Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna


Book Description

2022 Pura Belpré Honor Book NYPL Best Book of 2021 Texas Bluebonnet Master List Selection NPR Best Book of 2021 Based on a true story, the tale of one girl's perilous journey to cross the U.S. border and lead her family to safety during the Mexican Revolution. "Wrenching debut about family, loss, and finding the strength to carry on."—Booklist, starred review "Blazes bright, gripping readers until the novel's last page."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Vital and perilous and hopeful."—Alan Gratz, New York Times bestselling author of Refugee It is 1913, and twelve-year-old Petra Luna's mama has died while the Revolution rages in Mexico. Before her papa is dragged away by soldiers, Petra vows to him that she will care for the family she has left—her abuelita, little sister Amelia, and baby brother Luisito—until they can be reunited. They flee north through the unforgiving desert as their town burns, searching for safe harbor in a world that offers none. Each night when Petra closes her eyes, she holds her dreams close, especially her long-held desire to learn to read. Abuelita calls these barefoot dreams: "They're like us barefoot peasants and indios—they're not meant to go far." But Petra refuses to listen. Through battlefields and deserts, hunger and fear, Petra will stop at nothing to keep her family safe and lead them to a better life across the U.S. border—a life where her barefoot dreams could finally become reality. "Dobbs' wrenching debut, about family, loss, and finding the strength to carry on, illuminates the harsh realities of war, the heartbreaking disparities between the poor and the rich, and the racism faced by Petra and her family. Readers will love Petra, who is as strong as the black-coal rock she carries with her and as beautiful as the diamond hidden within it."—Booklist, starred review




The White Prisoner


Book Description

This wasn't the first time Galabin Boevski felt oppressed. He had suffered the atrocious legacy of communism and the lack of support that a talented athlete like him should otherwise expect from his motherland.It had been a week since his arrest. He'd spent a night in the jail of Sao Paulo's airport, then transferred to another Brazilian prison for temporary detention. Now he was in Itai, a prison for foreigners, full of people from all over the world.His memories kept rushing in and he kept going over the unfortunate events over and over. What went wrong? He spent his first night in jail with 1500 prisoners who were serving their sentences there - murderers, rapists, fraudsters and thieves, but the majority of them people like him - accused of drug trafficking. "I'm not a mule," he thought, "I am Galabin Boevski. Legendary weightlifter and Olympic champion, not a criminal!" ...based on a true story... ------------------------------------------------------ Galabin Boevski is a complicated figure and weightlifting is a complex sport, filled with intrigue and drama. On the stage, the bar does not lie. You either lift it or not. Behind the scenes, however, as The White Prisoner: Galabin Boevski's Secret Story makes plain, it can be an enormous struggle not just to become Olympic champion but to stay on top. Alan Abrahamson, bestselling author I read the entire volume in two days. I could not put it down. The plot lines leading up to what would hopefully reveal the final athletic and legal outcomes of Boevski were compelling. Mr. Georgiev has done a master job of story telling. One that will provide a much need insight into the psyches, personalities and foibles of star weightlifters and their coaches. Bob Takano, coach and author of Olympic weightlifting It's quite a fascinating story, with quite a bit of drama, as well as elements of tragedy. I found it to be a very gripping and compelling read. Daniel Rosen, author of Dope: A History of Performance Enhancement in Sports from the Nineteenth Century to Today The White Prisoner provides a rare glimpse into the world of Bulgarian weightlifting-chronicling the development of Olympic gold medalist, world champion and world record holder Galabin Boevski, and how things went awry: first in weightlifting and then in Brazil. If you are a weightlifting fan, this is a must-read book, and if you want to be introduced to a gritty world and a universal sport you might never have known existed, you will also want to dive into The White Prisoner. Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D. , Founder & President, IronMind Enterprises, Inc.




Petra


Book Description

The humorous adventures of an irresistible little rock who finds herself in constantly changing circumstances, Petra is a picture book that celebrates the power of perspective and believing in yourself. Petra is a little rock who believes she is a mighty mountain . . . until a dog fetches her for its owner, and she is tossed into a bird's nest. A mountain? No, Petra is now an egg! An egg of the world in a world of possibility. Until she's flung into a pond, and becomes an amazing island . . . and, eventually, a little girl's pet rock. What will she be tomorrow? Who knows? But she's a rock, and this is how she rolls!




When the Wind Blew


Book Description

While Big Bear and Little Bear are snuggled up for the night, a wild storm rages. The bears wake up to find that the wind has knocked down all of the trees in their forest, they'll have to move. Little Bear is distraught. He loves their home! But Big Bear helps him understand that home isn't where you are, but who you're with. Author and illustrator Petra Brown's sweet, superbly rendered characters and tender story are perfect for helping little ones deal with a move or change.




Petra Rising


Book Description

The Prison World Stands Alone In the ten years since they seized control of Petra, now called Haven, Kane Pythen and his allies have struggled to build a civilization strong enough to withstand the backlash they know is coming from the Petra Compact. But an eleventh-hour betrayal leaves them defenseless, and old wounds threaten to tear their community apart. Kane forges a desperate plan-one that might brand him as a criminal, if it doesn't get him killed first. Enemies thought long defeated re-emerge, war with the Bone Tribes brews in Mainland, and Kane's wife Tayla is about to arrive with a warning that the Compact is right behind her. The battle for freedom reaches its climax. Kane, Tayla, and their friends face the ultimate sacrifice. Will they will rise...or fall? Petra Rising is the third and final book in The Prison World Revolt series.




The Last Cuentista


Book Description

An unforgettable journey through the stars, to the very heart of what makes us human. The incredible Newbery Medal-winning novel from Donna Barba Higuera. "Gripping in its twists and turns, and moving in its themes - truly a beautiful cuento." - NEW YORK TIMES Había una vez . . . There lived a girl named Petra Peña, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth will soon be destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?




Under the Feet of Jesus


Book Description

Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature “Stunning.”—Newsweek With the same audacity with which John Steinbeck wrote about migrant worker conditions in The Grapes of Wrath and T.C. Boyle in The Tortilla Curtain, Viramontes presents a moving and powerful vision of the lives of the men, women, and children who endure a second-class existence and labor under dangerous conditions in California's fields. At the center of this powerful tale is Estrella, a girl about to cross the perilous border to womanhood. What she knows of life comes from her mother, who has survived abandonment by her husband in a land that treats her as if she were invisible, even though she and her children pick the crops of the farms that feed its people. But within Estrella, seeds of growth and change are stirring. And in the arms of Alejo, they burst into a full, fierce flower as she tastes the joy and pain of first love. Pushed to the margins of society, she learns to fight back and is able to help the young farmworker she loves when his ambitions and very life are threatened in a harvest of death. Infused with the beauty of the California landscape and shifting splendors of the passing seasons juxtaposed with the bleakness of poverty, this vividly imagined novel is worthy of the people it celebrates and whose story it tells so magnificently. The simple lyrical beauty of Viramontes' prose, her haunting use of image and metaphor, and the urgency of her themes all announce Under the Feat of Jesus as a landmark work of American fiction.




The Story of My Life


Book Description

The Story of My Life, originally published in Czechoslovakia in 1928, is the engaging and informative autobiography of Frank Vlchek, a Czech immigrant who became a successful businessman in Cleveland, Ohio, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The youngest of fourteen children, Vlchek was born to peasant parents in Budyn, southern Bohemia, in 1871. After attempting a career in blacksmithing in Bohemia, at the age of seventeen he decided to follow his two older sisters to Cleveland, home to America's second-largest Czech community. Vlchek worked a variety of unsatisfactory jobs during his first years in Cleveland. In 1895 he opened his own smithing operation, which after a long struggle was transformed into a successful corporation that specialized in the manufacture of toolkits for automobiles. acquisitions, and the successes and travails of his operation. Vlchek was often able to travel home to Czechoslovakia, and during those trips he noted the different cultural and political attitudes that had evolved between Czechs and their Czech American cousins. Vlchek's memoir provides a rare primary source about Czech immigrants. It also offers insight into a self-made man's life philosophy, illustrates relations between ethnic groups in Cleveland during the 1880s, and demonstrates the assimilation of a late-nineteenth-century immigrant in America. Readers interested in immigration history as well as the history of Cleveland will enjoy this fascinating autobiography.




Married To A Bedouin


Book Description

'A fascinating account of life as Bedouin in the late twentieth century' Mary S. Lovell 'This sparkling memoir is a refreshing antidote and a rare window into the legendary hospitality and mysterious customs of the Bedouin Arabs' Publishing News '"Where you staying?" the Bedouin asked. "Why you not stay with me tonight - in my cave?"' Thus begins Marguerite van Geldermalsen's story of how a New Zealand-born nurse came to be married to Mohammad Abdallah Othman, a Bedouin souvenir-seller from the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. It was 1978 and she and a friend were travelling through the Middle East when Marguerite met the charismatic Mohammad who convinced her that he was the man for her. She lived with him in a two thousand-year-old cave carved into the red rock of a hillside, became the resident nurse for the tribe that inhabited that historical site and learned to live like the Bedouin: cooking over fires, hauling water on donkeys and drinking sweet black tea. She learned Arabic, converted to Islam and gave birth to three children. Over the years she became as much of a curiosity as the cave-dwellers, with tourists including David Malouf and Frank McCourt encouraging her to tell this, her extraordinary story.




Petra K and the Blackhearts


Book Description

Welcome to Pava, a city where miniaturized show-dragons are pitted against each other in secret, forbidden tournaments, and magic has been outlawed by a cruel child dictator. Here lives Petra K, the daughter of a shut-in mother, who becomes the master of a dragonka everyone wants to get their hands on. In a complicated world of sorceresses, gypsies, child gangs, and secret police, Petra K needs to decide whom to trust, and whom to betray in order to keep herself and her pet safe. But revolution is in the air, and she too is caught up in its pull. Only the Blackhearts, a gang of orphan children, dare to defy the new dictator’s rule, selling potions to survive. Along with the Blackhearts, Petra K faces a murderous pack of mechanical dragonka, a phantom secret agent—and, most harrowing, her own weaknesses. Will the Blackhearts’ adventures and courage inspire the terrified population to rise up again, and return Pava to a place of prosperity, where dragonka run free? Petra K and the Blackhearts is the first thrilling book of a trilogy by M. Henderson Ellis, whose previous novel Booklist called "a wild, manic ride . . . thoroughly enjoyable." From the Trade Paperback edition.




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