Waiting For Snow

“Have mercy on me, Lord, I am Cuban.” In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Havana—exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by Fidel Castro’s revolution. Winner of the National Book Award, this stunning memoir is a vibrant and evocative look at Latin America from a child’s unforgettable experience. Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. For the Cuba of Carlos’s youth—with its lizards and turquoise seas and sun-drenched siestas—becomes an island of condemnation once a cigar-smoking guerrilla named Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1, 1959. Suddenly the music in the streets sounds like gunfire. Christmas is made illegal, political dissent leads to imprisonment, and too many of Carlos’s friends are leaving Cuba for a place as far away and unthinkable as the United States. Carlos will end up there, too, and fulfill his mother’s dreams by becoming a modern American man—even if his soul remains in the country he left behind. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is a eulogy for a native land and a loving testament to the collective spirit of Cubans everywhere.

Following on from the publication of Wold - a remarkable love story, Paul Judges has now brought together his first collection of poetry. The poems have been written over the last few years, and show the same simplicity, beauty and directness found in his first book. Like a cool, clear mountain pool in summer - just dip in and enjoy.

A searing testament to poetry's power to define and defy injustice, from iconic writer-activist Serhiy Zhadan Longlisted for the PEN America Literary Award for Poetry in Translation "Reading these words now is enough to make one's breath catch. [Ukraine's western partners] do not see themselves as members of its funeral processions; they do not routinely line the streets and kneel before passing coffins."--Linda Kinstler, Times Literary Supplement Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, the Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan has brought international attention to his country's struggle through his unflinching poetry of witness. In this searing testament to poetry's power to define and defy injustice, Zhadan honors the memory of the lost and addresses the living, inviting us to consider what language can offer to a country threatened with extinction. Young lovers, marginalized outsiders, and ordinary citizens pulse with life in a composite portrait of a people newly unified by extremity. Even in the midst of enemy fire, Zhadan's lyrical monuments, forged entirely in wartime, beat with a subterranean thrum of hope. Translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, and with a foreword by the poet Ilya Kaminsky, this selection of Zhadan's poetry is an homage to the Ukrainian people, a forceful reckoning with the violence of the past and present, and an act of artistic imagination that breaks with trauma and charts a new future for Ukraine.

'I first read a W. S. Graham poem in 1949. It sent a shiver down my spine. Forty-five years later nothing has changed. His song is unique and his work an inspiration.' Harold Pinter. From his first publications in the early 1940s, to his final works of the late 1970s, W. S. Graham has given us a poetry of intense power and inquisitive vision - a body of work regarded by many as among the best Romantic poetry of the twentieth century. This New Collected Poems, edited by poet and Graham-scholar Matthew Francis and with a foreword by Douglas Dunn, offers the broadest picture yet of Graham's work.

Whether used for thematic story times, program and curriculum planning, readers' advisory, or collection development, this updated edition of the well-known companion makes finding the right picture books for your library a breeze. Generations of savvy librarians and educators have relied on this detailed subject guide to children's picture books for all aspects of children's services, and this new edition does not disappoint. Covering more than 18,000 books published through 2017, it empowers users to identify current and classic titles on topics ranging from apples to zebras. Organized simply, with a subject guide that categorizes subjects by theme and topic and subject headings arranged alphabetically, this reference applies more than 1,200 intuitive (as opposed to formal catalog) subject terms to children's picture books, making it both a comprehensive and user-friendly resource that is accessible to parents and teachers as well as librarians. It can be used to identify titles to fill in gaps in library collections, to find books on particular topics for young readers, to help teachers locate titles to support lessons, or to design thematic programs and story times. Title and illustrator indexes, in addition to a bibliographic guide arranged alphabetically by author name, further extend access to titles.

Offers a detailed picture of the lives of Cuban Americans through interviews with artists, writers, and philosophers. This fascinating volume contains interviews with nineteen prominent Cuban-American artists, writers, and philosophers who tell their stories and share what they consider important for understanding their work. Struggling with issues of Cuban-American identity in particular and social identity in general, they explore such questions as how they see themselves, how they have dealt with the diaspora and their memories, what they have done to find a proper place in their adopted country, and how their work has been influenced by the experience. Their answers reveal different perspectives on art, literature, and philosophy, and the different challenges encountered personally and professionally. The interviews are gathered into three groups: nine artists, six writers, and four philosophers. An introductory essay for each group is included, and the interviews are accompanied by brief biographical notes, along with samples of the work of those interviewed. Jorge J. E. Gracia is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Chair in Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His many books include Race or Ethnicity? On Black and Latino Identity. Lynette M. F. Bosch is Professor of Art History at SUNY College at Geneseo and author of Cuban-American Art in Miami: Exile, Identity and the Neo-Baroque. Isabel Alvarez Borland is Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professor of Arts and Humanities at the College of the Holy Cross and author of Cuban-American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona.

In Cracks in the Schoolyard, Conchas challenges deficit models of schooling and turns school failure on its head. Going beyond presenting critical case studies of social inequality and education, this book features achievement cases that depict Latinos as active actors-not hopeless victims- in the quest for social and economic mobility. Chapters examine the ways in which college students, high school youth, English language learners, immigrant Latino parents, queer homeless youth, the children of Mexican undocumented immigrants, and undocumented immigrant youth all work in local settings to improve their quality of life and advocate for their families and communities. Taken together, these counternarratives will help educators and policymakers fill the cracks in the schoolyard that often create disparity and failure for youth and young adults.