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Amelia Bedelia Wraps it Up

Herman Parish

"It's the holiday season, and Amelia Bedelia doesn't have enough money to buy presents for anyone. But that won't stop Amelia Bedelia! Along with her friends, she decides to launch a gift-wrapping business in order to make some extra cash. But wrapping presents with Amelia Bedelia is far from ordinary! And when the business expands to include tree decorating, popcorn popping, snow shoveling, and carol singing, you can bet that the misunderstandings are many!" --

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Llama Llama Holiday Helper

Anna Dewdney

Celebrate the holidays with Llama Llama and all his friends in this beautifully illustrated picture book, based on the hit animated Netflix series!

Look out, world--Llama Llama is a TV star! The beloved character, made famous by Anna Dewdney's best-selling picture books, is the star of his own original series, now airing on Netflix.

In this beautiful picture book, Llama Llama and Mama Llama are just about done with getting ready for the holidays. So Llama decides to help out his friends -- hanging wreaths, decorating trees, and baking cookies. Join Llama, Gilroy, Nelly, Euclid, and Luna as they celebrate their favorite time of year.

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Christmas Around the World

Mary D. Lankford

Children sample the symbols, celebrations, and foods that make Christmas so special in 12 richly diverse countries. The lighted parols or star lanterns, of the Philippines, Germany's intriguing prune people, and the posada processions in Mexico that end with a pinata party--all these and more will expand a child's knowledge of how others celebrate this season. Includes a section of craft ideas. Full color.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Christmas 123

Eric Carle

Join the Very Hungry Caterpillar for some Christmas counting fun in this delightfully festive board book. The pages are filled with Eric Carle's distinctive artwork, from 1 jolly Santa Claus to 10 beautifully wrapped presents. And children will love to spot the Very Hungry Caterpillar making an appearance with every number in this perfect Christmas gift!

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The Christmas Story

Anita Ganeri

Introduces the events surround the birth of Jesus. Also includes information on Christmas customs; the well-known carol, "Away in the Manger;" and a recipe for Christmas cookies.

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A Night of Great Joy

Mary Engelbreit

Mary Engelbreit, New York Times bestselling illustrator of the blockbuster Christmas classic The Night Before Christmas, brings readers a holiday picture book that's sure to become a family favorite, with a cover that sparkles with glitter and foil and celebrates the joyful season of Christmas.

A Night of Great Joy tells the story of the nativity through the performance of a children's Christmas pageant. With adorable illustrations and simple storytelling, Engelbreit paints a wonderful picture of the night Jesus was born.

This gorgeous picture book is for children ages 4 to 8. A Night of Great Joy brings peace to the world and highlights:

  • The arrival of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem on a donkey
  • The three wise men presenting their gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus lying in a manger
  • The birth of Jesus, guiding them with the star of Bethlehem, the magi riding from Jerusalem on camels, and a chorus of angels

Your entire family will love reading A Night of Great Joy during the holiday season. Engelbreit's brilliant illustrations will create a sweet holiday tradition you'll want to read every Christmas.

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Origami for Christmas

Robyn Hardyman

By following the instructions in this book, readers could have the best-wrapped Christmas presents in their family! A colorful gift box and gift bow are just two of the origami projects included in this fun crafting title. In addition to clear step-by-step instructions for each craft, this book includes fun facts about the history of Christmas and how its symbols are part of celebrations today. Full-color photographs show readers what the origami Santa hat, snowman, or star will look like once they've completed the project, helping prepare them for the most wonderful time of the year!

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The Queen and the First Christmas Tree

Nancy Churnin

Queen Charlotte brought her family's festive holiday yule bough from Germany to England. While planning a Christmas Day party in 1800 at Windsor Castle for over 100 children, she realized a single bough isn't enough. So she brought in the whole tree instead, making it the first known Christmas Tree in England. This story tells a little known fact about a favorite holiday tradition.

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Waiting for Snow

Marsha Diane Arnold

Badger cannot wait one more minute for it to snow. When his friend Hedgehog explains that everything comes in its time, Badger is unconvinced and impatient as ever. But Badger's friends have a few tricks up their sleeves to try and get the snow's attention and distract their pal in the meantime. Though in the end Badger sees there's no trick--only waiting--until at last, it's time.

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Bears in the Snow

Shirley Parenteau

Shrieks of joy ensue when Big Brown Bear devises a clever sled that can carry four bears in this quintessential winter adventure.

Here's a bright red sled
On a snowy day.
Where are the bears
To come out and play?

The little bears are ready to play in the snow. But -- oh, no! Their sled is too small! It's not as much fun to go sledding only two at a time, but what can they use to carry them all? Luckily, Big Brown Bear has an idea -- and it starts with a belly flop!

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Winter Wishes! (Shimmer and Shine)

Kristen L. Depken

An all-new Step 2 deluxe Step into Reading leveled reader featuring Nickelodeon's Shimmer and Shine--plus shiny stickers!

When Nickelodeon's Shimmer and Shine accidentally bring home two mischievous ice sprites, the twin genies must return the sprites before their palace becomes a winter wonderland! Boys and girls ages 4 to 6 will love this Step 2 deluxe Step into Reading leveled reader based on Nickelodeon's Shimmer and Shine that features over 30 shiny stickers. A perfect holiday or winter read! 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.

Boom Zahramay! Join the madcap, magical adventures of genie-in-training twin sisters Shimmer and Shine as they grant wishes for their best human friend Leah and show preschoolers that things are always better when you work together.

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Winter Dance

Marion Dane Bauer

Snow is coming, and it's time to get ready! The squirrel gathers nuts, the geese soar south, and the snowshoe hare puts on its new white coat. But what should the fox do? Each animal advises the fox that its own plan is best, but the fox thinks otherwise--yet it's not until he meets a golden-eyed friend that he finds the perfect way to celebrate the snowfall.

Stunning illustrations by the new talent Richard Jones are the perfect complement to the Newbery Honor winner Marion Dane Bauer's lyrical and playful homage to the natural world.

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The Storm Whale in Winter

Benji Davies

In this sequel to The Storm Whale, the boy, Noi, is caught in a storm at sea and his whale friend comes to his rescue.

When Noi's dad sails out on one last fishing trip before winter, Noi waits for him at home. But as the storm worsens and his dad does not return, Noi decides to go looking for his dad. But the storm is powerful and dangerous, and soon Noi, too, is stuck in the icy sea. When it seems that all hope is lost, a friend comes to help Noi and his father. Poignant and evocative, this is a beautiful celebration of friendship and family, and the special bond between a father and son.

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Snow Scene

Richard Jackson

A playful guessing game set in a snowy landscape, this gorgeously illustrated picture book offers a cozy look at a cold winter that slowly melts into a bright spring with only a handful of carefully chosen words.

A close-up of tree trunks leads to the question "What are these?"
A page turn reveals: trees!
Look to the right—what are those?
Shadows of crows!

Follow the clues on each spread until the snow starts to melt and spring is revealed.

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Michelle the Winter Wonderland Fairy

Daisy Meadows

Let it snow!

Kirsty and Rachel are together again! Kirsty's mom won an online contest for a photo she submitted to a travel website. The prize is a trip for four to a beautiful snowy resort where a winter festival is being held.

There's just one problem-- Jack Frost has stolen Michelle the Winter Wonderland Fairy's magic items! As long as they're missing, people won't be able to enjoy all the wintry activities.

Rachel and Kirsty have to help Michelle before Jack Frost ruins winter fun for everyone!

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Let's Build a Snowman!

Kristen L. Depken

Children ages 4 to 6 will love this Step 1 Deluxe Step into Reading leveled reader about Barbie, her sisters, and her puppies having fun building the perfect snowman. It's perfect for Christmas and winter. A sparkly cover and over 30 shimmery stickers add to the fun! 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. Since 1959, Barbie has shown girls that they can live their dreams. From an astronaut to a chef to a president, she knows that girls can do anything!

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The Ice Castle

Holly Anna

Hi! I’m Daisy Dreamer and my totally true imaginary friend Posey and I are going on a winter adventure! Oh, and you’re totally invited, too!

I love snow days! I mean, who doesn’t? But do you know what’s better than a snow day? A snow day in the World of Make-Believe! Obviously! But do you know what’s even better than that? A snow day in the World of Make-Believe visiting a really real Ice Castle! Join Posey and me, as we build snow-nimals, go bed-sledding, and have a brrr-tastic snowberang fight. There’s just one thing to remember: Stay out of the Ice Castle’s tower. It may be a little cursed, but that’s snow reason to not come along!

With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, the Daisy Dreamer chapter books are perfect for emerging readers.

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Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter

Kenard Pak

As leaves fall from their trees, animals huddle against the cold, and frost creeps across windows, everyone knows—winter is on its way!

Join a brother and sister as they explore nature and take a stroll through their twinkling town, greeting all the signs of the coming season. In a series of conversations with everything from the setting sun to curious deer, they say goodbye to autumn and welcome the glorious first snow of winter in Kenar Pak's Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter.

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Winter Is Here

Kevin Henkes

From Caldecott Medalist and Newbery Honor author Kevin Henkes and acclaimed painter Laura Dronzek, the bestselling and award-winning creators of When Spring Comes and In the Middle of Fall, this picture book about winter celebrates the sights, sounds, and smells of the season.

Snow falls, animals burrow, and children prepare for the wonders winter brings. Caldecott Medalist and award-winning author Kevin Henkes’s striking text introduces basic concepts of language and the unique beauty of the winter season. Laura Dronzek’s expressive paintings beautifully capture the joyful wonders of winter.

This is an engaging companion to the best-selling When Spring Comes and In the Middle of Fall. Winter Is Here is an ideal choice for story time, seasonal curriculums, and bedtime reading.

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The Snowy Nap

Jan Brett

Snow is on the way, and as Hedgie trundles around the farm all his friends tell him of the winter-time fun he will miss as he hibernates--Icicles decorating the chicken coop! Lisa making snowmen! The pond turned to slippery ice! It sounds so amazing, Hedgie decides to stay awake instead of going to his burrow. But then a snowstorm starts. Luckily, Lisa finds him and brings him inside so Hedgie gets to see the wonders of winter from inside the cozy house.

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid #13: Meltdown

Jeff Kinney

When snow shuts down Greg Heffley's middle school, his neighborhood transforms into a wintry battlefield. Rival groups fight over territory, build massive snow forts, and stage epic snowball fights. And in the crosshairs are Greg and his trusty best friend, Rowley Jefferson.

It's a fight for survival as Greg and Rowley navigate alliances, betrayals, and warring gangs in a neighborhood meltdown. When the snow clears, will Greg and Rowley emerge as heroes? Or will they even survive to see another day?
 

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Little Owl's Snow

Divya Srinivasan

Little Owl experiences his first snow and first winter in this perfect follow-up to Little Owl's Night and Little Owl's Day!

"Winter's almost here!" says Little Owl, as he observes leaves falling, animal friends hibernating, and a chill from his feathers to his feet. And just as he and his friend racoon are watching their breath make fog in the cold air, it happens: Snow! Here is the perfect follow-up to Little Owl's Night and Little Owl's Day, and a wonderful introduction to the changing of the seasons!

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A Home in the Barn

Margaret Wise Brown

Perfect for fans of Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and Big Red Barn, this never-before-published picture book from beloved children’s book author Margaret Wise Brown tells the comforting, snowy story of animals seeking shelter from the cold in a big warm barn.

Brought to beautiful life by Caldecott Medalist and multiple award-winner Jerry Pinkney, this is a must-have for every child’s library and is perfect for cozy wintertime readings.

Outside in the cold, hear the wind rattle, come to the barn, keep warm with the cattle...

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Good Morning, Snowplow!

Deborah Bruss

For fans of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site!

As the rest of the town settles in to bed, one man, his dog, and a trusty snowplow get ready for a night's work. Follow them through slick roads and swirling drifts in this sweet, rhyming book by Deborah Bruss and New York Times bestselling illustrators Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson.

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Wintercake

Lynne Rae Perkins

Sometimes a mistake can be a wonderful thing.

Sometimes a mistake is cause for celebration.

Sometimes making a mistake leads to rousing adventure and a whole new chapter.

That’s exactly what happens to Lucy and Thomas in this luminous and festive picture book about a holiday mistake, cake, and friendship.

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A Day So Gray

Marie Lamba

Once you start to notice, colors and reasons for gratitude are everywhere, and that changes everything! Celebrate the hues and comforts of a cozy winter day as a discontented girl at first notices only dull grays and browns in a snowy landscape but is coaxed by her friend to look more closely. Soon she finds orange berries, blue water, purple shadows, and more. Warm friendship and a fresh way of seeing things transform a snow-covered landscape from bleak to beautiful!

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Poppy and Sam and the Search for Sleep

Cathon

Winter is coming, and Poppy and Sam's tiny garden neighbors are getting ready to hibernate. After stocking their pantries for the colder days ahead, Poppy and Sam settle in for a long winter's nap as well. But what is Poppy doing wrong? She can't sleep and nothing seems to work! Determined to hibernate like her friends, Poppy sets out with Sam to ask the other creatures for their deep-sleep secrets. But advice from the bees (snuggling into a honeycomb), a frog (a bedtime mug of fly milk), and the ants (quiet reading) don't help Poppy drift off to dreamland. Even's Sam's lullaby misses the mark, so the loyal panda pledges to stay awake all winter with his sleepless friend. As snowflakes fall, they encounter Simone, a mouse, who reveals that mice don't hibernate but stay active all winter. Delighted by the news, Poppy asks if she can spend the winter with the mice, reading comics and snacking on cake. Poppy and Sam settle in for the fun times ahead--and, exhausted by their quest, promptly drop off to sleep.

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Cozy

Jan Brett

Cozy is the softest musk ox in Alaska, with the warmest fur you ever did feel. When a storm hits while he's separated from his family, he starts to feel lonely--but not for long. As the snow piles up, animals start to notice just how warm and cozy Cozy really is! One mama lemming has a bright idea . . . maybe the best place to spend the winter is under Cozy's fur!

As more and more animals burrow in, Cozy adds to the house rules: quiet voices, gentle thumping, claws to yourself, no biting, and no pouncing. That seems easy enough . . . until the lemmings, snowshoe hare, snowy owl, arctic fox, and wolverine begin to bicker. Luckily, signs of spring soon appear, and that means Cozy can find his herd and his new friends can head to their summer homes. But not before promising to get cozy with Cozy next year!

Jan Brett brings a new lovable character to life through this gorgeous tale of sharing, friendship, and living in harmony.

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Froggy Builds a Snowman

Jonathan London

Froggy has a rollicking good time at his first Winter Carnival!

It's Winter Carnival day, and Froggy can't wait to build a snowman. But school principal Mr. Mugwort says there is a lot to do first. Skating! Sledding! A snow fort! Finally it's time to build a snowman, but Froggy builds a snow dinosaur instead. And of course the day wouldn't be complete without a wild snowball fight.
"That was my best winter carnival ever!" says Froggy.
"That was your only winter carnival ever!" says his friend Max.

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Step-by-step Crafts for Winter

Kathy Ross

Younger children will enoy these easy-to-use craft books. Step-by-step illustrations guide children age five and up in making fall and winter crafts--twenty in each book--including games, toys, useful and wearable items, decorations, gifts, and holiday crafts (Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween; Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah).

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Winter

Ann Herriges

Winter brings ice, snow, and cold temperatures. Some animals hibernate while others change their habits to survive the cold months. Readers will learn about how people, animals, and plants deal with the cold, chilly weather of winter!

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Winter Trees

Carole Gerber

"Trees that once had leaves are bare.
They're dressed instead in lacy white.
Snow dusts their trunks and coats their limbs
with flakes that outline them with light."

Join a boy and his dog as they use their senses of sight and touch to identify seven common trees in the snow covered forest. Intricate illustrations and lyrical text make distinguishing different types of trees easy--even in the middle of winter, when only bare branches stand like skeletons against the sky.

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How Do You Know It's Winter?

Ruth Owen

Describes some of the signs of winter, including changes in light and temperature, plants at rest, bare branches on trees, animals and birds responding to the cold and lack of food, and other differences, and suggests related activities.

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What Do People Do in Winter?

Rebecca Felix

This Level 1 guided reader discusses human activities during seasonal change. Students will develop word recognition and reading skills while learning about what activities people do in the winter season.

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Best in Snow

April Pulley Sayre

Discover the wonderful world of snow with this companion to the celebrated Raindrops Roll!

With gorgeous photo illustrations, award-winning author April Pulley Sayre sheds sparkly new light on the wonders of snow. From the beauty of snow blanketing the forest and falling on animals’ fur and feathers to the fascinating winter water cycle, this nonfiction picture book celebrates snowfall and the amazing science behind it.

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All about Animals in Winter

Martha E. H. Rustad

Some animals' fur turns white. Other animals hibernate. Winter is here! Celebrate the season with lovely photos and a simple design that beautifully support early readers.

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Hello Winter!

Shelley Rotner

Vivid photographs of frozen wonderlands and cold-weather fun come together in a lively tribute to winter by an acclaimed author-photographer.

This third book in a celebrated series about the seasons takes children from the shortest day of the year to the approach of spring. In beautiful photographs and a short text ROTNER notes changes in the physical earth as winter approaches as well as animal and plant adaptations. A glossary is included.

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When Winter Comes

Aimée M. Bissonette

Though a forest may be blanketed in snow or a lake frozen over, families who enjoy the outdoors in winter, happily bundled up to play in the energizing weather, know that wildlife is still teeming there.

When winter comes,
and deep snow blankets the woods,
and ice forms cold and smooth on the lakes,
thick enough for us to skate on,
some people think our woods are empty.
But we know better.

The fallen log that is used to hide behind in a snowball fight is a shelter for tree frogs, caterpillars, ladybugs, and slugs. The drifts of fallen snow that families snowshoe across have winding tunnels made by meadow mice in search of seeds and bark. The towering trees families ski among shield birds from winter winds.

When Winter Comes celebrates the joy of playing and exploring in the outdoors during the winter months.

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Way Too Many Latkes

Linda Glaser

Faigel makes the best Hanukkah latkes in Chelm, but somehow, this year she's forgotten how to make them! She sends her husband, Shmuel, to ask the rabbi for help. And in Chelm, the village of fools--oy vey!--this becomes a recipe for disaster!

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There Was a Young Rabbi

Suzanne Wolfe

Hanukkah is a very busy time! Join the young rabbi as she makes festive preparations--spinning the dreidel, cooking a tasty meal, lighting the menorah, and more--in this cumulative, rhyming story reminding readers of the Hanukkah miracle of long ago! Learn about Hanukkah's festivities and rituals, and about the Jewish holiday itself.

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The Story of Hanukkah

David A. Adler

No celebration of Hanukkah would be complete without recounting the events of more than two thousand years ago that the holiday commemorates. In a simple yet dramatic text and vibrant paintings, the story of the courageous Maccabees and the miracle that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem is retold.

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The Parakeet Named Dreidel

Isaac Bashevis Singer

When young David and Mama and Papa are celebrating Hanukkah one frosty winter evening in Brooklyn, Papa sees a parakeet sitting on the window ledge. He lets the parakeet in and everyone is delighted to find that it speaks Yiddish. They name it Dreidel and it becomes part of their family. Many years later, when David is in college, he is at a party one night and tells Dreidel's story—only to discover that Zelda, a young woman at the party, owned the bird herself as a child. Papa and Mama are worried that they will have to give their beloved pet back, but then David and Zelda decide to get married after college, and everyone agrees that they should take Dreidel with them as they start their own family.

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The Missing Letters

Renee Londner

It's almost Hanukkah and the dreidel-maker's shop is busy. But all is not well for the four Hebrew letters that will soon go on the wooden tops. The Heys, the Nuns, and the Shins are jealous of everyone's favorite letter, the Gimel. They decide to hide the Gimels so that the dreidel-maker can't use them. But then the other letters learn that the Hanukkah story wouldn't be complete without the Gimels! Is it too late for the missing letters to be found?

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The Amazing Adventures of Super Dreidel

Howard Eisenberg

Rachel and her brother Randy didn't know when they built a Super Dreidel for Hanukkah that it would fly them thousands of years back in time and into the middle of a war. They didn't know it would help the Maccabees win it. But then Super Dreidel crashed, and suddenly there was something else they didn't know: how in the world they could ever get home to Mom, Dad, and their dog Spot.

 

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Simon and the Bear

Eric A. Kimmel

Before Simon sails to America, he promises his family that he will get a job and send for them. Simon's mother knows he will need a miracle, so she reminds him to celebrate Hanukkah wherever he may be. Little does either of them know that Simon will spend the first night of Hanukkah on an ice floe after his ship sinks.The lone survivor out in the wide ocean, Simon lights the first candle, and it attracts a visitor: a polar bear. Does she eat him? No! She shares his latkes, enjoys his songs, goes fishing for him, and even keeps him warm at night. By the last day of Hanukkah, Simon has nearly given up hope of ever being rescued. But then he recounts all of the miracles that have befallen him so far. Perhaps it is not too much to hope for one more, he thinks, as he lights all of the candles in the menorah. The bright glow signals a passing ship, and Simon makes it to New York after all. This fanciful Hanukkah tale-like none you've ever read before-celebrates eight miracles: family, friendship, hope, selflessness, sharing, faith, courage, and love. A retelling of the ancient Hanukkah story is included on the last page.

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Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf

Greg Wolfe

In this delightfully inventive holiday tale, an elf named Shmelf takes a journey from the North Pole . . . and discovers all the joys of Hanukkah.

Shmelf is one of Santa's most important elves. He's part of the List Checking department, and he makes sure all the good boys and girls get their presents! But when Shmelf finds out that some children are missing from Santa’s list, he goes to investigate.

What Shmelf uncovers is Hanukkah, a wondrous and joyful holiday that Jewish families celebrate each year. As Shmelf observes a family lighting the menorah, playing dreidel, and hearing the Hanukkah story, he sees how special the traditions of the holiday truly are--and he wants to be a part of it! Luckily, Santa just might have a special role in mind for Shmelf . . .

The rich traditions of Hanukkah come to life in this whimsical and magical story that’s perfect for the holiday season.

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Sammy Spider's First Hanukkah

Sylvia A. Rouss

Sammy Spider watches longingly as Josh Shapiro lights another candle and receives another brightly colored dreidel each night of Hanukkah. Sammy's mother reminds him, "Spiders don't spin dreidels, spiders spin webs!" Then, on the last night, Sammy gets his own spinning surprise.

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Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas

Pamela Ehrenberg

In this sweet and humorous picture book, Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas, a multi-cultural family (Mom's Indian; Dad's Jewish) celebrate Hanukkah while incorporating traditional Indian food.

Instead of latkes, this family celebrates Hanukkah with tasty Indian dosas. To her brother's chagrin, little Sadie won't stop climbing on everything both at home and at the Indian grocery store, even while preparing the dosas. As the family puts the finishing touches on their holiday preparations, they accidentally get locked out of the house. Sadie and her climbing skills just may be exactly what is needed to save the day.

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Oskar and the Eight Blessings

Richard Simon

A refugee seeking sanctuary from the horrors of Kristallnacht, Oskar arrives by ship in New York City with only a photograph and an address for an aunt he has never met. It is both the seventh day of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, 1938. As Oskar walks the length of Manhattan, from the Battery to his new home in the north of the city, he passes experiences the city's many holiday sights, and encounters it various residents. Each offers Oskar a small act of kindness, welcoming him to the city and helping him on his way to a new life in the new world.

 

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Origami for Hanukkah

Robyn Hardyman

In North American, Hanukkah is thought of as a winter holiday. But in the southern hemisphere, Hanukkah happens during the summer! Fun facts like this one are found throughout this fun craft book. Readers can learn about the history of Hanukkah while creating gifts perfect for one of the eight nights of the holiday! Candles, envelopes to hold money, and dreidels can all be created from paper by following the clear instructions found in this book. Photographs of each step show each project in process and in its colorful, completed form.

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Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise

Karen Fisman

Rachel loves visiting her Italian grandmother, even though Nonna celebrates Christmas and Rachel and her parents celebrate Hanukkah. Rachel plans to share Hanukkah with her whole family, so when Rachel's special hanukkiah goes missing, Nonna steps in to save the day.

 

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Maccabee!

Tilda Balsley

Judah and the little army of the Maccabees fight to free Jerusalem from the cruel King Antiochus in a rhyming version of the famous Hanukkah story.

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Is It Hanukkah Yet?

Nancy Krulik

Families who celebrate Hanukkah will recognize the familiar anticipation of the little girl in this story. And what better way to make the wait go faster than to read this sweet family story. Kids will recognize their favorite songs, games, and traditions in this early reader that captures the joy and warmth of the Festival of Lights.

Step 2 readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. They are perfect for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

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I Know an Old Lady who Swallowed a Dreidel

Caryn Yacowitz

A family drives through the snow to visit their beloved bubbe, who spreads out a Chanukah supper for everyone to enjoy. But one dish goes a little wrong:

"I know an old lady who swallowed a dreidel
A Chanukah dreidel she thought was a bagel...
Perhaps it's fatal."

Indeed, Bubbe's first bite leads to an insatiable taste for oil, latkes, applesauce, gelt -- even menorahs! But as the family tries to distract her from her gluttony, the items she devours grow ever larger. Will they be able to reconnect with her and bring her home for the last night of Chanukah -- or will her feasting in fact be fatal?
Beyond the joy of a Jewish take on this most American of folk songs, the illustrations here offer hilarious parodies of great works of art by da Vinci, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hopper, Rockwell, Matisse, Picasso, and other masters--adding a whole new layer of humor and culture to the familiar tune. You'll love this old lady, and want to visit her every Chanukah for years to come.

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Happy Llamakkah!

Laura Gehl

Follow along with the Llama family's Hanukkah traditions as they light their menorah, spin the dreidel, fry latkes, and more. Laura Gehl's lively rhyming text and Lydia Nichols's vibrant illustrations make for a festive read. The book also features kid-friendly back matter, with expanded information on the holiday's history and traditions.

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Happy Hanukkah, Pout-Pout Fish

Deborah Diesen

Celebrate Hanukkah with Mr. Fish and his friends—it's eight nights of fun! From a delicious meal to lighting the menorah, Hanukkah is a time of joy. Toddlers will love swimming along with the pout-pout fish as he turns little pouts into big smiles in this original board book.

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Happy Hanukkah, Little Dreidel

Brick Puffinton

Mazel tov! It's time to spin the dreidel! Hebrew school is in session for little dreidels everywhere, and they're hard at work learning all the game rules and practicing their biggest and best spin moves. Introduce your little one to all the Hebrew letters inscribed on a dreidel --Nun, Shin, Hey, and Gimel. Celebrate the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah with this delightful story featuring a soft, plush finger puppet dreidel toy built into the book encouraging interactive play, hand-eye coordination, sensory and language development. Babies and toddlers learn best when they are playing, especially when their grown-ups are in on the fun!

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Hanukkah

Bonnie Bader

It's Hanukkah time! Preschoolers will learn all about how people celebrate Hanukkah--from eating latkes, spinning dreidels, exchanging gifts, and lighting the menorah. And they'll also learn why they celebrate--from the destruction of the Temple, the bravery of the Maccabees, and the miracle of that little bit of oil that lasted for eight nights. Filled with colorful illustrations and simple, yet informative text, this Big Golden Book is perfect for reading again and again. Share it with your family this Hanukkah!

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Hanukkah Haiku

Harriet Ziefert

Hanukkah Haiku is a cultural crossover that pays off: a traditionally Japanese poetic form used to celebrate the eight nights of Hanukkah. There's one haiku for each night, and stepped pages add one candle to the menorah every time the page is turned. The simple poetry is set off perfectly by Karla Gudeon's vibrant, freewheeling artwork. A perfect gift, or good to reread each year, Hanukkah Haiku is a jubilant, unforgettable journey through the eight nights of Hanukkah.

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Hanukkah Bear

Eric A. Kimmel

Bubba Brayna makes the best latkes in the village, and on the first night of Hanukkah, the scent of her cooking wakes a hungry, adorable bear from his hibernation.  He lumbers into town to investigate, and Bubba Brayna—who does not see or hear very well—mistakes him for her rabbi. She welcomes the bear inside to play the dreidel game, light the menorah, and enjoy a scrumptious meal.

However, after her well-fed guest leaves, there's a knock at the door—it's the rabbi, and all of Brayna's other friends, arriving for dinner.  But there are no latkes left—and together, they finally figure out who really ate them.

Lively illustrations by Mike Wohnoutka, portraying the sprightly Bubba Brayna and her very hungry guest, accompany this instant family favorite, a humorous reworking of Eric A. Kimmel’s earlier classic tale, The Chanukkah Guest. A traditional recipe for latkes is included in the back matter, along with interesting, digestible facts about the history and traditions of Hanukkah.

A 2013 National Jewish Book Award Winner, this book is perfect for a holiday story time with children— either in the classroom or at home, as an introduction for young readers to the traditions and customs of Hanukkah, and as a classic to return to year after year.

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Hanukkah

Molly Aloian

Hanukkah is a Jewish festival of lights that celebrates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Hanukkah is observed over eight days by lighting a candle on the Menorah, a special candelabrum, once each day. After lighting the candle, Jews recite blessings and sing special hymns.

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Goodnight Bubbala

Sheryl Haft

In the small blue room there was a bubbala, and a little shmatta,
and then--oy vey!--came the whole mishpacha!

This zesty parody of one of America's favorite picture books offers a very different bedtime routine: one that is full of family exuberance and love. Instead of whispers of "hush," this bedtime includes dancing and kvelling, and of course, noshing--because this little bunny is a Jewish bunny, and this joyous book celebrates the Jewish values of cherishing your loved ones, expressing gratitude, and being generous.

Filled with Yiddish words, the book includes a phonetic glossary and even an easy latke recipe by beloved cookbook author Ina Garten, who calls the book "brilliant, beautiful, important, and so much fun!"

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Hanukkah

Terri Sievert

A brief description of what Hanukkah is, how it started, and ways people celebrate this cultural holiday.

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Clifford Celebrates Hanukkah

Norman Bridwell

Clifford and Emily Elizabeth are celebrating their first Hanukkah. They love hearing the story of Hanukkah, eating latkes (fried potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (fried jelly donuts), and playing dreidel. After dinner, Clifford and Emily Elizabeth take a trip into town to see the giant menorah. But when they get there, they discover that one light is broken. It's too late in the evening to call a handyman, but maybe Clifford is big enough to help save Hanukkah!Featuring a full page of stickers!

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All-of-a-kind Family Hanukkah

Emily Jenkins

Acclaimed author Emily Jenkins (A Greyhound, a Groundhog) and Caldecott Award-winning artist Paul O. Zelinsky (Rapunzel) bring the beloved All-of-a-Kind Family to life in a new format. Fans, along with those just meeting the five girls ("all of a kind," as their parents say), will join them back in 1912, on the Lower East Side of NYC, and watch as preparations for Hanukkah are made. When Gertie, the youngest, is not allowed to help prepare latkes, she throws a tantrum. Banished to the girls' bedroom, she can still hear the sounds and smell the smells of a family getting ready to celebrate. But then Papa comes home and she is allowed out--and given the best job of all: lighting the first candle on the menorah.

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A Hanukkah with Mazel

Joel Edward Stein

Misha, a poor artist, has no one to celebrate Hanukkah with until he discovers a hungry cat in his barn. The lucky little cat, whom Misha names Mazel, inspires Misha to turn each night of Hanukkah into something special. He doesn't have money for Hanukkah candles, but he can use his artistic skills to bring light to his home--as Mazel brings good luck to his life.

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All American Boys

Jason Reynolds

A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature.

In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award–winning novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.

A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?

There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before.

Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviews tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.

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The Bitter Side of Sweet

Tara Sullivan

For fans of Linda Sue Park and A Long Way Gone, two young boys must escape a life of slavery in modern-day Ivory Coast

Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou, can chop down in a day. This number is very important. The higher the number the safer they are because the bosses won't beat them. The higher the number the closer they are to paying off their debt and returning home to Moke and Auntie. Maybe. The problem is Amadou doesn't know how much he and Seydou owe, and the bosses won't tell him. The boys only wanted to make some money during the dry season to help their impoverished family. Instead they were tricked into forced labor on a plantation in the Ivory Coast; they spend day after day living on little food and harvesting beans in the hot sun--dangerous, backbreaking work. With no hope of escape, all they can do is try their best to stay alive--until Khadija comes into their lives.

She's the first girl who's ever come to camp, and she's a wild thing. She fights bravely every day, attempting escape again and again, reminding Amadou what it means to be free. But finally, the bosses break her, and what happens next to the brother he has always tried to protect almost breaks Amadou. The old impulse to run is suddenly awakened. The three band together as family and try just once more to escape.

Tara Sullivan, the award-winning author of the astounding Golden Boy, delivers another powerful, riveting, and moving tale of children fighting to make a difference and be counted. Inspired by true-to-life events happening right now, The Bitter Side of Sweet is an exquisitely written tour de force not to be missed.

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The Distance Between Us

Reyna Grande

From an award-winning novelist and sought-after public speaker, an eye-opening memoir about life before and after illegally emigrating from Mexico to the United States.

Mago pointed to a spot on the dirt floor and reminded me that my umbilical cord was buried there. “That way,” Mami told the midwife, “no matter where life takes her, she won’t ever forget where she came from.”

Then Mago touched my belly button . . . She said that my umbilical cord was like a ribbon that connected me to Mami. She said, “It doesn’t matter that there’s a distance btween us now. That cord is there forever.”

When Reyna Grande’s father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to make the dangerous trek across the border to the United States, he promises he will soon return from “El Otro Lado” (The Other Side) with enough money to build them a dream house where they can all live together. His promises become harder to believe as months turn into years. When he summons his wife to join him, Reyna and her siblings are deposited in the already overburdened household of their stern, unsmiling grandmother.

The three siblings are forced to look out for themselves; in childish games they find a way to forget the pain of abandonment and learn to solve very adult problems. When their mother at last returns, the reunion sets the stage for a dramatic new chapter in Reyna’s young life: her own journey to “El Otro Lado” to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.

In this extraordinary memoir, award-winning writer Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years, capturing all the confusion and contradictions of childhood, especially one spent torn between two parents and two countries. Elated when she feels the glow of her father’s love and approval, Reyna knows that at any moment he might turn angry or violent. Only in books and music and her rich imaginary life does she find solace, a momentary refuge from a world in which every place feels like “El Otro Lado.”

The Distance Between Us captures one girl’s passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. A funny, heartbreaking, lyrical story, it reminds us that the joys and sorrows of childhood are always with us, invisible to the eye but imprinted on the heart, forever calling out to us of those places we first called home.

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I Am Malala

Malala Yousafzai

The bestselling memoir by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

I Am Malala. This is my story.
Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school.

Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding the bus on her way home from school.

No one expected her to survive.

Now Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. In this Young Readers Edition of her bestselling memoir, which has been reimagined specifically for a younger audience and includes exclusive photos and material, we hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age that she wanted to change the world -- and did.

Malala's powerful story will open your eyes to another world and will make you believe in hope, truth, miracles and the possibility that one person -- one young person -- can inspire change in her community and beyond.
 

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March: Book 1

John Lewis

"Congressman John Lewis has been a resounding moral voice in the quest for equality for more than 50 years, and I'm so pleased that he is sharing his memories of the Civil Rights Movement with America's young leaders. In March, he brings a whole new generation with him across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, from a past of clenched fists into a future of outstretched hands." - President Bill Clinton

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell (winner of the Eisner Award and LA Times Book Prize finalist for Swallow Me Whole). March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall. Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story."

Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations. Coretta Scott King Author Honor Books selection: recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults: "March: Book One," written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell, and published by Top Shelf Productions.

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Symptoms of Being Human

Jeff Garvin

A sharply honest and moving debut perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ask the Passengers.

Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. But Riley isn't exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in über-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley's life.

On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it's really like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley's starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley's real identity, threatening exposure. And Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything.

From debut author Jeff Garvin comes a powerful and uplifting portrait of a modern teen struggling with high school, relationships, and what it means to be a person.

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The Way I Used to Be

Amber Smith

A New York Times bestseller!

In the tradition of Speak, this extraordinary debut novel shares the unforgettable story of a young woman as she struggles to find strength in the aftermath of an assault.


Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes.

What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

Told in four parts—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year—this provocative debut reveals the deep cuts of trauma. But it also demonstrates one young woman’s strength as she navigates the disappointment and unbearable pains of adolescence, of first love and first heartbreak, of friendships broken and rebuilt, and while learning to embrace a power of survival she never knew she had hidden within her heart.

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The Word for Yes

Claire Needell

At once honest and touching, Claire Needell's debut novel is a moving look at date rape and its aftermath, at the love and conflicts among sisters and friends, and how these relationships can hold us together—and tear us apart.

The gap between the Russell sisters—Jan, Erika, and Melanie—widens as each day passes. Then, at a party full of blurred lines and blurred memories, everything changes. Starting that night, where there should be words, there is only angry, scared silence.

And in the aftermath, Jan, Erika, and Melanie will have to work hard to reconnect and help one another heal.

The Word for Yes will inspire necessary conversation about a topical and important issue facing our society. The book includes a thoughtful author's note that provides resources for readers.

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Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE - PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" - NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT

Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone)

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

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Citizen: an American lyric

Claudia Rankine

* Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry *
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award *

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . .

A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric.

Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

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Dear Martin

Nic Stone

"Powerful, wrenching." -JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down

"Raw and gripping." -JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys

"A must-read!" -ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give

Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning #1 New York Times bestselling debut, a William C. Morris Award Finalist.


Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend--but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.

Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up--way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.

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Watch Us Rise

Renée Watson

"This stunning book is the story I've been waiting for my whole life; where girls rise up to claim their space with joy and power.” --Laurie Halse Anderson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Speak

"An extraordinary story of two indomitable spirits." --Brendan Kiely, New York Times bestselling co-author of All American Boys and Tradition

"Timely, thought-provoking, and powerful." --Julie Murphy, New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin'

Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Renée Watson teams up with poet Ellen Hagan in this YA feminist anthem about raising your voice.

Jasmine and Chelsea are best friends on a mission--they're sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, so they decide to start a Women's Rights Club. They post their work online--poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine's response to the racial microaggressions she experiences--and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by trolls. When things escalate in real life, the principal shuts the club down. Not willing to be silenced, Jasmine and Chelsea will risk everything for their voices--and those of other young women--to be heard.
These two dynamic, creative young women stand up and speak out in a novel that features their compelling art and poetry along with powerful personal journeys that will inspire readers and budding poets, feminists, and activists.

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Hearts Unbroken

Cynthia Leitich Smith

Winner of an American Indian Youth Literature Award

New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school -- and first love.

When Louise Wolfe's first real boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off and dumps him over e-mail. It's her senior year, anyway, and she'd rather spend her time with her family and friends and working on the school newspaper. The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, the ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper's staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director's inclusive approach to casting The Wizard of Oz has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town. From the newly formed Parents Against Revisionist Theater to anonymous threats, long-held prejudices are being laid bare and hostilities are spreading against teachers, parents, and students -- especially the cast members at the center of the controversy, including Lou's little brother, who's playing the Tin Man. As tensions mount at school, so does a romance between Lou and Joey -- but as she's learned, "dating while Native" can be difficult. In trying to protect her own heart, will Lou break Joey's?

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Refugee

Alan Gratz

A tour de force from acclaimed author Alan Gratz (Prisoner B-3087), this timely -- and timeless -- novel tells the powerful story of three different children seeking refuge.

A New York Times bestseller!

JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world . . .ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America . . .MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe . . .All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end.This action-packed novel tackles topics both timely and timeless: courage, survival, and the quest for home.

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Harbor Me

Jacqueline Woodson

When six students are chosen to participate in a weekly talk with no adults allowed, they discover that when they're together, it's safe to share the hopes and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world.

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Jazz Owls: a novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

Margarita Engle

From the Young People’s Poet Laureate Margarita Engle comes a searing novel in verse about the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

Thousands of young Navy sailors are pouring into Los Angeles on their way to the front lines of World War II. They are teenagers, scared, longing to feel alive before they have to face the horrors of battle. Hot jazz music spiced with cool salsa rhythms calls them to dance with the local Mexican American girls, who jitterbug all night before working all day in the canneries. Proud to do their part for the war effort, these Jazz Owl girls are happy to dance with the sailors—until the blazing summer night when racial violence leads to murder.

Suddenly the young white sailors are attacking these girls’ brothers and boyfriends. The cool, loose zoot suits they wear are supposedly the reason for the violence—when in reality these boys are viciously beaten and arrested simply because of the color of their skin.

In soaring images and powerful poems, this is the breathtaking story of what became known as the Zoot Suit Riots as only Margarita Engle could tell it.

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Ghost Boys

Jewell Parker Rhodes

"Twelve-year old Jerome is the latest victim, shot by a white police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing. Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and sociopolitical layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world." -- Back cover.

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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity. The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

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Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom

Lynda Blackmon Lowery

A memoir of the Civil Rights Movement from one of its youngest heroes

A Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book
Kirkus Best Books of 2015

Booklist Editors' Choice 2015
BCCB Blue Ribbon 2015

As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

Straightforward and inspiring, this beautifully illustrated memoir brings readers into the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, complementing Common Core classroom learning and bringing history alive for young readers.

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The 57 Bus

Dashka Slater

A New York Times Bestseller
Stonewall Book Award Winner—Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist


One teenager in a skirt.
One teenager with a lighter.
One moment that changes both of their lives forever.

If it weren’t for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.

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Ancient Ones

Kirk Mitchell

Kirk Mitchell won acclaim with his first two suspense novels featuring Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigator Emmett Quanah Parker and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed. Now the author of Cry Dance and Spirit Sickness pairs Parker and Turnipseed once more, to investigate a case where the discovery of a mysterious skeleton on an Oregon Indian reservation will pit the demands of modern forensics against traditional tribal laws.
Though there are signs of foul play, Emmett Quanah Parker and Anna Turnipseed aren't looking for a killer -- the remains dug out of a riverbank by an illegal fossil hunter are 14,000 years old. Parker and Turnipseed are sent to central Oregon as official witnesses to the examination of John Day Man, as he is dubbed, for the bones have quickly provoked a controversy that threatens to erupt into violence: the skeleton is not Native American but distinctly Caucasian, shattering long-held tenets concerning who the first inhabitants of this continent were.
Emmett, with his Comanche and white ancestry, and Anna, a reservation-born Modoc with Asian blood, share a sensitivity to both parties' concerns -- and a forbidden attraction that's causing them professional and personal problems. They've broken the unwritten law that partners should never get emotionally involved. Having crossed that line, Emmett and Anna are too distracted by each other to see the escalating suspicion and fear around them when a young tribal anthropologist is swallowed by the misty night and within hours of her disappearance the fossil hunter who discovered the skeleton is found disemboweled.
The Warm Springs Indians insist that the unburied bones of the Ancient One have been turned into a "skep, a murderous spirit that haunts the darkness. As winter closes in on the steppes of the Columbia Plateau, accusations of ritualized murder fly between the Indian and white communities -- and the fight turns deadly when a second skeleton is unearthed.
In the midst of the turmoil, Emmett and Anna are paralyzed by their own demons. This estrangement could prove deadly if they stop watching each other's back long enough for a killer to target them too. And at the center of it all are the Ancient Ones, exacting a terrible price as the dark path to resolution runs a gauntlet through the boneyards of prehistory.

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As the Crow Flies

Craig Johnson

Walt gets shanghaied into a murder investigation on the Reservation in this New York Times bestseller from the author of The Cold Dish and Hell Is Empty, the most recent novel in the Walt Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series Fans of Robert B. Parker will love this eighth adventure in the New York Times bestselling and award-winning Walt Longmire mystery series. Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire has a more important matter on his mind than cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married to the brother of his undersheriff, Victoria Moretti. Walt and old friend Henry Standing Bear are the de facto wedding planners and fear Cady's wrath when the wedding locale arrangements go up in smoke two weeks before the big event.

The pair set out to find a new site for the nuptials on the Cheyenne Reservation, but their scouting expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior's majestic cliffs. It's not Walt's turf, but the newly appointed tribal police chief and Iraqi war veteran, the beautiful Lolo Long, shanghais him into helping with the investigation. Walt is stretched thin as he mentors Lolo, attempts to catch the bad guys, and performs the role of father of the bride.

 

 

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This Tender Land

William Kent Krueger

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade

A magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression, from the bestselling author of Ordinary Grace.

1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

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House Made of Dawn

N. Scott Momaday

A special 50th anniversary edition of the magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning classic from N. Scott Momaday, with a new preface by the author

A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his grandfather’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world—modern, industrial America—pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, claiming his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust.

Beautifully rendered and deeply affecting, House Made of Dawn has moved and inspired readers and writers for the last fifty years. It remains, in the words of The Paris Review, “both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature.”

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Windigo Island

William Kent Krueger

Cork O’Connor battles vicious villains, both mythical and modern, to rescue a young girl in the latest nail-biting mystery from New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger.

When the body of a teenage Ojibwe girl washes up on the shore of an island in Lake Superior, the residents of the nearby Bad Bluff reservation whisper that it was the work of a deadly mythical beast, the Windigo, or a vengeful spirit called Michi Peshu. Such stories have been told by the Ojibwe people for generations, but they don’t explain how the girl and her friend, Mariah Arceneaux, disappeared a year ago. At the request of the Arceneaux family, Cork O’Connor, former sheriff turned private investigator, takes on the case.

But on the Bad Bluff reservation, nobody’s talking. Still, Cork puts enough information together to find a possible trail. He learns that the old port city of Duluth is a modern-day center for sex trafficking of vulnerable women, many of whom are young Native Americans. As the investigation deepens, so does the danger.

Yet Cork holds tight to his higher purpose—his vow to find Mariah, an innocent fifteen-year-old girl whose family is desperate to get her back. With only the barest hope of saving her from men whose darkness rivals that of the legendary Windigo, Cork prepares for an epic battle that will determine whether it will be fear, or love, that truly conquers all.

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North Star: a Barnaby Skye novel

Richard S. Wheeler

There is a season for all things. . . For Barnaby Skye, legendary guide and man of the borders, it is time to start a new life. For Skye's younger wife, the beautiful Shoshone woman he calls Mary, it is time to find the beloved son she has not seen in seven years. For Skye's half-blood son, North Star, it is time to discover who he is. And for Skye's older Crow wife, Victoria, the whole world is spinning out of control. In this sweeping novel of the early West, Skye and his wives and son cope with radical change as the wilderness vanishes, the buffalo are slaughtered, and the government puts the tribes on reservation lands. How can people born and bred to tribal life learn to live another way? Their struggle takes the Skyes from the Crazy Mountains in Montana to St. Louis and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, wrestling with the tide of settlers and the new settlements that dot the western plains and mountains - a tide that leaves no good place for a veteran borders man with two Indian wives and a mixed-blood son.

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Burn Out

Marcia Muller

Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation, Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California's high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to investigate anything during her stay--and perhaps not ever again--McCone is drawn into the plight of the young woman and her dysfunctional family. A murder and traces of violence at a deserted resort lead her across the desert and into Nevada, and finally to a remote and isolated ranch, where danger lies closer that she expects and where her future and life itself may hang in the balance.

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Spoils of the Dead

Dana Stabenow

Newenham is an ice-bound bush town with a six-bed jail, a busted ATM and a saloon that does double-duty as a courtroom. It's a wide-enough patch to warrant a state police presence, though, and Trooper Liam Campbell is it. Campbell has been exiled from Anchorage to Newenham in disgrace, busted down from sergeant to trooper in the aftermath of a mistake that cost a family of five their lives, to spend some time in the wilderness. Campbell didn't expect the job to be simple and it hasn't. From the (literally) cutthroat business of commercial fishing, to the paranoid misanthropy of the back-country prospector, to drug dealers, serial killers, and caches of forgotten war gold, he has had his hands full. Now he has a dead archaeologist, murdered at their own dig site, who claimed to be on the verge of a momentous discovery. Fans of the icy frontier, of mystery tinged with a frisson of romance, of laconic lawmen with good intentions, of tai chi and small aircraft piloting take note: Liam Campbell is for you.

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An American Sunrise

Joy Harjo

In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family's lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of her homeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenous families, essentially disappeared. From her memory of her mother's death, to her beginnings in the native rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo's personal life intertwines with tribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings. Her poems sing of beauty and survival, illuminating a spirituality that connects her to her ancestors and thrums with the quiet anger of living in the ruins of injustice. A descendent of storytellers and "one of our finest--and most complicated--poets" (Los Angeles Review of Books), Joy Harjo continues her legacy with this latest powerful collection.

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Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Steve Sheinkin

A great American sport and Native American history come together in this true story for middle grade readers about how Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner created the legendary Carlisle Indians football team, from New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Award recipient Steve Sheinkin.

“Sheinkin has made a career of finding extraordinary stories in American history.” —The New York Times Book Review

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book
A New York Times Notable Children's Book
A Washington Post Best Book


Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team is an astonishing underdog sports story—and more. It’s an unflinching look at the U.S. government’s violent persecution of Native Americans and the school that was designed to erase Indian cultures. Expertly told by three-time National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin, it’s the story of a group of young men who came together at that school, the overwhelming obstacles they faced both on and off the field, and their absolute refusal to accept defeat.

Jim Thorpe: Super athlete, Olympic gold medalist, Native American
Pop Warner: Indomitable coach, football mastermind, Ivy League grad

Before these men became legends, they met in 1907 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football," they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and the Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.

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Celebrating Veterans Day

Elaine Landau

Veterans Day is a holiday which celebrates those who served in the military and helped to protect our country with their service. Readers will learn about its history and how it is celebrated today.

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