurie has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award four times. Her new book, SHOUT, a memoir-in-verse about surviving sexual assault at the age of thirteen and a manifesta for the #MeToo era, has received widespread critical acclaim and appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for seven consecutive weeks. ![]() Combined, her books have sold more than 8 million copies. UPDATE! SHOUT, my memoir in verse, is out, has received 9 starred reviews, and was longlisted for the National Book Award!įor bio stuff: Laurie Halse Anderson is a New York Times bestselling author whose writing spans young readers, teens, and adults. ![]() ![]() ![]() The book recognizes that “There are many words in English that you don’t need at all,” and that “There are other words you need simply to understand when you read or hear them.” It then tells the student: “There are words that you need to be able to use yourself,” which, yes, the book focuses on. Hence, the first section of the book is aptly named: “strategies for learning vocabulary.” This part immediately caught my attention, as it was rather unusual for a vocabulary book to specifically instruct a student how to study. The book is organized in a logical order to help students achieve fluency in colloquial English lexicon. Vocabulary in Use, published by Cambridge University Press, attempts to bypass that problem by directly targeting learners who wish to learn words that enter the everyday language of English speakers. ![]() Although there are tons of English vocabulary books on the market, a problem that many students learning English as a second language face is that practicality is compromised by advanced words. ![]() ![]() The Kirk of Scotland had developed strict rules that involved Influence over the nation and sought to create a holy people that God would blessĪs a nation. Period, the Presbyterian Calvinists under John Knox had overturned the Catholic This event was a turning point in Scotland’s pre-modern history. Herman starts by narrating the public hanging ofĮighteen-year-old Thomas Aikenhead on charges of blasphemy (2). I will notĪttempt to summarize his entire 472-page case I will simply highlight a few of Say nothing of Greece and Rome, Herman offers a compelling argument. While countries such asĮngland, France, or Germany might mount a strong case against this claim, to The bedrock of the modern West came out of Scotland. His thesis is that many of the ideas that ultimately formed May have been poorer, but it wasn’t independent). ![]() ![]() Unlike some history professors! He begins the book by pointing out that inġ700, Scotland may well have been Europe’s poorest independent country (Ireland As a history buff, I found this book quiteĪrthur Herman is a history professor at George Mason Published in 2001, but we thought it would be an interesting read and a goodĬhance to look at history (my favorite!). I have related before that my three adult children, my ![]() Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It(aff). ![]() ![]() ![]() I loathe being pummeled with the Romance Cluestick™. I was disappointed to have to DNF, but at the halfway mark I still wasn't emotionally invested in the MCs, or their romance, or their careers, or. Easier said than done, especially when the heat between them ignites.īut nothing in baseball comes with a guarantee-and the only outcome they can be certain of is the one they make for themselves. If only Jamie could keep his attraction to the charming, generous veteran under wraps. The guy he fantasized about playing like growing up. If he wants to stay on a big league roster that’ll mean extra work-and extra time with Big Mack. But the rookie’s on the verge of being cut. ![]() The sky’s the limit for Jamie, if only he can keep his spot in the lineup. And he definitely shouldn’t agree to after-hours video review sessions with. The tempting, smart-mouthed Jamie DeLuca, who Mack really shouldn’t think about that way. The hook? The job includes extra practice sessions with the team’s rookie catcher. Now at the tail end of his career, the one-time superstar takes an offer from the only team willing to give him a shot. Tell that to Matt “Big Mack” Mackenzie though. Especially the rookie you're supposed to mentor. The unwritten rule they're about to break.Įveryone knows you don't fall for a teammate. The rookie who hero-worshiped him growing up. ![]() ![]() ![]() Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. With Isobel and Rook depending on each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, then love-and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. But something is seriously wrong in his world, and they are attacked from every side. ![]() ![]() She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes-a weakness that could cost him his life.įurious, Rook spirits her away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But when she receives her first royal patron-Rook, the autumn prince-she makes a terrible mistake. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. Isobel is an artistic prodigy with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. ![]() ![]() ![]() The adoration enveloped in makazins is shown in the first run through Deydey gets back. The cautious, cherishing subtleties that Mom fills the family makazins are appeared differently in relation to Omakayas’ trivial reluctance to play out her task.Īfter she has experienced the bears, Omakayas scratches the stow away so determinedly that Mom vows to make her an extra-unique pair of makazins. She envisioned her mom completing them with stunning, delicate toe puckers so the young ladies’ feet could jerk and move Truly, it was a significant assignment, however Omakayas still didn’t need it (17). The thought that the Anishinabeg (plural for Anishinabe) express love through the making of makazins is then gotten in the primary part when Omakayas is hesitant to scratch the moose stow away: Omakayas realized that it was so critical to tan the skin, how her mom would sew on the winter’s makazins all late spring. They notice that “her new makazins were painstakingly sewn. The power of this image rises in the Preface, when the hide merchants land at Soul Island to discover an infant young lady who is the sole overcomer of a smallpox episode. ![]() Makazins Similarly that Anishinabe culture assists with featuring the affection inside Omakayas’ family and network, makazins (and the creation of them) work as an especially solid image of this adoration. ![]() ![]() She’s protective of everyone in her care.Īs the story goes and is explained in the blurb Abby has opened a maternity home for women with no place to go. He’s just heart-melting.Ībby sees herself as a mother figure to these women who where dropped off at her door. He’s sweet and I just loved his interaction with the human child, her mother, and the Cire baby. Mama and the Alien Warrior is book one in the Treasured by the Alien series by Honey Phillips & Bex McLynn. This sweet and steamy HEA is intended for adults only. Mama and the Alien Warrior is a standalone science fiction romance. ![]() ![]() Will their duties force them apart? Or will they finally find a family of their own? ![]() Now for the first time, this luscious human female has him longing for a mate and a family.īut Abby has to get her girls back to Earth, and Hrebec may have one last chance to save his race. The Cires lost their females to a plague many years ago. Until his ship intercepts an illegal Vedeckian trader, Captain Hrebec is resigned to spending his life alone. She finds herself unexpectedly drawn to the captain who treats both her and her daughter with unwavering devotion. When they are rescued by a massive alien and his crew, desires she has long suppressed start to surface. But she certainly never expected to find herself and her girls abducted by aliens who intend to sell them as breeders. Can a weary warrior and an abducted mother save each other?Ībby Wentworth never regretted abandoning her corporate career to adopt her orphaned niece and run a maternity home. ![]() |