The Girls in My Town


Book Description

The autobiographical essays in The Girls in My Town create an unforgettable portrait of a family in Los Angeles. Reaching back to her grandmother’s childhood and navigating through her own girlhood and on to the present, Angela Morales contemplates moments of loss and longing, truth and beauty, motherhood and daughterhood. She writes about her parents’ appliance store and how she escaped from it, the bowling alley that provided refuge, and the strange and beautiful things she sees while riding her bike in the early mornings. She remembers fighting for equal rights for girls as a sixth grader, calling the cops when her parents fought, and listening with her mother to Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” the soundtrack of her parents’ divorce. Poignant, serious, and funny, Morales’s book is both a coming-of-age story and an exploration of how a writer discovers her voice.




A Town Called River


Book Description

Returning to his hometown of Rijeka, Croatia, to wrap things up after his grandmother's passing, Paul gets more than he expected in terms of inheritance-way more than just a stuffy old apartment downtown. The legacy of his grandmother's work as a krsnik-a traditional magic user tasked with keeping the thin line between the humans and the things that prey on them-falls on his shoulders, threatening to change everything he thought he knew about life, the city he left behind so long ago, and himself. As the line keeps getting thinner, it'll soon be up to Paul, with help from some unexpected (and witchy) places, to prove worthy of his legacy while fighting for the city's humanity, and trying not to lose his own along the way.




My Town by a River


Book Description

Chatham, New Jersey is a small town situated on the banks of the Passaic River. The first visitors were the Lenni Lenape Indians who stopped in Chatham on their annual migration from Sussex County to the Atlantic Ocean. They called the river the "Fishawack". In late August of 1781, while his troops were camped in Morristown, George Washington wrote seventeen letters from a Chatham homestead. After the Revolutionary War, Chatham's convenient location, just a day's journey from New York City, made it a popular overnight stop for east-west travelers. The mid nineteenth century brought vacationers from Newark and New York City to enjoy Chatham's "salubrious air." Drawn to the bucolic setting, many vacationers returned to make Chatham their home. Today Chatham is a bustling commuter suburb. Its tenuous ties to a simpler time exist mainly in the memories of its citizens. A native Chathamite, Liz Holler chronicles those times. From Swimming with the Roses to The Tea Room Era, Liz's stories depict life in a small town by the river. These vignettes, first published in the Chatham Historical Society newsletters, depict a moment in time that adds to Chatham's rich past.




River Town


Book Description

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.




My Town


Book Description

Two cousins live in two towns, separated by a river. But there is also a bigger divide--the US-Mexico border--which means they live in different countries. On the girl's side, English is the main language, and on the boy's it's Spanish. The cousins love their towns, and they love visiting each other's, where they notice some things are the same and some are wonderfully different, adding up to a vibrant world full of even more possibilities. Author Nicholas Solis shows how border towns are special places, beautiful and dynamic, because two cultures can be better than one--and both cultures should be equally treasured and respected.




The Other Side of the River


Book Description

Bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Kotlowitz takes us to two towns in southern Michigan, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, separated by the St. Joseph River. Geographically close, but worlds apart, they are a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears. The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America.




A River Town


Book Description

Fleeing to Australia to escape the repressive life of British-controlled Ireland, Tim Shea is alarmed by his new home's equally stifling social order and its inclination towards prejudice. By the author of Schindler's List.




A River


Book Description

“This stunningly illustrated book, rendered in deep blues and greens, charts a river’s meandering course through cities, farms and jungles.” —Entertainment Weekly A Winner of the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award There’s a river outside my window. Where will it take me? So begins the imaginary journey of a child inspired by the view outside her bedroom window: a vast river winding through a towering city. A small boat with a single white sail floats down the river and takes her from factories to farmlands, freeways to forests, out to the stormy and teeming depths of the ocean, and finally back to the comforts—and inspirations—of home. This lush, immersive book by award-winning picture book creator Marc Martin will delight readers of all ages by taking them on a transcendent and aspirational journey through an imaginative landscape. “A subtle study of how imagination allows children to safely explore the unknown without ever leaving home.” —Publishers Weekly




Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery


Book Description

When Lacy wakes up dead in Westminster Cemetery, final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe, she's confused. It's the job of Sam, a young soldier who died in 1865, to teach her the rules of the afterlife and to warn her about Suppression—a punishment worse than death. Lacy desperately wants to leave the cemetery and find out how she died, but every soul is obligated to perform a job. Given the task of providing entertainment, Lacy proposes an open mic, which becomes a chance for the cemetery's residents to express themselves. But Lacy is in for another shock when surprising and long-buried truths begin to emerge.




My Town: Motown!


Book Description

This is the story of one man's burden for the city he lived in and loved. Detroit, once America's leading industrial city, falls with political corruption, racial intolerance, and its auto industry's refusal to change. Bob spearheads the partnering of his New York City church with an inner-city Detroit church, trusting God's power to take one small step in revitalizing Detroit. This book may challenge you to trust God to raise you from your own struggles. "Bob Chancia has accurately and passionately communicated the issues facing Detroit as well as the hope for Detroit-the Gospel of Jesus Christ ... because Jesus is the only hope for Detroit and all men. Bob, a native New Yorker, loves Detroit as much as we native Detroiters. I couldn't put this book down! A must read!" -Diane Denaro Frank, founder and executive director, AngelHouse.org "Here is the account of a miracle touching two great cities. New York's Calvary Baptist Church, by joining with Detroit's Citadel of Faith Covenant Church, has displayed the power and presence of Christ in helping bring a once great city back to vibrant life. Bob Chancia has beautifully and forcefully recounted this miracle that touches two cities." -Rev. James O. Rose, pastor emeritus, Calvary Baptist Church, New York City; Dallas Theological Seminary board of directors for nineteen years.