Somewhere There Is Still A Sun

When the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia in 1941, twelve-year-old Michael and his family are deported from Prague to the Terezin concentration camp, where his mother's will and ingenuity keep them from being transported to Auschwitz and certain death.

Through poems and journal entries Simon Ortiz explores his Native American culture and the various challenges they face.

The natural world comes alive for young readers with Rookie Read-About RM Science! With striking, full-color photos and just the right amount of text, this series immediately involves young readers as they discover intriguing facts about the fascinating world around them.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, THE GUARDIAN, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, TIME, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE TIMES (UK), VULTURE, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, AND BOOKRIOT ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SUMMER 2021 READING LIST The magnificent new novel from Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro--author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day. “The Sun always has ways to reach us.” From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

South of the Border, West of the Sun is the beguiling story of a past rekindled, and one of Haruki Murakami’s most touching novels. Hajime has arrived at middle age with a loving family and an enviable career, yet he feels incomplete. When a childhood friend, now a beautiful woman, shows up with a secret from which she is unable to escape, the fault lines of doubt in Hajime’s quotidian existence begin to give way. Rich, mysterious, and quietly dazzling, in South of the Border, West of the Sun the simple arc of one man’s life becomes the exquisite literary terrain of Murakami’s remarkable genius.

Despite her parents' struggles with addiction, Lilly Dancyger always thought of her childhood as a happy one. But what happens when a journalist interrogates her own rosy memories to reveal the instability around the edges? Dancyger's father, Joe Schactman, was part of the iconic 1980s East Village art scene. He created provocative sculptures out of found materials like animal bones, human hair, and broken glass, and brought his young daughter into his gritty, iconoclastic world. She idolized him—despite the escalating heroin addiction that sometimes overshadowed his creative passion. When Schactman died suddenly, just as Dancyger was entering adolescence, she went into her own self-destructive spiral, raging against a world that had taken her father away. As an adult, Dancyger began to question the mythology she'd created about her father—the brilliant artist, struck down in his prime. Using his sculptures, paintings, and prints as a guide, Dancyger sought out the characters from his world who could help her decode the language of her father's work to find the truth of who he really was.

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested. But their efforts were not in vain: the boys' exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance. Interweaving his own narrative with the recollections of Knud himself, here is Phillip Hoose's inspiring story of these young war heroes. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.

Focuses on the lives of nine Jews who survived as children in Theresienstadt. They spent 1942-44 with their "madrich" or leader, 20-year-old Franta (Francis Maier), as part of a group of 40 Nesharim (Eagles). After a short discussion on various aspects of the camp, pp. 55-171 present interviews taken by the author, the wife of one of the "boys". The survivors, including Franta, relate their experiences during and after the Holocaust. Despite the horrors of ghetto life, that were felt more by their parents, these boys were mostly concerned with sports activities and their lessons. They were greatly influenced by Franta's idealism. Their reunions decades later and the contacts between them testify to the communal values they internalized as Nesharim. The boys are mentioned by their nicknames: Špulka (Erich Spitz), Kikina (George Repper), Míša (Michael Gruenbaum), Pajík (Paul Weiner), Pavel (Paul Huppert), Gorila (Jan Strebinger), Majošek (Martin Mayer), Robin (Robert Herz), and Extrabuřt (Hanuš Holzer). Franta, Pavel, Gorila, and Robin were eventually deported to other camps and Majošek was sent on a transport to Switzerland. Two additonal Nesharim survived the war but, unlike the others, remained in Czechoslovakia; they died before they could be interviewed.