A Trail Of Crab Tracks

The award-winning author Patrice Nganang chronicles the fight for Cameroonian independence through the story of a father’s love for his family and his land and of the long-silenced secrets of his former life. For the first time, Nithap flies across the world to visit his son, Tanou, in the United States. After countless staticky phone calls and transatlantic silences, he has agreed to leave Bangwa: the city in western Cameroon where he has always lived, where he became a doctor and, despite himself, a rebel, where he fell in love, and where his children were born. When illness extends his stay, his son finds an opportunity to unravel the history of the mysterious man who raised him, following the trail of crab tracks to discover the truth of his father and his country. At last, Nithap’s throat clears and his voice rises, and he drifts back in time to tell his son the story that is burned into his memory and into the land he left behind. He speaks about the civil war that tore Cameroon apart, about the great men who lived and died, about his soldiers, his martyrs, and his great loves. As the tale unfolds, Tanou listens to his father tell the history of his family and the prayer of the blood-soaked land. From New Jersey to Bamileke country, voices mingle, the borders of time dissolve, and generations merge. In A Trail of Crab Tracks, the third part of a magisterial trilogy by Patrice Nganang, the award-winning author creates an epic of war, inheritance, and desire, and of the relentless, essential struggle for freedom.

Ever wonder where sand comes from? Or why shells are colored differently? Or how to estimate the size of a wave? Featuring more than forty fun hands-on activities for families with children, Lessons from the Sand reveals the science behind the amazing natural wonders found on the beaches of North Carolina and South Carolina. Easy-to-do experiments will help parents and kids discover the ways water, wind, sand, plants, animals, and people interact to shape the constantly changing beaches we love to visit. Featuring colorful illustrations and clear instructions, most activities require nothing more than an observant eye and simple tools found at local stores. You will learn about geology, weather, waves and currents, the critters that live on our beaches, and the environmental issues that threaten them. Chapters also include indoor activities for rainy days and activities for nighttime discovery. This book will become an indispensable companion for families, teachers, and students heading to the Carolina coast for years to come.

The first-ever reference to the sign left by insects and other North American invertebrates includes descriptions and almost 1,000 color photos of tracks, egg cases, nests, feeding signs, galls, webs, burrows, and signs of predation. Identification is made to the family level, sometimes to the genus or species. It's an invaluable guide for wildlife professionals, naturalists, students, and insect specialists.

Featuring all-new spoor drawings, some 200 new photographs and an extra 35 species, this fully revised and updated edition of the ever-popular Tracker Manualis packed with the latest on the art of tracking. Based on information developed by some of southern Africa’s best traditional trackers, Tracker Manual gives even more guidance on how to identify the spoor of some 190 animal species. Individual chapters cover carnivores, large mammals, antelopes, small mammals, primates, hares and rodents, amphibians and reptiles, birds and insects. Each account contains: Simple, bulleted text on key points of each animal’s tracks. Clear, accurate track drawings. Numerous informative photographs, sometimes annotated. A list of similar tracks (where applicable), to avoid misidentification. An instructive introduction describes the science of tracking and outlines what to look for in the field, while a quick-reference table compares tracks that are easily confused. This detailed and richly illustrated manual to the region’s most common animal tracks and signs will prove invaluable in the field. Sales points: Presents the tracks and signs of over 190 different animals. Written and illustrated by experts in the field. Compact, portable and easy to use. Rich in visual detail. Useful instructive introduction to tracking.

A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Patrice Nganang's Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution. In 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, a ruler cast into exile by French colonialists. Merely nine years old, she is on the verge of becoming the sultan’s 681st wife. But when she is dragged to Bertha, the long-suffering slave charged with training Njoya’s brides, Sara’s life takes a curious turn. Bertha sees within this little girl her son Nebu, who died tragically years before, and she saves Sara from her fate by disguising her as her son. In Sara’s new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya---a magical yet vulnerable community of artists and intellectuals---and learns of the sultan’s final days in the Palace of All Dreams and the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had ever seen. Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to learn about the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for years, ready to tell her story. But her serpentine tale, entangled by flawed memory and bursts of the imagination, reinvents history anew. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant is a lyrical resurrection of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy to the people swept up in the forces of colonization.

Kim Thúy is a literary phenomenon, rising in her first decade of writing to a level of international recognition that few Québécois writers ever attain. The Vietnamese-born author’s novels have garnered literary prize recognition and have been translated from French into twenty-nine languages in nearly forty countries. Touching Beauty is the first collection to focus solely on Thúy and her economical yet poetic storytelling style that expresses both the traumatic and the beautiful. Her writings, which manage to be culturally specific all while speaking to the fundamentals of the human condition, are examined within the context of what is known as migrant literature in Canada and are situated within the history of Vietnamese literature in French that grew out of the colonial period. Chapters explore food, identity, gender, and the role of writing in Thúy’s life and work. Thúy herself contributes an unpublished poem and an extended interview that focus on her ongoing struggle to find, and write, beauty amidst war, migration, poverty, and loss. Touching Beauty maps the themes that have, to date, animated a literary career of global relevance and enduring value and encourages a deeper appreciation of Thúy’s writing.

Do you let the events of the past dictate to you who you are and what you can and cannot do with your life? Sam's Journal is a story of one man's journey of transformation. The book is a collection of letters Sam wrote, but never delivered, to his daughter who he had not seen in almost 30 years. The letters chronicle his change of heart and the lessons he learned through his life journey. These are the life transforming truths that God has given us; the power to create our lives and fulfill our dreams. The lessons brought forth from Sam's experiences will help you let go of the chains of your past and give you a vision and hope for your future.

Originally published in 1994, A Field Guide to Tracks and Signs of Southern and East African Wildlife quickly became the standard reference to the subject in the region, reprinting many times. This new edition provides the most detailed coverage of tracks, droppings, bird pellets, nests and shelters and feeding signs, not only for mammals, but also for birds, reptiles, insects and other invertebrates. Greatly expanded, this extensive update now features: full colour throughout; many