Gator Gumbo

A new take on The Little Red Hen -- Cajun style Poor Monsieur Gator is getting old and is moving so slow he can't catch himself a taste of possum or otter, or even a whiff of skunk. Day after day those animals tease and taunt him until, finally, he decides to cook up some gumbo just like Maman used to make. But who will help him boil, catch, sprinkle, and chop? Certainly not rude Mademoiselle Possum, ornery Monsieur Otter, or sassy Madame Skunk. But when the gumbo is ready, they're more than eager to enjoy the result of Gator's hard work and as they run to get a taste - "Slurp! Slip! Plop! Them animals go into the pot." "Mmm-mmm," says Monsieur Gator. "Now, this is gumbo just like Maman used to make." Illustrated with wit and whimsy, this mischievous tale will have young readers laughing out loud.

Sixth-grader Liza K., one of five homeless people living in an unspoiled forest in southern Florida, searches for a missing alligator destined for official extermination and studies the delicate ecological balance keeping her outdoor home beautiful.

Literature-based activities designed to be used with five thematic sections covering plant and animal species, habitats, threats to the environment, natural phenomena, and technology.

A badass modern Cajun cookbook from Top Chef fan favorite Isaac Toups and acclaimed journalist Jennifer V. Cole, featuring 100 full-flavor stories and recipes. Things get a little salty down in the bayou... Cajun country is the last bastion of true American regional cooking, and no one knows it better than Isaac Toups. Now the chef of the acclaimed Toups' Meatery and Toups South in New Orleans, he grew up deep in the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana, where his ancestors settled 300 years ago. There, hunting and fishing trips provide the ingredients for communal gatherings, and these shrimp and crawfish boils, whole-hog boucheries, fish frys, and backyard cookouts -- form the backbone of this book. Taking readers from the backcountry to the bayou, Toups shows how to make: A damn fine gumbo, boudin, dirty rice, crabcakes, and cochon de lait His signature double-cut pork chop and the Toups Burger And more authentic Cajun specialties like Hopper Stew and Louisiana Ditch Chicken. Along the way, he tells you how to engineer an on-the-fly barbecue pit, stir up a dark roux in only 15 minutes, and apply Cajun ingenuity to just about everything. Full of salty stories, a few tall tales, and more than 100 recipes that double down on flavor, Chasing the Gator shows how -- and what it means -- to cook Cajun food today.

Prussian Blue is a bold fictional account of terrorism and chaos to life described in frightening realism. The novel has lots of action, and thought-provoking ideology, with mounting suspense. Prussian Blue is politically explosive. - Reader Views

North Korea continues to taunt the United States by detonating nuclear weapons and launching long-range missiles across the Pacific. This threat is suddenly overshadowed by the destruction of the US fleet by a group of highly coordinated Islamic terrorists as it sails through the Straits of Hormuz and into the Persian Gulf. As the crisis escalates, little attention is paid to several blue, bloated and grossly disfigured Asian sailors who wash ashore in Galveston, Texas. Likewise, the North Korean cargo ship 'Seoul' is able to slip into Whiskey Bay, Louisiana unnoticed, where she offloads her cargo: highly radioactive weapons of mass destruction. As more Asian sailors become deathly ill from the many weeks spent at sea in close proximity to their lethal cargo, they are transferred to a small hospital in Carencrow, Louisiana for treatment. Dr. Rex Bent, an emergency room physician, immediately becomes suspicious and notifies the proper authorities. With their coup de grace in jeopardy the extremists realize that not only Dr. Bent but also his wife and confidante, Sharon, must be eliminated without raising suspicion. Pursued and hounded like traitors who had betrayed their country, the Bents are in a race against time, determined to discover the significance of 'Prussian Blue'."

She left criminal life behind. Will her new business venture send her to sleep with the fishes? Florida Coast, 1932. Edith Duffy might be grieving her gangster husband’s death, but she’s no damsel in distress. Leaving the sordid world of Philadelphia bootlegging, she settles in a small town outside Miami and buys a speakeasy. But when she launches a lucrative rum-running operation, indignant locals conspire to destroy her. Edith lands squarely back in gangland culture, with a Bible-thumping preacher campaigning to shut her down and smugglers resentful of her skill. And now she must forge alliances and make unlikely allies just to survive. Luckily, her mentor is none other than the wife of the notorious Al Capone… Will Edith’s fondness for underworld profits lead her to a dead end? Gathering Storm is the first book in the Rum Runners’ Chronicles, a fast-paced historical women’s fiction trilogy. If you like atmospheric settings, mob stories, and independent heroines, then you’ll love Sherilyn Decter’s Prohibition-era adventure.

While many texts explore ways to plan and implement story times in both school and public libraries, until now no work has brought together extensive book talks and follow-up activities specifically designed to develop thinking skills in young children. This innovative study offers age-appropriate book suggestions with related questions and activities tailored to a variety of thinking skills, including verbal or linguistic thinking, divergent and creative thinking, analytical and mathematical thinking, visual or spatial thinking, and many others. The program presented in this volume was successfully developed and implemented in the preschool/kindergarten laboratory school of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, with 90 percent of the participating children selected for gifted programs in both public and private schools. Ideal for children's librarians, school librarians, teachers of early childhood gifted programs, parents, and homeschoolers, this study provides the tools for making any story hour a "brain power story hour."