After being raped by her employer's husband at the age of eleven, Ida Mae Holland (also known as 'Cat'), became a rebel, getting expelled from high... school, turning to prostitution, serving jail time for shoplifting and assault. But when she stumbled across the civil rights movement, the troublemaker found herself developing into a leader -- on the front lines of marches and protects, facing police dogs and water hoses, being beaten and jailed again and again, all in a struggle for freedom. The dream soon turned into a nightmare, however, as Cat's family suffered the cruellest retribution at the hands of white bigots that she could ever have imagined.

When suburban Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, she knows she doesn't just want to run from somewhere she wants to run to somewhere--to a place that... is comfortable, beautiful, and preferably elegant. She chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Knowing that her younger brother, Jamie, has money and thus can help her with the serious cash flow problem she invites him along. Once settled into the museum, Claudia and Jamie, find themselves caught up in the mystery of an angel statue that the museum purchased at an auction for a bargain price of $250. The statue is possibly an early work of the Renaissance master Michelangelo, and therefore worth millions. Is it? Or isn't it? Claudia is determined to find out. This quest leads Claudia to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the remarkable old woman who sold the statue and to some equally remarkable discoveries about herself.

When suburban Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, she knows she doesn't just want to run from somewhere, she wants to run to somewhere -- to a place... that is comfortable, beautiful, and, preferably, elegant. She chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Knowing that her younger brother Jamie has money and thus can help her with a serious cash-flow problem, she invites him along. Once settled into the museum, Claudia and Jamie find themselves caught up in the mystery of an angel statue that the museum purchased at auction for a bargain price of $225. The statue is possibly an early work of the Renaissance master, Michelangelo, and therefore worth millions. Is it? Or isn't it? Claudia is determined to find out. Her quest leads her to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the remarkable old woman who sold the statue, and to some equally remarkable discoveries about herself.

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away...so she decided not to run FROM somewhere, but TO somewhere. And so,... after some careful planning, she and her younger brother, Jamie, escaped -- right into a mystery that made headlines!

"Achingly brilliant, an epic made mad, made extraordinary."—Junot Díaz"Hallucinatory, lyrical, by turns comic and tragic, this extraordinary novel... should make Sjón an international name. His evocation of seventeenth century Iceland through the eyes of a man born before his time has stuck in my mind like nothing else I’ve read in the last year."—Hari KunzruThe year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty, and cruelty.Men of science marvel over a unicorn's horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret, and both books and men are burnt.Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen foul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Jonas recalls his gift for curing "female maladies," his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.Sjón was born in Reykjavik in 1962. He won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize (the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) for The Blue Fox, which was also longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009. Sjón was nominated for an Oscar for the song lyrics he wrote for Björk in the film Dancer in the Dark and has been working on Björk's latest project, Biophilia. His work has been translated into twenty-three languages.

Ballet is a paradox: much loved but little studied. It is a beautiful fairy tale; detached from its origins and unrelated to the men and women who... created it. Yet ballet has a history, little known and rarely presented. These great works have dark sides and moral ambiguities, not always nor immediately visible. The daring and challenging quality of ballet as well as its perceived 'safe' nature is not only one of its fascinations but one of the intriguing questions to be explored in this 2007 Companion. The essays reveal the conception, intent and underlying meaning of ballets and recreate the historical reality in which they emerged. The reader will find new and unexpected aspects of ballet, its history and its aesthetics, the evolution of plot and narrative, new insights into the reality of training, the choice of costume and the transformation of an old art in a modern world.

The role the South has played in contemporary conservatism is perhaps the most consequential political phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth... century. The region’s transition from Democratic stronghold to Republican base has frequently been viewed as a recent occurrence, one that largely stems from a 1960s-era backlash against left-leaning social movements. But as Joseph Lowndes argues in this book, this rightward shift was not necessarily a natural response by alienated whites, but rather the result of the long-term development of an alliance between Southern segregationists and Northern conservatives, two groups who initially shared little beyond opposition to specific New Deal imperatives. Lowndes focuses his narrative on the formative period between the end of the Second World War and the Nixon years. By looking at the 1948 Dixiecrat Revolt, the presidential campaigns of George Wallace, and popular representations of the region, he shows the many ways in which the South changed during these decades. Lowndes traces how a new alliance began to emerge by further examining the pages of the National Review and Republican party-building efforts in the South during the campaigns of Eisenhower, Goldwater, and Nixon. The unique characteristics of American conservatism were forged in the crucible of race relations in the South, he argues, and his analysis of party-building efforts, national institutions, and the innovations of particular political actors provides a keen look into the ideology of modern conservatism and the Republican Party.

Jacqueline Woodson's remarkable, award-winning story of a boy coming to grips a sudden change in his family.Melanin Sun's mother has some big news: ... she's in love with a woman. Now he has many decisions to make: Should he stand by his mother even though it could mean losing his friends? Should he abandon the only family he's ever known? Either way, Melanin Sun is about to learn the true meaning of sacrifice, prejudice, and love.

FROM THE OLD DIPLOMACY TO THE NEW, 1865-1900, 2ND ED. By ROBERT BEISNER 195 pages, paperback, ISBN: (0-88295-833-X) Historians have long argued about... the nature of the changes that occurred in American foreign policy at the turn of the century, and whether those changes represented an abrupt break from the past or the culmination of long-term trends. Beisner addresses these issues by recasting the questions involved, and synthesizes the most useful contributions of both traditional and revisionist historians. From the Old Diplomacy to the New reinterprets the entire period as one in which American foreign policy underwent a fundamental paradigm shift that affected the goals and methods of diplomacy. A commitment to systematic policy and a determination to promote American interests in a dangerous world characterized the "new diplomacy."

On the other side of night, Francisco Alarcón is waiting. One of Chicano literature's premier poets, Alarcón has brought his luminous images to... the page in such acclaimed volumes as Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes and Snake Poems. Now he has assembled the best of his work from fifteen years, along with fourteen new poems, in a book that distills his magical sense of reality into a cup brimming with passion. Raised in Guadalajara and now living in the San Francisco Bay area, Alarcón sees that " 'Mexican' / is not / a noun / or an / adjective / 'Mexican' / is a life / long / low-paying / job." Participating in a poetic tradition that goes back to the mystic Spanish poets of the sixteenth century, he brings us sonnets infused with romance and tenderness—and shorter poems that are direct and hard-hitting commentaries on American society, as he cries out for "a more godlike god," one "who spends nights / in houses / of ill repute / and gets up late / on Saturdays." Alarcón invokes both the mysteries of Mesoamerica and the "otherness" of his gay identity. "My skin is dark / as the night / in this country / of noontime," he writes, "but my soul / is even darker / from all the light / I carry inside." In lyrical poems open to wide interpretation, he transcends ethnic concerns to address social, sexual, and historical issues of concern to all Americans. The fourteen new poems in From the Other Side of Night offer startling new commentaries on life and love, sex and AIDS. Shifting effortlessly between English and Spanish—and even Nahuatl—Alarcón demonstrates the gift of language that has earned him both a wide readership and the admiration of fellow poets. With this book, he invites new readers to meet him where the darkness is palpable and the soul burns bright.

We can't read this book without becoming more sensitive to the things students react to. And this prompts us to reexamine our teaching strategies,... practices, and assumptions. - English JournalStudent voices are the backbone of this book. From some five thousand pages of data--in the form of interview transcripts, transcribed composing aloud sessions, student papers, and field notes--the author has distilled a chilling account of what went wrong over the years in the writing lives of forty eleventh graders she observed and interviewed in urban, suburban, and suburban/rural schools, from the East Coast, the Midwest, and the West Coast. The book explores the writing experiences of successful, unsuccessful, and ESL writers. It includes students whose teachers have had writing project experience and those who haven't. It examines writers' responses to teachers and peers as well as to institutions, curriculums, and social factors. And it suggests ways to help students find voice and reestablish intrinsic motivation for writing.

This text examines the profound impact of World War II on American government. It argues that the wartime and immediate postwar experiences of the 1940s... transformed and redirected the policies and government institutions of the New Deal. The author proposes a new model of the state and of "state-building"; he then applies this model, which derives from the resource dependence perspective, to the historical record of four areas of public policy: social security, labour-management relations, public finance and military procurement.

Readers theatre is a powerful tool for building language skills and involving young readers with literature. Educator and seasoned readers-theatre coach... Shirlee Sloyer provides teachers and librarians with nuts-and-bolts guidelines for integrating readers theatre into the classroom and library. Detailed instructions for every step guide readers through the process of setting up and conducting a successful program that is based on NCTE and IRA standards. Grades 4-8Includes: . An Overview of Readers Theatre. Selecting the Literature. Exploring Key Literary Elements. Compiling and Adapting Material. Classroom Procedures. Preparing for Performance. The Performance and Afterward. A Model Program and Script. 11 Classroom-Ready Sample Scripts

From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras is a major contribution to the study of globalization, labor, and women’s movements. Jennifer Bickham Mendez... presents a detailed ethnographic account of the Nicaraguan Working and Unemployed Women’s Movement, “María Elena Cuadra” (mec), which emerged as an autonomous organization in 1994. Most of its efforts revolve around organizing women workers in Nicaragua’s free trade zones and working to improve conditions in maquiladora factories. Mendez examines the structural and cultural elements of mec in order to demonstrate how globalization affects grassroots advocacy for social and economic justice. She argues that globalization has created opportunities for new forms of organizing among those local populations that suffer its effects and that mec, which has forged vital links with transnational feminist and labor groups, exemplifies the possibilities—and pitfalls—of this new type of organizing.Mendez draws on interviews with leaders and program participants, including maquiladora workers; her participant observation while she worked as a volunteer within the organization; and analysis of the public statements, speeches, and texts written by mec members. She provides a sense of the day-to-day operations of the group as well as its strategies. By exploring the tension between mec and transnational feminist, labor, and solidarity networks, she illustrates how mec women’s outlooks are shaped by both their revolutionary roots within the Sandinista regime and their exposure to global discourses of human rights and citizenship. The complexities of the women’s labor movement analyzed in From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras speak to social and economic justice movements in the many locales around the world.