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The Outlier: the unfinished presidency of Jimmy Carter

Kai Bird

“Important . . . [a] landmark presidential biography . . . Bird is able to build a persuasive case that the Carter presidency deserves this new look.”—The New York Times Book Review

An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy—from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of American Prometheus

Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Kai Bird deftly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history.

As president, Carter was not merely an outsider; he was an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. This outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor, and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Decades before today’s public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s ethos and its actions, Carter looked out on a nation torn by race and demoralized by Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters recoiled. The cost of his unshakable belief in doing the right thing would be losing his re-election bid—and witnessing the ascendance of Reagan.

In these remarkable pages, Bird traces the arc of Carter’s administration, from his aggressive domestic agenda to his controversial foreign policy record, taking readers inside the Oval Office and through Carter’s battles with both a political establishment and a Washington press corps that proved as adversarial as any foreign power. Bird shows how issues still hotly debated today—from national health care to growing inequality and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—burned at the heart of Carter’s America, and consumed a president who found a moral duty in solving them.

Drawing on interviews with Carter and members of his administration and recently declassified documents, Bird delivers a profound, clear-eyed evaluation of a leader whose legacy has been deeply misunderstood. The Outlier is the definitive account of an enigmatic presidency—both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.

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His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a life

Jonathan Alter

From one of America’s most respected journalists and modern historians comes the highly acclaimed, “splendid” (The Washington Post) biography of Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States and Nobel Prize–winning humanitarian.

Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.

Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three centuries: his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the twenty-first.

“One of the best in a celebrated genre of presidential biography,” (The Washington Post), His Very Best traces how Carter evolved from a timid, bookish child—raised mostly by a Black woman farmhand—into an ambitious naval nuclear engineer writing passionate, never-before-published love letters from sea to his wife and full partner, Rosalynn; a peanut farmer and civic leader whose guilt over staying silent during the civil rights movement and not confronting the white terrorism around him helped power his quest for racial justice at home and abroad; an obscure, born-again governor whose brilliant 1976 campaign demolished the racist wing of the Democratic Party and took him from zero percent to the presidency; a stubborn outsider who failed politically amid the bad economy of the 1970s and the seizure of American hostages in Iran but succeeded in engineering peace between Israel and Egypt, amassing a historic environmental record, moving the government from tokenism to diversity, setting a new global standard for human rights and normalizing relations with China among other unheralded and far-sighted achievements. After leaving office, Carter eradicated diseases, built houses for the poor, and taught Sunday school into his mid-nineties.

This “important, fair-minded, highly readable contribution” (The New York Times Book Review) will change our understanding of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.

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President Carter: the White House years

Stuart E. Eizenstat

The definitive history of the Carter Administration from the man who participated in its surprising number of accomplishmentsdrawing on his extensive and never-before-seen notes.

Stuart Eizenstat was at Jimmy Carter’s side from his political rise in Georgia through four years in the White House, where he served as Chief Domestic Policy Adviser. He was directly involved in all domestic and economic decisions as well as in many foreign policy ones. Famous for the legal pads he took to every meeting, he draws on more than 5,000 pages of notes and 350 interviews of all the major figures of the time, to write the comprehensive history of an underappreciated president—and to give an intimate view on how the presidency works.

Eizenstat reveals the grueling negotiations behind Carter’s peace between Israel and Egypt, what led to the return of the Panama Canal, and how Carter made human rights a presidential imperative. He follows Carter’s passing of America’s first comprehensive energy policy, and his deregulation of the oil, gas, transportation, and communications industries. And he details the creation of the modern vice-presidency.

Eizenstat also details Carter’s many missteps, including the Iranian Hostage Crisis, because Carter’s desire to do the right thing, not the political thing, often hurt him and alienated Congress. His willingness to tackle intractable problems, however, led to major, long-lasting accomplishments.

This major work of history shows first-hand where Carter succeeded, where he failed, and how he set up many successes of later presidents.

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A Full Life: reflections at ninety

Jimmy Carter

“A warm and detailed memoir.” —Los Angeles Times

Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, international humanitarian, fisherman, reflects on his full and happy life with pride, humor, and a few second thoughts.

At ninety, Jimmy Carter reflects on his public and private life with a frankness that is disarming. He adds detail and emotion about his youth in rural Georgia that he described in his magnificent An Hour Before Daylight. He writes about racism and the isolation of the Carters. He describes the brutality of the hazing regimen at Annapolis, and how he nearly lost his life twice serving on submarines and his amazing interview with Admiral Rickover. He describes the profound influence his mother had on him, and how he admired his father even though he didn’t emulate him. He admits that he decided to quit the Navy and later enter politics without consulting his wife, Rosalynn, and how appalled he is in retrospect.

In A Full Life, Carter tells what he is proud of and what he might do differently. He discusses his regret at losing his re-election, but how he and Rosalynn pushed on and made a new life and second and third rewarding careers. He is frank about the presidents who have succeeded him, world leaders, and his passions for the causes he cares most about, particularly the condition of women and the deprived people of the developing world.

This is a wise and moving look back from this remarkable man. Jimmy Carter has lived one of our great American lives—from rural obscurity to world fame, universal respect, and contentment. A Full Life is an extraordinary read.

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Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David

Lawrence Wright

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.

With his hallmark insight into the forces at play in the Middle East and his acclaimed journalistic skill, Lawrence Wright takes us through each of the thirteen days of the Camp David conference, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable, as well as exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. In addition to his in-depth accounts of the lives of the three leaders, Wright draws vivid portraits of other fiery personalities who were present at Camp David--including Moshe Dayan, Osama el-Baz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski--as they work furiously behind the scenes. Wright also explores the significant role played by Rosalynn Carter.
What emerges is a riveting view of the making of this unexpected and so far unprecedented peace. Wright exhibits the full extent of Carter's persistence in pushing an agreement forward, the extraordinary way in which the participants at the conference--many of them lifelong enemies--attained it, and the profound difficulties inherent in the process and its outcome, not the least of which has been the still unsettled struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

In Thirteen Days in September, Wright gives us a resonant work of history and reportage that provides both a timely revisiting of this important diplomatic triumph and an inside look at how peace is made.

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Jimmy Carter

Julian E. Zelizer

The maverick politician from Georgia who rode the post- Watergate wave into office but whose term was consumed by economic and international crises 

A peanut farmer from Georgia, Jimmy Carter rose to national power through mastering the strategy of the maverick politician. As the face of the "New South," Carter's strongest support emanated from his ability to communicate directly to voters who were disaffected by corruption in politics. 

But running as an outsider was easier than governing as one, as Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer shows in this examination of Carter's presidency. Once in power, Carter faced challenges sustaining a strong political coalition, as he focused on policies that often antagonized key Democrats, whose support he desperately needed. By 1980, Carter stood alone in the Oval Office as he confronted a battered economy, soaring oil prices, American hostages in Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

Carter's unpopularity enabled Ronald Reagan to achieve a landslide victory, ushering in a conservative revolution. But during Carter's post-presidential career, he has emerged as an important voice for international diplomacy and negotiation, remaking his image as a statesman for our time.

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Sharing Good Times

Jimmy Carter

Following the former president's huge bestselling novel "The Hornet's Nest," his delightful "Christmas in Plains," and his bestselling classic "An Hour Before Daylight," comes this sparkling account of the joys of sharing the ordinary pleasures of life. Some pleasures, he recounts, are magnified when they are shared.

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An Hour Before Daylight

Jimmy Carter

In an American story of enduring importance, Jimmy Carter re-creates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm, before the civil rights movement that changed it and the country.

In what is sure to become a classic, the bestselling author of "Living Faith" and "Sources of Strength" writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy. Along the way, he offers an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and strict segregationist who treated black workers with his own brand of "separate" respect and fairness, and his strong-willed and well-read mother, a nurse who cared for all in need -- regardless of their position in the community.

Carter describes the five other people who shaped his early life, only two of them white: his eccentric relatives who sometimes caused the boy to examine his heritage with dismay; the boyhood friends with whom he hunted with slingshots and boomerangs and worked the farm, but who could not attend the same school; and the eminent black bishop who refused to come to the Carters' back door but who would stand near his Cadillac in the front yard discussing crops and politics with Jimmy's father.

Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation.

"An Hour Before Daylight" is destined to stand with other timeless works of American literature.

 

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The 100 Best African American Poems: (*but I cheated)

Nikki Giovanni

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work -- Poetry.Hear voices contemporary and classic as selected by New York Times bestselling author Nikki Giovanni.Award-winning poet and writer Nikki Giovanni takes on the impossible task of selecting the 100 best African American works from classic and contemporary poets. Out of necessity, Giovanni admits she cheats a little, selecting a larger, less round number. The result is this startlingly vibrant collection that spansfrom historic to modern, from structured to freeform, and reflects the rich roots and visionary future of African American verse. These magnetic poems are an exciting mix of most-loved classics and daring new writing. From Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur, Natasha Trethewey, and many others, the voice of a culture comes through in this collection, one that is as talented, diverse, and varied as its people."African American poems are like all other poems: beautiful, loving,provocative, thoughtful, and all those other adjectives I can think of. Poems know no boundaries. They, like all Earth citizens, were born in some country, grew up on some culture, then in their blooming became citizens of the Universe. Poems fly from heart to heart, head to head, to whisper a dream, to share a condolence, to congratulate, and to vow forever. The poems are true. They are translated and they are celebrated. They are sung, they are recited, they are delightful. They are neglected. They are forgotten. They are put away. Even in their fallow periods they sprout images. And fight to be revived. And spring back to life with a bit of sunshine and caring." --Nikki GiovanniRead:- Gwendolyn Brooks- Kwame Alexander- Tupac Shakur- Langston Hughes- Mari Evans- Kevin Young- Asha Bandele- Amiri BarakaHear:- Ruby Dee- Novella Nelson- Nikki Giovanni- Elizabeth Alexander- Marilyn Nelson- Sonia Sanchez- And many, many, more...

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Chasing Utopia: a hybrid

Nikki Giovanni

From one of America’s most celebrated poets, Nikki Giovanni, comes this poignant collection of poetry that celebrates the simple pleasures of everyday life and the bonds we share with those closest to us.

“This slim volume delights on every page. There are stories, imaginings, whimsy, and startling images which prove the poet’s power and her command of language . . . Anyone with a love of language will be delighted with this book and the continuing publication of America’s treasured poet.”—San Francisco Book Review

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements and inspired songs, turned hearts and informed generations. She's been hailed as a healer and as a national treasure. But Giovanni's heart resides in the everyday, where family and lovers gather, friends commune, and those no longer with us are remembered. And at every gathering there is food—food as sustenance, food as aphrodisiac, food as memory. A pot of beans is flavored with her mother's sighs—this sigh part cardamom, that one the essence of clove; a lover requests a banquet as an affirmation of ongoing passion; homage is paid to the most time-honored appetizer: soup.

With Chasing Utopia, Giovanni demands that the prosaic—flowers, birdsong, winter—be seen as poetic, and reaffirms once again why she is as energetic, "remarkable" (Gwendolyn Brooks), "wonderful" (Marian Wright Edelman),"outspoken, prolific, energetic" (New York Times), and relevant as ever.

 

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A Good Cry: what we learn from tears and laughter

Nikki Giovanni

One of America’s most celebrated poets looks inward in this powerful collection, a rumination on her life and the people who have shaped her.

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements, turned hearts and informed generations. She’s been hailed as a firebrand, a radical, a healer, and a sage; a wise and courageous voice who has spoken out on the sensitive issues, including race and gender, that touch our national consciousness.

As energetic and relevant as ever, Nikki now offers us an intimate, affecting, and illuminating look at her personal history and the mysteries of her own heart. In A Good Cry, she takes us into her confidence, describing the joy and peril of aging and recalling the violence that permeated her parents’ marriage and her early life. She pays homage to the people who have given her life meaning and joy: her grandparents, who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who have influenced her; and the students who have surrounded her. Nikki also celebrates her good friend, Maya Angelou, and the many years of friendship, poetry, and kitchen-table laughter they shared before Angelou’s death in 2014.

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Make Me Rain: poems & prose

Nikki Giovanni

One of America's most celebrated poets challenges us with this powerful and deeply personal collection of verse that speaks to the injustices of society while illuminating the depths of her own heart.

For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, she returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and racism, celebrate Black culture and Black lives, and and give readers an unfiltered look into her own experiences.

In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her Black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as "I Come from Athletes" and "Rainy Days"--calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as "Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)" and ""When I Could No Longer"--her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life. 
 

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.

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Rosa

Nikki Giovanni

An inspiring account of an event that shaped American history

She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask "Auntie, are you going to move?" all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, "No."

Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture- book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.

Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovanni's evocative text combines with Bryan Collier's striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.

Rosa is a Caldecott Honor Book and the winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award.

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The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni

When Nikki Giovanni's poems first emerged from the Black Rights Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Finally, here is the first compilation of Nikki Giovanni's poetry. It is the testimony of a life's work from one of the commanding voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century.

From the revolutionary "The Great Pax Whitie" and "Poem for Aretha" to the sublime "Ego Tripping" and the tender "My House," these 150 mind-speaking, truth-telling poems are at once powerful yet sensual, angry yet affirming. Arranged chronologically, they reflect the changes Giovanni has endured as a Black woman, lover, mother, teacher, and poet. Here is the evocation of a nation's past and present -- intensely personal and fiercely political -- from one of our most compassionate, outspoken observers.

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1920s Initial Plans & Blueprints

1920's Blueprint subdividing Berger, Smith-Wheeler, Brush, and Saunders farmland into residential plots. Including the outlines the Greenlawn/Broadway School plot.  Map by Russesell Baylis, dated 1923 showing the Greenlawn School District—Known as District N°6— of the Town of Huntington. Suff. Co., N. Y. 
 

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Lost Birds: a Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito novel

Anne Hillerman

"Anne Hillerman is a star."--J. A. Jance, New York Times bestselling author

From New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman, a thrilling and moving chapter in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series involving several emotionally complex cases that will test the detectives in different ways.

Joe Leaphorn may be long retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, but his detective skills are still sharp, honed by his work as a private detective. His experience will be essential to solve a compelling new case: finding the birth parents of a woman who was raised by a bilagáana family but believes she is Diné based on one solid clue, an old photograph with a classic Navajo child's blanket. Leaphorn discovers that his client's adoption was questionable, and her adoptive family not what they seem. His quest for answers takes him to an old trading post and leads him to a deadly cache of long-buried family secrets.

As that case grows more complicated, Leaphorn receives an unexpected call from a person he met decades earlier. Cecil Bowleg's desperation is clear in his voice, but just as he begins to explain, the call is cut off by an explosion and Cecil disappears. True to his nature, Leaphorn is determined to find the truth even as the situation grows dangerous. Investigation of the explosion falls in part to Officer Bernadette Manuelito, who discovers an unexpected link to Cecil's missing wife.

Bernie also is involved in a troubling investigation of her own: an elderly weaver whose prize-winning sheep have been ruthlessly killed by feral dogs.

Exploring the emotionally complex issues of adoption of Indigenous children by non-native parents, Anne Hillerman delivers another thought-provoking, gripping mystery that brings to life the vivid terrain of the American Southwest, its people, and the lore and traditions that make it distinct.

 

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Where They Last Saw Her

Marcie R. Rendon

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the award-winning author of the Cash Blackbear series comes a compelling novel of a Native American woman who learns of the disappearance of one of her own and decides enough is enough. 

All they heard was her scream.

Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. Just a girl when Jimmy Sky jumped off the railway bridge and she ran for help, Quill realizes now that she’s never stopped running. As she trains for the Boston Marathon early one morning in the woods, she hears a scream. When she returns to search the area, all she finds are tire tracks and a single beaded earring.

Things are different now for Quill than when she was a lonely girl. Her friends Punk and Gaylyn are two women who don’t know what it means to quit; her loving husband, Crow, and their two beautiful children challenge her to be better every day. So when she hears a second woman has been stolen, she is determined to do something about it—starting with investigating the group of men working the pipeline construction just north of their homes.

As Quill closes in on the truth about the missing women, someone else disappears. In her quest to find justice for all of the women of the reservation, she is confronted with the hard truths of their home and the people who purport to serve them. When will she stop losing neighbors, friends, family? As Quill puts everything on the line to make a difference, the novel asks searing questions about bystander culture, the reverberations of even one act of crime, and the long-lasting trauma of being considered invisible.

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The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden: attract and support birds, bees, and butterflies

Stacy Tornio

"The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden helps you become more intentional about attracting birds, bees, and more to the garden...you can build a beautiful garden for all seasons while simultaneously striving to support wildlife."―Horticulture

The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden is a beginner-friendly handbook that helps homeowners create a beautiful garden that attracts birds, bees, butterflies, and more. Everyone wants a garden buzzing with life, and Stacy Tornio makes it easy by sharing details about which plants attract specific creatures.

Stacy Tornio makes it easy to attract birds, bees, and butterflies to your home garden by sharing details about which plants attract specific creatures. The simple organization makes it easy to find exactly what you want, with chapters on attracting birds, bringing in bees butterflies, and welcoming wildlife. If you are looking to build a garden from scratch, there are ten plans with specific plant choices. The plans include a hummingbird garden, a birdseed garden, and options that are low-maintenance and drought-resistant. You'll also find expert advice on finding the right feeder, avoiding pesticides, and choosing native plants. The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden is a beautiful, photo-filled guide that will help you grow the earth-friendly garden of your dreams.

 

 

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The Weight of Nature: how a changing climate changes our brains

Clayton Page Aldern

A New York Times Editors' Choice

A Next Big Idea Club and Sierra Magazine Must-Read Book

A Behavioral Scientist’s Summer Book List Pick

A Financial Times Best Summer Book

A deeply reported, eye-opening book about climate change, our brains, and the weight of nature on us all.


The march of climate change is stunning and vicious, with rising seas, extreme weather, and oppressive heat blanketing the globe. But its effects on our very brains constitute a public-health crisis that has gone largely unreported. Based on seven years of research, this book by the award-winning journalist and trained neuroscientist Clayton Page Aldern, synthesizes the emerging neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics of global warming and brain health. A masterpiece of literary journalism, this book shows readers how a changing environment is changing us today, from the inside out.

Aldern calls it the weight of nature.

Hotter temperatures make it harder to think clearly and problem-solve. They increase the chance of impulsive violence. Immigration judges are more likely to reject asylum applications on hotter days. Umpires, to miss calls. Air pollution, heatwaves, and hurricanes can warp and wear on memory, language, and sensory systems; wildfires seed PTSD. And climate-fueled ecosystem changes extend the reach of brain-disease carriers like mosquitos, brain-eating amoebas, and the bats that brought us the mental fog of long COVID.

How we feel about climate change matters deeply; but this is a book about much more than climate anxiety. As Aldern richly details, it is about the profound, direct action of global warming on our brains and behavior—and the most startling portrait yet of unforeseen environmental influences on our minds. From farms in the San Joaquin Valley and public schools across the United States to communities in Norway’s Arctic, the Micronesian islands, and the French Alps, this book is an unprecedented portrait of a global crisis we thought we understood.

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Container Gardening - The Permaculture Way: sustainably grow vegetables & more in your small space

Valéry Tsimba

Permaculture--rooted in centuries-old techniques for growing food with care for the Earth--is the key to producing a bigger harvest than you ever thought possible on your balcony, patio, driveway, deck, and anywhere in between!

With sustainability as her guiding principle, Valéry Tsimba enthusiastically instructs home gardeners of all skill levels and backgrounds in her proven container gardening methods, from start to finish.

  • Use the principles of permaculture to increase your garden's productivity, biodiversity, and beauty by starting small and going slow.
  • Get set up: Pick the best planters and tools for your space and learn how to adapt to natural conditions like wind and sun exposure.
  • Increase your harvest naturally with companion planting, small-space composting, chemical-free fertilizers, and staggered harvests.
  • Learn which plants are best suited to container gardens, from leafy greens and pollinator-friendly flowers to strawberries and even melons!

Containers make gardening more accessible for everyone. Whether you live in an apartment, have a disability or chronic illness, have never gardened before, or are an experienced gardener new to permaculture, Container Gardening--The Permaculture Way brings sustainable gardening within reach.

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What to Wear and Why: your guilt-free guide to sustainable fashion

Tiffanie Darke

It's time to rethink what clothes we buy, wear, and toss out, knowing that we can have a positive environmental impact while still looking good and dressing well.

Reportedly, the clothing industry produces 80 billion garments a year, employs 15 percent of the world's population, exploits labor, and seriously pollutes the environment. However, we as consumers have the power to make a difference with the clothing choices we make. In What to Wear and Why, top fashion writer turned sustainability activist Tiffanie Darke sheds light on the unsustainable practices and immense environmental impact of the fashion industry and presents a compelling argument for why transformative change is urgently needed.

Drawing on her extensive fashion experience and expertise, Darke offers practical guidance on how we as consumers can make a difference in the industry's environmental impact. What to Wear and Why also celebrates those who are already doing so, from environmental activists to sustainable fashion pioneers, giving us examples of how fashion sustainability can work in the real world.

Whether you're a fashionista who cares passionately about sustainability, an environmental advocate seeking to learn more about the impact of fashion, or simply someone who wants to be a part of the change, What to Wear and Why is your go-to guide to a more sustainable future.

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101 Tips for a Zero-Waste Kitchen

Kathryn Kellogg

Kathryn Kellogg is taking her accessible tips for a zero-waste lifestyle and focusing on the heart of the house. Our kitchens can produce a shocking amount of waste and, even though food scraps may seem harmless, they can't properly decompose in a landfill. What's more: wasting food can strain your wallet. The average American family of four will lose $1,500 annually on food waste. It's time to turn things around!

101 Tips for a Zero Waste Kitchen is your guide to reducing waste in your kitchen. Kathryn will teach you how to buy in bulk, avoid unnecessary packaging, upcycle jars, and more. Plus, she'll give you recipes that make use of your scraps: preserve your lemon peels for extra flavor, create simple syrup from strawberry tops, and revive shriveled mushrooms. With a little work and Kathryn in your corner, you'll have the tools you need to reach the ultimate goal: no produce left behind!

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Well Worn: visible mending for the clothes you love

Skye Pennant

Mend and revive your favorite well-worn garments with this comprehensive guide to visible mending techniques from the founder of Slow Stitch Club.

From the creator of the popular Slow Stitch Club, Well Worn is a fresh and engaging clothing repair guide and accessible introduction for anyone looking to explore visible mending to revolutionize their wardrobe, whether you are a stitching pro or have never picked up a needle and thread.

Mending is a creative outlet and a slow and therapeutic skill, and author and textile artist Skye Pennant shares the joys of mending by teaching traditional darning and sashiko techniques to help fight against wardrobe perfectionism as well as fast fashion, making for gorgeous visible mending results. Her introduction includes a short history of mending followed by key techniques, fabrics, tools, and materials. Sections are organized by type of clothing to mend: Jeans & Denim, Sweaters & Knitwear, T-Shirts, Socks, and more.

An outstanding gift or self-purchase for anyone interested in refreshing their wardrobe, fostering a more sustainable lifestyle, saving money and avoiding fast fashion, or simply engaging with a crafty new creative outlet, this sewing basics book is all about mending clothes you love, one slow stitch at a time.

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Total Garbage

Edward Humes

An investigative narrative that dives into the waste embedded in our daily lives—and shows how individuals and communities are making a real difference for health, prosperity, quality of life and the fight against climate change, by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

What happens to our trash? Why are our oceans filling with plastic? Do we really waste 40 percent of our food 65 percent of our energy? Waste is truly our biggest problem, and solving our inherent trashiness can fix our economy, our energy costs, our traffic jams, and help slow climate change—all while making us healthier, happier and more prosperous.     This story-driven and in-depth exploration of the pervasive yet hard-to-see wastefulness that permeates our daily lives illuminates the ways in which we've been duped into accepting absolutely insane levels of waste as normal. Total Garbage also tells the story of individuals and communities who are finding the way back from waste, and showing us that our choices truly matter and make a difference.
    Our big environmental challenges – climate, energy, plastic pollution, deforestation, toxic emissions—are often framed as problems too big for any one person to solve. Too big even for hope. But when viewed as symptoms of a single greater problem—the epic levels of trash and waste we produce daily--the way forward is clear. Waste is the one problem individuals can positively impact—and not just on the planet, but also on our wallets, our health, and national and energy security. The challenge is seeing our epic wastefulness clearly.
    Total Garbage will shine a light on the absurdity of the systems that all of us use daily and take for granted--and it will help both individuals and communities make meaningful changes toward better lives and a cleaner, greener world.

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Wild Fire

Nelson DeMille

Welcome to the Custer Hill Club - a men's club set in an Adirondack hunting lodge whose members include some of America's most powerful business leaders, military men, and government officials. Ostensibly, the club is a place to relax with old friends. But one fall weekend, the club's Executive Board gathers to talk about 9/11 - and finalize a retaliation plan, known only by its code name: WILD FIRE. That same weekend, a member of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force is found dead. Soon it's up to Detective John Corey and his wife, FBI Agent Kate Mayfield, to unravel a plot that starts with the Custer Hill Club and ends with American cities locked in the crosshairs of a nuclear device. Only Corey and Mayfield can stop the button from being pushed, and global chaos from being unleashed ... More chilling than yesterday's headlines and as prophetic as tomorrow's, Wild Fire will challenge you to question everything you thought you knew about your leaders and your country. Golden Voice Scott Brick proves himself a superb match for bestselling suspense writer Nelson DeMille. With his trademark tones of irony, sarcasm, and self-confidence, Brick brings to life the wisecracking and independent Corey in ways that will make the listener laugh even as the tension builds. Brick's quiet and level tones for the more even-tempered Mayfield make it seem as though there are two narrators at work.

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Up Country

Nelson DeMille

"At first Paul Brenner, himself a Vietnam vet, isn't interested in the case. After his forced retirement from the army's Criminal Investigation Division, he has adapted to civilian life. Then his old boss tells Brenner of the circumstances surrounding the officer's death; the incident happened over three decades ago in Vietnam."--Jacket.

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Word of Honor

Nelson DeMille

Read the gripping story of a Vietnam vet whose secret past threatens his family, career, and honor, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold over 50 million copies worldwide, and is "a true master" (Dan Brown).

He is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But sixteen years ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam.

There, in 1968, the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity-and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Not the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson. His family, his career, and his personal sense of honor hang in the balance. And only one woman can reveal the truth of his past--and set him free.

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The Charm School

Nelson DeMille

#1 New York Times bestselling author, Nelson DeMille, delivers an explosive thriller of international intrigue and high-voltage political tension set in contemporary Russia.On a dark road deep inside Russia, a young American tourist picks up a most unusual passenger a U.S. POW on the run with an incredible secret to reveal to an unsuspecting world. The secret concerns "The Charm School," a vast and astounding KGB conspiracy that stands poised against the very heartland of America. Arrayed against this renegade power of the Soviet state are three Americans: an Air Force officer, who will fly one last covert mission into the center of a mad experiment; an embassy liaison, who will have her hopes for a saner superpower balance brutally tested; and the chief of the CIA's Moscow station, who will find his intricate dance of destiny and death reaching its devastating conclusion.

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The Gold Coast

Nelson DeMille

Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

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The General's Daughter

Nelson DeMille

Here is an intriguing and sophisticated murder mystery of an upstanding military officer - the base commander's daughter - who's been leading an unsavory double life.

When a professional military woman with a pristine reputation is found raped and murdered, a preliminary search turns up certain paraphernalia, and sex toys that point to a scandal of major proportions, The chief investigator is reluctant to take the case when he learns that his partner will be a woman with whom he had a tempestuous affair and an unpleasant parting. But duty calls and intrigue begins when they learn that several top-level people may have been involved with the "golden girl" - and many have wanted her dead.

It's Nelson DeMille at his best - exciting, suspenseful and highly provocative.

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Night Fall

Nelson DeMille

On a Long Island beach at dusk, Bob Mitchell and Janet Whitney conduct their illicit love affair in front of a video camera, set to record each steamy moment. Suddenly a terrible explosion lights up the sky. Grabbing the camera, the couple flees as approaching police cars speed toward the scene. Five years later, the crash of Flight 800 has been attributed to a mechanical mal-function.

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The Gate House

Nelson DeMille

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille delivers the long-awaited follow-up to his classic novel The Gold Coast.

When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant. Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan who has also returned to Long Island. But Susan isn't the only person from John's past who has reemerged: Though Frank Bellarosa, infamous Mafia don and Susan's ex-lover, is long dead, his son, Anthony, is alive and well, and intent on two missions: Drawing John back into the violent world of the Bellarosa family, and exacting revenge on his father's murderer--Susan Sutter. At the same time, John and Susan's mutual attraction resurfaces and old passions begin to reignite, and John finds himself pulled deeper into a familiar web of seduction and betrayal. In THE GATE HOUSE, acclaimed author Nelson Demille brings us back to that fabled spot on the North Shore -- a place where past, present, and future collides with often unexpected results.

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The Panther

Nelson DeMille

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Bracing and spectacular." - Providence Sunday Journal

Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Sana'a, Yemen-one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East. While there, they will be working with a small team to track down one of the masterminds behind the USS Cole bombing: a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative known as The Panther. Ruthless and elusive, he's wanted for multiple terrorist acts and murders-and the U.S. government is determined to bring him down, no matter the cost. As latecomers to a deadly game, John and Kate don't know the rules, the players, or the score. What they do know is that there is more to their assignment than meets the eye-and that the hunters are about to become the hunted.

Filled with breathtaking plot turns and told in John Corey's inimitable voice, THE PANTHER raises disturbing questions about whether we can ever know who our enemies - or our allies - really are.

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The Lion's Game

Nelson DeMille

"The Lion" will be landing. And at New York's JFK Airport, an elite American task force waits as the notorious Libyan terrorist prepares to defect to the West. Then, aboard Flight 175, something goes eerily, horribly wrong -- a mere prelude to the terror that is to come. Ex-NYPD cop, now Federal Task Force agent John Corey -- together with his formidable and beautiful new partner, Kate Mayfield -- will follow a trail of smoke and blood across the country. His quarry: a foe withteh cunning of a lion and all the bloodlust of a man. To win a desperate game with no rules at all, Corey must invent a strategy that leaves no room for mistakes.

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Radiant Angel

Nelson DeMille

Prescient and chilling, DeMille's #1 New York Times bestselling novel takes us into the heart of a new Cold War with a clock-ticking plot that has Manhattan in its crosshairs.

After a showdown with the notorious Yemeni terrorist known as The Panther, John Corey has left the Anti-Terrorist Task Force and returned home to New York City, taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group. Although Corey's new assignment with the DSG-surveilling Russian diplomats working at the U.N. Mission-is thought to be "a quiet end," he is more than happy to be out from under the thumb of the FBI and free from the bureaucracy of office life.

But Corey realizes something the U.S. government doesn't: The all-too-real threat of a newly resurgent Russia.

When Vasily Petrov, a colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service posing as a diplomat with the Russian U.N. Mission, mysteriously disappears from a Russian oligarch's party in Southampton, it's up to Corey to track him down. What are the Russians up to and why? Is there a possible nuclear threat, a so-called radiant angel? Will Corey find Petrov and put a stop to whatever he has planned before it's too late? Or will Corey finally be outrun and outsmarted, with America facing the prospect of a crippling attack unlike anything it's ever seen before?

Please note: Radiant Angel is published in the UK under the title A Quiet End.

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The Cuban Affair

Nelson DeMille

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the legendary #1 New York Times bestselling author of Plum Island and Night Fall, Nelson DeMille’s blistering new novel features an exciting new character—U.S. Army combat veteran Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, now a charter boat captain, who is about to set sail on his most dangerous cruise.

Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—seems to have a pretty good life. At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. Mac served five years in the Army as an infantry officer with two tours in Afghanistan. He returned with the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, scars that don’t tan, and a boat with a big bank loan. Truth be told, Mac’s finances are more than a little shaky.

One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this and turns it down. The price then goes up to two million dollars, and Mac agrees to hear the deal, and meet Carlos’s clients—a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez.

What Mac learns is that there is sixty million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo, and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash—by accident or on purpose. And Mac knows if he accepts this job, he’ll walk away rich…or not at all.

Brilliantly written, with his signature humor, fascinating authenticity from his research trip to Cuba, and heart-pounding pace, Nelson DeMille is a true master of the genre.

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The Deserter

Nelson DeMille

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

An “outstanding” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) blistering thriller featuring a brilliant and unorthodox Army investigator, his enigmatic female partner, and their hunt for the Army’s most notorious—and dangerous—deserter from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille.

When Captain Kyle Mercer of the Army’s elite Delta Force disappeared from his post in Afghanistan, a video released by his Taliban captors made international headlines. But circumstances were murky: Did Mercer desert before he was captured? Then a second video sent to Mercer’s Army commanders leaves no doubt: the trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has willfully disappeared.

When Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela, by an old Army buddy, top military brass task Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to fly to Venezuela and bring Mercer back to America—preferably alive. Brodie knows this is a difficult mission, made more difficult by his new partner’s inexperience, by their undeniable chemistry, and by Brodie’s suspicion that Maggie Taylor is reporting to the CIA.

With ripped-from-the-headlines appeal, an exotic and dangerous locale, and the hairpin twists and inimitable humor that are signature DeMille, The Deserter is the first in a timely and thrilling new series from an unbeatable team of True Masters: the #1 New York Times bestseller Nelson DeMille and his son, award-winning screenwriter Alex DeMille.

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The Maze

Nelson DeMille

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille returns with a “genuinely thrilling” (The New York Times) suspense novel featuring his most popular character, former NYPD homicide detective John Corey, called out of retirement to investigate a string of grisly murders—inspired by the actual Gilgo Beach murders.

In his #1 New York Times bestseller Plum Island, Nelson DeMille introduced readers to NYPD Homicide Detective John Corey, who we first met on the back porch of his uncle’s waterfront mansion on Long Island, recovering from wounds incurred in the line of duty.

Six novels later, The Maze finds Corey on the same porch, having survived new law enforcement roles and romantic relationships—wiser and more sarcastic than ever. Corey is restless and looking for action, so when his former lover Detective Beth Penrose appears with a job offer, Corey has to once again make some decisions about his career—and about reuniting with Beth.

Inspired by the real-life Gilgo Beach murders, The Maze takes us on a dangerous hunt for an apparent serial killer who has murdered nine—and maybe more—sex workers and hidden their bodies in the thick undergrowth on a lonely stretch of beach.

As Corey digs deeper into this case, he comes to suspect that the failure of the local police to solve this sensational mystery may not be a result of their incompetence—it may be something else. Something more sinister.

Featuring John Corey’s politically incorrect humor and brilliant, unorthodox investigative skills, The Maze “finally gives DeMille’s readers the John Corey fix they’ve been craving,” along with the shocking plot twists that are the trademark of the bestselling author Nelson DeMille, “the master of smart, entertaining suspense” (Bookreporter).

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Blood Lines

Nelson DeMille

In this “highly entertaining” New York Times bestseller from Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille, Army CID Special Agents Brodie and Taylor “are the modern warriors the world needs” (BookReporter) and they’re on the hunt for the cold-blooded murderer of one of their fellow agents.

Army Criminal Investigation Agents Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor have been separated for five months following their last assignment, a dangerous mission in Venezuela to locate and detain an infamous Army deserter. Now, in Berlin, they are reunited and tasked with investigating the murder of one of their own: CID Special Agent Harry Vance of the 5th MP Battalion, an accomplished counterterrorism agent who had been stationed in western Germany, and whose body was discovered in a city park in the heart of Berlin’s Arab refugee community.

The authorities suspect this is an act of Islamic terrorism, but Brodie and Taylor soon believe there is more to this case. The reason for Vance’s presence in Berlin is unknown, and as Brodie and Taylor work to discover what the murder victim was doing in the days and weeks preceding his death, they become immersed in the many conflicts and contradictions of modern Germany—the Arab refugee crisis, the dark legacy of the Cold War and the Stasi secret police, and the imminent threats of a rising neo-Nazi movement. At the same time, they are butting heads with the authorities—both German and American—and facing a possible threat from American intelligence agents who fear that Brodie and Taylor might have learned too much about US clandestine operations during their mission in Venezuela.

Ultimately, Brodie and Taylor realize that the murder of Harry Vance was merely the prelude to a much more sinister future event—unless they can unravel the mystery in time to stop it.

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A Black Women's History of the United States

Daina Ramey Berry

The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this “groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States” (Ibram X. Kendi)—the perfect companion to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the United States.

An empowering and intersectional history that centers the stories of African American women across 400+ years, showing how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country.

In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.

A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.

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We Were Eight Years in Power: an American tragedy

Ta-Nehisi Coates

In this “urgently relevant”* collection featuring the landmark essay “The Case for Reparations,” the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*—including the election of Donald Trump.

New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York TimesUSA TodayTimeLos Angeles TimesSan Francisco ChronicleEssenceO: The Oprah MagazineThe WeekKirkus Reviews

*Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.”

But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period—and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.

We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates’s iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including “Fear of a Black President,” “The Case for Reparations,” and “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coates’s own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.

 

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The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the paradox of progress

William Jelani Cobb

For acclaimed historian William Jelani Cobb, the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency is not the most remarkable development of the 2008 election; even more so is the fact that Obama won some 90 percent of the black vote in the primaries across America despite the fact that the established black leadership since the civil rights era�men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Andrew Young, who paved the way for his candidacy�all openly supported Hillary Clinton. Clearly a sea change has occurred among black voters, ironically pushing the architects of the civil rights movement toward the periphery at the moment when their political dreams were most fully realized.
How this has happened, and the powerful implications it holds for America's politics and social landscape, is the focus of The Substance of Hope, a deeply insightful, paradigm-shifting examination of a new generation of voters that has not been shaped by the raw memory of Jim Crow and has a different range of imperatives. Cobb sees Obama's ascendancy as "a reality that has been taking shape in tiny increments for the past four decades," and examines thorny issues such as the paradox and contradictions embodied in race and patriotism, identity and citizenship; how the civil rights leadership became a political machine; why the term "postracial" is as iniquitous as it is inaccurate; and whether our society has really changed with Obama's election.
Elegantly written and powerfully argued, The Substance of Hope challenges conventional wisdom as it offers original insight into America's future.

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The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: his early life as a slave, his escape from bondage, and his complete history

Frederick Douglass

Born around 1817 in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was a former plantation slave who went on to become a brilliant writer and eloquent orator. In this amazing first-hand narrative, published in 1881, he vividly recounts his early years, which were filled with physical abuse, deprivation, and tragedy; his dramatic escapes to the North, recapture, and eventual freedom; his work for the Anti-Slavery Society and influential role in speaking for other African-Americans; his abolitionist campaigns, and crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.

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On Juneteenth

Annette Gordon-Reed

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth’s integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Texas native.

 

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. All too aware of the stories of cowboys, ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star State, Gordon-Reed—herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s—forges a new and profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for us all.

 

Combining personal anecdotes with poignant facts gleaned from the annals of American history, Gordon-Reed shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African-Americans played an integral role in the Texas story.

Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself.

In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth vitally revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history. As our nation verges on recognizing June 19 as a national holiday, On Juneteenth is both an essential account and a stark reminder that the fight for equality is exigent and ongoing.

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Four Hundred Souls: a community history of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present—edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.

FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post, Town & Country, Ms. magazine, BookPage, She Reads, BookRiot, Booklist • “A vital addition to [the] curriculum on race in America . . . a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain’s impressive choir.”—The Washington Post
 
“From journalist Hannah P. Jones on Jamestown’s first slaves to historian Annette Gordon-Reed’s portrait of Sally Hemings to the seductive cadences of poets Jericho Brown and Patricia Smith, Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

The story begins in 1619—a year before the Mayflower—when the White Lion disgorges “some 20-and-odd Negroes” onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. 

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith—instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness. 

This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.

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Envisioning Emancipation

Deborah Willis

The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. As we approach its 150th anniversary, what do we really know about those who experienced slavery? In their pioneering book, Envisioning Emancipation, renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis and historian of slavery Barbara Krauthamer have amassed 150 photographs--some never before published--from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration. Filled with powerful images of lives too often ignored or erased from historical records, Envisioning Emancipation will be a keepsake for many years to come. Deborah Willis, a leading historian and curator of African American photography and culture, is Chair and Professor of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her most recent books are Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present and Black Venus 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot" (Temple). Barbara Krauthamer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South as well as many articles and essays on the history of slavery and emancipation.

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There Was an Old Mermaid Who Swallowed a Shark!

Lucille Colandro

Scholastic's bestselling Old Lady stars in a brand-new adventure series for beginning readers chock-full of hilarious laughs and fun facts!

There was an old mermaid who swallowed a shark. I don't know why she swallowed a shark, but it left no mark!Scholastic's bestselling Old Lady is starring in a brand-new adventure series that will make you laugh AND learn! In this new spin-off, the Old Lady turns into an Old Mermaid, travels down into the ocean, and swallows a shark . . . and a squid, and a fish, and an eel, and a crab, and a sea star, and a clam . . . Why? Well, it was fun to cram her mouth with a clam! Two new characters lead the reader through this hilarious adventure while exchanging some awesome facts about the creatures down under for a light take on nonfiction that's perfect for this age. With expanded sea creature back matter and a search-and-find game at the end, this Old Mermaid is making quite a splash!

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Swap!

Steve Light

An old ship. A sad friend. A button . . . An idea. Let’s SWAP!

In a young scalawag's first tale of bartering, a peg-legged youngster sets out to help his captain repair his vessel. One button for three teacups. SWAP! Two teacups for four coils of rope. SWAP! And so it goes, until the little swashbuckler secures sails, anchors, a ship’s wheel, and more . . . including a happy friend. Steve Light’s intricate pen-and-ink illustrations, punctuated by brilliant blue and other hues, anchor this clever tale of friendship and ingenuity.

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The Princess in Black and the Mermaid Princess

Shannon Hale

There’s trouble under the sea! Can the Princess in Black and her new mermaid friend put a stop to a big blue kraken’s shenanigans?

The Princess in Black and her friends are enjoying a day of sun and sea on Princess Sneezewort’s royal boat when a real, live mermaid princess emerges from the waves! Eeeeeee! Princess Posy needs their help protecting her very cute sea goats from being eaten by a very greedy kraken. But the princesses and the Goat Avenger quickly realize that fighting underwater can be tough for land dwellers, and only the mermaid Princess Posy can save the day. Can the masked heroes help her learn that being a princess means more than just being nice—it means speaking up? An ode to using your voice (along with a kelp-tree swing or two), this newest installment in the New York Times best-selling series is a splish-splashing good time.

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Pirates Past Noon Graphic Novel

Mary Pope Osborne

The #1 bestselling chapter book series is now a graphic novel! Magic. Mystery. Time-travel. Get whisked to the time of pirates with Jack and Annie!

Captured by pirates! When Jack and Annie are whisked away in the magic tree house, they arrive on a beautiful beach. It’s paradise! That is, until the pirates arrive. . .

The dreaded Cap’n Bones is looking for buried treasure. He thinks Jack and Annie know where it is. And he’s not letting them out of his sight until they find it!

Sail back in time and around the world with Jack and Annie in Magic Tree House® graphic novels! The vibrant and energetic art of Kelly and Nichole Matthews perfectly captures the adventure, mystery, and magic of the original #1 New York Times bestselling series.

For the first time in graphic novel--live the adventure again with new full-color art that brings the magic to life!

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Mystery at Mermaid Lagoon (Disney The Never Girls: Graphic Novel #1)

RH Disney

The Never Girls’ adventures with the fairies in Never Land continue in this all-new series of hardcover graphic novels perfect for fans of the bestselling chapter book series!

Kate, Mia, Lainey, and Gabby are back—along with Tinker Bell and their fairy friends from Pixie Hollow—for more magical adventures together. In this first Disney: The Never Girls graphic novel, the girls find themselves in the middle of a mermaid-pirate feud that has all of Never Land taking sides! With old friends and new, an engaging mystery to solve, and fun full-color illustrations and comic panels, this book is sure to delight readers ages 6 to 9 and Never Girls fans of all ages.

Kate craves adventure and excitement.
Mia loves dresses, roses, and anything beautiful.
Lainey dreams of talking to animals.
Gabby believes in fairies more than anyone.

Together, they are the Never Girls—four real girls in a fairy's world!

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Pirate Stew

Neil Gaiman

Meet LONG JOHN McRON, SHIP'S COOK . . . and the most unusual babysitter you've ever seen.

Long John has a whole crew of wild pirates in tow, and--for one boy and his sister--he's about to transform a perfectly ordinary evening into a riotous adventure beneath a pirate moon. It's time to make some PIRATE STEW.

Marvelously silly and gloriously entertaining, this tale of pirates, flying ships, doughnut feasts and some rather magical stew is perfect for all pirates, both young and old.

With a deliciously rhyming text from master storyteller Neil Gaiman and spellbinding illustrations by the supremely talented Chris Riddell, this is the picture book of the year!

Pirate Stew! Pirate Stew!

Pirate Stew for me and you!

Pirate Stew, Pirate Stew

Eat it and you won't be blue

You can be a pirate too!

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The Mermaid

Jan Brett

A New York Times bestselling striking under-the-sea version of Goldilocks with bonus storytelling in the borders, as only Jan Brett could create.
When Kiniro, a young mermaid, comes upon a gorgeous house made of seashells and coral, she is so curious that she goes inside. She’s thrilled to find a just-right breakfast, pretty little chair, and, best of all, a comfy bed that rocks in the current.
 
But when the Octopus family returns home, they are not happy to find that someone has been eating their food and breaking their things. Baby has the biggest shock when she finds the mermaid asleep in her bed!

Luckily, shock turns to happiness when Kiniro gives her a thoughtful gift before escaping from the twenty-four arms coming her way.
 
Vibrant, intricate scenes of an underwater paradise transport this classic fairy tale to a magical setting inspired by the seas off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. Along with fun details that enrich the storytelling in Jan Brett's trademark borders, this visual treat will enchant readers of all ages.

 

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Pirate Queens

Leigh Lewis

This wow-worthy book proves that women have been making their mark in all aspects of history--even the high seas!

Meet Ching Shih, a Chinese pirate who presided over a fleet of 80,000 men (by contrast, Blackbeard had some 300). Get the scoop on Anne Bonny who famously ran away from an arranged marriage to don trousers and brandish a pistol in the Bahamas. And there are more!

Each pirate profile includes a dramatic original poem presented against a backdrop of gorgeous full-color art by award-winning illustrator Sara Gómez Woolley. Each profile is followed by fascinating information about the real life and times of these daring (and dangerous!) women.

Vetted by the world's leading pirate experts and historians, this book is a cool and edgy gift. It's also perfect for any curious kid who dreams of adventure and for parents who are eager to show their tweens and teens that history is more diverse, daring, and surprising than what is typically found in textbooks.

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The Little Mermaid Step into Reading (Disney Princess)

Ruth Homberg

Ariel is one of the most beloved Disney princesses of all time, and now children ages 4-6 can relive the magic of Disney's The Little Mermaid with this Step 2 Step into Reading leveled reader. Step 2 readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. For children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

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P is for Pirate

Eve Bunting

The word pirate means one who plunders on the sea, and piracy has been around for as long as men and women have longed for adventure and lusted for riches. But it wasn't all fun and pillaging! Being a pirate was not an easy life. Written by award-winning author Eve Bunting, poetry and expository text are used in this alphabetical examination of the history of piracy. Topics include legendary ships, fabled hideouts, and notorious villains like Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard. Includes the pirate code of conduct as well as the different occupations aboard ship.

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The Good Little Mermaid's Guide to Bedtime

Eija Sumner

This little mermaid is too FIERCE and SCARY and FEROCIOUS to follow The Good Little Mermaid's Guide to Bedtime . . . well, except the part about snuggling her shark stuffie. A hilarious picture book for kids ages 3 to 7 who are experts at resisting sleep.

Once upon an evening, a good little mermaid begins to get ready for bed.
Once upon? No. Not once upon. I know what that means. And I'm NOT a good little mermaid. I am a PREDATOR!

Thus begins our story of a little mermaid who is anything but good.
Sleep? Sleep is for guppies! This little mermaid is a TERROR of the DEEP.

Cleaning up and putting toys away? This little mermaid doesn't need TOYS. The ocean is her playground, and everything in it is afraid of HER.

Brushing her teeth and flossing? Never! Well . . . maybe a little bit so they gleam like RAZOR-SHARP BLADES.

Cleverly told through a back and forth between The Good Little Mermaid's Guide to Bedtime and a mermaid who is resisting bedtime at every turn, this story will delight readers with its hilarious illustrations and adorable but VERY SCARY main character. Will she ever go to sleep? Read on to find out.

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Little Captain Jack

Alicia Acosta

Laugh along with the adventures and misadventures of Little Captain Jack. Great things can come in all shapes and sizes, big or small.

Once upon a time, there was a little pirate.
He was so very little that everyone called him Little Captain Jack.
One day, the bad pirate Badlock, took Little Captain Jack and locked him in a dark
cellar. Our pirate was scared but he was helped by a mouse. And the mouse was helped by a seagull...

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Alicia Acosta is a professional storyteller from Andalusia (Spain). She works with groups of children in schools and for Government organizations. She combines her background as a psychologist to promote the love of reading in children. She is also a radio announcer and organizes theater workshops.

Mónica Carretero is a renowned illustrator in Spain. She has published more than 70 books in England, Australia, and the USA. She was awarded by the London Children's Book Fair for her illustrations. She has received five International Latino Book Awards and one Living Now Award.

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Pearl

Molly Idle

Caldecott Honor author-illustrator Molly Idle dazzles with an original mermaid tale about how small, persistent actions can achieve great things.Sometimes the tiniest light can shine the brightest! Like the other mermaids of the deep, Pearl longs to care for the endless beaches, coral reefs, and towering kelp forests of her vast ocean world. So when her mother asks her to tend to a mere grain of sand, Pearl is heartbroken. It takes all her patience and determination to discover how even the littlest mermaid can transform the world.

Caldecott Honor-winning author and artist Molly Idle has masterfully crafted a modern classic in this mesmerizing tale about the immense power of small actions.

 

 

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Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels #17: The Mystery of the Pirate Ship

Geronimo Stilton

The Pirate Cats travel to the 18th Century to do what they do best... be pirates! So they steal an old ship sailing on the Indian Ocean to pillage the East India Company's merchant ships! It's up to Geronimo Stilton to travel through time, become a sailor, and stop the cats from changing history forever! Will Geronimo get his sea legs in time to save the day?

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Mermaids of the Deep Blue Sea

Gertrude Chandler Warner

The Aldens have joined Dr. Iris Perez as she investigates legendary creatures around the world. In this adventure, the children investigate what might be living in the deep trench off the coast of Puerto Rico. From manatees to mermaids to sea monsters, creatures of the sea have been attracting tourists to the area for years. But when a man on a nearby island goes missing, it’s up to the Aldens to sort out fact from fiction.

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Curse of the Forgotten City

Alex Aster

From #BookTok phenomenon and New York Times bestselling author of the YA fantasy novel, Lightlark, the second book in this fast-paced middle grade series steeped in Colombian mythology and full of adventure, perfect for fans of Aru Shah and the End of Time and Percy Jackson. In this tale Tor, Engle, and Melda must stop a band of cursed pirates from taking over their home.

Tor is adjusting to life with the Night Witch's powers, with his best friends Engle and Melda by his side. But when a mysterious girl named Vesper washes ashore claiming a band of cursed pirates is on their way to Emblem Island, life changes fast.

Vesper is from an underwater city that was destroyed by the terrible Calavera pirates and she warns Tor that his village is next. To stop the pirates, Tor, Engle, and Melda join Vesper on the hunt for the famed Pirate's Pearl, an ancient relic that would give them complete control of the high seas.

But the journey is perilous, filled with legendary sea creatures that are determined to see them fail. To save his village and everyone he loves, Tor must accept his new abilities--and use them--in the race to find the pearl.

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The Sunken Ship

Kyle Lukoff

Dive under the sea with Mermaid Days, a series perfect for beginning readers!

Pick a book. Grow a Reader!

This series is part of Scholastic's early reader line, Acorn, aimed at children who are learning to read. With easy-to-read text, a short-story format, plenty of humor, and full-color artwork on every page, these books will boost reading confidence and fluency. Acorn books plant a love of reading and help readers grow!

Swim along with mermaid Vera and octo-kid Beaker! In these three stories, Vera and Beaker go on adventures in their town of Tidal Grove. They explore a sunken ship, and Vera helps Beaker with an unusual octopus problem. With text from Stonewall award-winning author Kyle Lukoff, and bright, colorful artwork from artist Kat Uno, Mermaid Days is sure to be every young reader's favorite new series. Balancing easy-to-read-text, endless humor and charm, light nonfiction, and a loveable cast of underwater creatures, these laugh-out-loud stories are the perfect fit for new readers!

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Compass South

Hope Larson

Get ready for a thrilling journey in Compass South, a New York Timesbestselling middle-grade graphic novel full of pirates and adventure, from the same team who created the Eisner Award-winner Salt Magic.

It's 1860 in New York City. When 12-year-old twins Alexander and Cleopatra's father disappears, they join the Black Hook Gang and are caught by the police pulling off a heist. They agree to reveal the identity of the gang in exchange for tickets to New Orleans. But once there, Alex is shanghaied to work on a ship that is heading for San Francisco via Cape Horn. Cleo stows away on a steamer to New Granada where she hopes to catch a train to San Francisco to find her brother. Neither Alexander nor Cleo realizes the real danger they are in-they are being followed by pirates who think they hold the key to treasure. How they outwit the pirates and find each other makes for a fast-paced, breathtaking adventure.

A Margaret Ferguson Book

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Magical Mermaids! (Shimmer and Shine)

Random House

Leah’s day at the petting zoo becomes a magical adventure when Nickelodeon’s Shimmer and Shine lend a hand. Children ages 4 to 6 will love this deluxe Step 1 Step into Reading leveled reader.

Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words. Rhymes and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story. For children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading.

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Captain Jack and the Pirates

Peter Bently

The boys from King Jack and the Dragon are back in this swashbuckling pirate adventure with pictures by the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
 
Jack, Zack, and Caspar are building a ship—on the beach, out of sand. When they set sail on their imaginary adventure, Jack spies an enemy pirate ship nearby. They chase after the pirates, but a storm wrecks their ship and sweeps them up on a desert island. The island isn't totally deserted, though—their pirate enemies are there too. Just as the boys discover the pirates' treasure (an array of delicious desserts), the pirates (their parents) capture them. But these pirates are friendly—they're willing to share the treasure, and they throw in some ice cream just for good measure!
 
Perfect for storytime read-alouds, this picture book is just right for fans of Three Bears in a Boat, How I Became a Pirate, and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

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