Greetings From Below

Set in Vegas, these Mary McCarthy Prize-winning stories chronicle what becomes of a man contorted by grief and sexual regret.

Moving can be scary, but by the end of his first day at his new school, Roy is happy to find a piece of his old home, Jamaica, in his new home. The first day at a new school is nerve-wracking enough, never mind when it’s in a new country! In this lively picture book from award-winning storyteller Itah Sadu, Roy realizes he may come to love his new home as much as he loves his old home. Written as an email to a friend back home, this picture book tells the story of Roy, whose family has just moved to North America from Jamaica. His new home is different from his old home — even the sun feels cold! His nerves ease, though, as welcome reminders of home follow him through his day. His neighbor gives him a button as a gift for his first day of school. The principal tells him about the soccer team and his new class makes him feel welcome. Everything is looking up until Roy goes to show his classmates his new button and he can’t find it! He rushes back to the principal’s office where they look up and down and all around for the button. Thanks to his powers of observation, Roy finds it in an unexpected place and is able to show it to his new friends. The friendly people he meets, and their shared love of Bob Marley, make for a good start at his new school. Sadu captures the voice of a young boy in a new country in this story about finding a new home while still staying proud of where you’re from. Harlem-based artist Alix Delinois shows the joy of making new friends with his vibrant, layered paintings. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

Nicki Demere is an orphan and a pickpocket. She also happens to be the U.S. Marshals’ best bet to keep a family alive. . . . The marshals are looking for the perfect girl to join a mother, father, and son on the run from the nation’s most notorious criminals. After all, the bad guys are searching for a family with one kid, not two, and adding a streetwise girl who knows a little something about hiding things may be just what the marshals need. Nicki swears she can keep the Trevor family safe, but to do so she’ll have to dodge hitmen, cyberbullies, and the specter of standardized testing, all while maintaining her marshal-mandated B-minus average. As she barely balances the responsibilities of her new identity, Nicki learns that the biggest threats to her family’s security might not lurk on the road from New York to North Carolina, but rather in her own past. Jake Burt's debut middle-grade novel Greetings from Witness Protection! is as funny as it is poignant.

Aggie isn't expecting visitors at the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Since her husband died, she is all alone with her cat, Ugly, and keeping up with the bills and repairs has become next to impossible. The pool is empty, the garden is overgrown, and not a soul has come to stay in nearly three months. When she reluctantly places a For Sale ad in the newspaper, Aggie doesn't know that Kirby and his mom will need a room when their car breaks down on the way to Kirby's new reform school. Or that Loretta and her parents will arrive in her dad's plumbing company van on a trip meant to honor the memory of Loretta's birth mother. Or that Clyde Dover will answer the For Sale ad in such a hurry and move in with his daughter, Willow, looking for a brand-new life to replace the one that was fractured when Willow's mom left. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that Aggie and her guests find just the friends they need at the shabby motel in the middle of nowhere. From an author long recognized for her true Southern voice and heartfelt characters, Greetings from Nowhere, with its four intertwining stories, brings Barbara O'Connor's work to a new level of sophistication. This title has Common Core connections.

From "Magic Number" to "UFO Experts", this fun collection of activities, chants, and greetings helps teachers build a positive climate for learning while giving students practice in reading, math, problem-solving, and more. Each activity includes: Suggested grade levelAcademic and social skills practicedMaterials neededConcise, easy-to-follow directions

Now in its second edition, this volume offers a strong synthesis of classic and current work in conversation analysis (CA), usefully encapsulated in a model of interactional practices that comprise interactional competence. Through this synthesis, Wong and Waring demonstrate how CA findings can help to increase language teachers’ awareness of the spoken language and suggest ways of applying that knowledge to teaching second language interaction skills. The Second Edition features: Substantial updates that include new findings on interactional practices Reconceptualized, reorganized, and revised content for greater accuracy, clarity, and readability Expanded key concepts glossary at the end of each chapter New tasks with more transcripts of actual talk New authors' stories The book is geared towards current and prospective second or foreign language teachers, material developers, and other language professionals, and assumes neither background knowledge of conversation analysis nor its connection to second language teaching. It also serves as a handy reference for those interested in key CA findings on social interaction.