Little Eli

Imagination can lead to a gateway of imaginary worlds of adventure and fantasy especially for Little Eli. Little Eli is a wonderful highly-spirited spiritual little boy who was born with a physical condition, cerebral palsy, that has restricted him to a lifetime in a wheelchair. He does not have the ability to go out and make friends and play with the other little kids in the neighborhood or do any of the other things that kids his age would normally do, although he does not let this sway his faith or stop him from enjoying his life to the fullest. He is a very positive, fun-loving and energetic little boy who has figured out a way to create his own fun and entertain himself by escaping off into his own imaginary worlds filled with fantasy and adventures. With each adventure Little Eli will go on amazing journeys to different places far from his home. During his different adventures, he will spend the entire day traveling around meeting new friends who will often help guide him along a sacred path back to a spiritual gateway, which he must use after each journey to return home in time for dinner because he does not want his parents to worry. Having love and faith can be wonderful, and Little Eli is a courageous and inspirational little boy who has a tremendous amount of both.

Creating a national literature through a series of original poetry booklets.

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin’s 1946 autobiography The Making of a Southerner is considered a classic testament of a white southerner’s commitment to racial justice in a culture where little was to be found. Lumpkin’s unpublished novel Eli Hill, which was discovered in Lumpkin’s papers after her death, contributes to the same struggle by imaginatively re-creating a historical figure and a moment in the violent white resistance to Reconstruction. Born to enslaved parents in York County, South Carolina, Elias Hill (1819–1872) learned to read and write and became a popular Baptist minister. Owing to his influence, Hill was one of many victims of a series of vicious attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. After testifying before a congressional committee that emigration was the only solution, Hill and 135 other formerly enslaved people emigrated to Liberia. Lumpkin had trained as a sociologist and historian to use archival sources and data in arguing for socioeconomic change. In her autobiography, she uses the lens of an individual life, her own, to understand how racism was inculcated in white children and how they could free themselves from its grip. With Eli Hill, she turns to imagination, informed by archival research, to put an African American man at the center of a story about Reconstruction. In curating this important work of historical recovery for use in the classroom, Bruce Baker and Jacquelyn Dowd Hall have included the full text of the original manuscript and an introduction that contextualizes the novel in both its historical setting and its creation.

When Eli Manning found teammate Plaxico Burress in the end zone with just 35 seconds remaining in Super Bowl XLII, he completed what was perhaps the greatest game-winning drive and unlikely upset in Super Bowl history. But the drive, which also included a remarkable escape and pass completion to unheralded receiver David Tyree, was the culmination of years of promise and development. Champion quarterbacks aren't made overnight. With Manning, the Super Bowl MVP, as its focal point, New York Daily News Giants beat writer Ralph Vacchiano's Eli Manning: The Making of a Quarterback is a fascinating insider's look at the National Football League, how stars are made and crushed, and how fortunes are won and lost on the performance of one man: the quarterback. From the bold draft day trade that brought Manning to New York, through his dramatic ups and downs on and off the field, his first training camp to his last-minute heroics in Super Bowl XLII, Vacchiano takes a candid and revealing look at the people and events that made Manning's and his 2007 Giants' success one of the greatest stories in modern sports history. Complete with exclusive interviews with NFL stars, coaches, and executives and a foreword by former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, Vacchiano uses his unfettered access to the world champion Giants to present a true, behind-the scenes look at the quarterback and team that defied all of the experts and oddsmakers to pull off one of the most phenomenal upsets in pro football history.

Award-winning author Eric Schlich’s Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife isan accessible and big-hearted novel that explores belief and forgiveness as a boy grapples with his faith and sexuality on a rollicking family road trip to Bible World. When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that’s what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn’t so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father’s self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he’s started having sex dreams about Jesus. Between that and his mother’s terminal breast cancer diagnosis, Eli feels further from heaven than ever. But when the famous televangelist Charlie Gideon shows up at the Harpos’ doorstep with a proposal to create a new attraction based on Eli’s trip to the afterlife at his Bible-themed park, Eli isn’t able to say no. As the Harpos head off on a rollicking road trip from Kentucky to Bible World in Orlando, Eli is left to grapple with not just his faith and his sexuality, but also his own parents’ messy humanity and what happens when a family held together by mythmaking starts coming apart at the seams. Hilarious and moving, Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife is a kind-hearted story about self-discovery and the search for truth, wherever it takes you.

Eli is an adventurous young boy. One day he decides to explore his uncle's back yard, only to find that the yard has a magical element to it. During his adventures, he learns that love, courage and accepting responsibility are key attributes everyone must possess. Along the way, Eli and his best friend Gus, meet family members who help him learn values and the importance of having fun. This book is filled with adventures that, with a little imagination, can be found in every back yard. Parents will like the book because it teaches kids important life lessons.