The Year of Miss Agnes


Book Description

A Smithsonian Notable Book for Children A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year “Genius.” —The New York Times Book Review A beautiful repackage marking the twentieth anniversary of the beloved, award-winning novel that celebrates teachers and learning. Ten-year-old Frederika (Fred for short) doesn’t have much faith that the new teacher in town will last very long. After all, they never do. Most teachers who come to their one-room schoolhouse in remote Alaska leave at the first smell of fish, claiming that life there is just too hard. But Miss Agnes is different: she doesn’t get frustrated with her students, and finds new ways to teach them to read and write. She even takes a special interest in Fred’s sister, Bokko, who has never come to school before because she is deaf. For the first time, Fred, Bokko, and their classmates begin to enjoy their lessons—but will Miss Agnes be like all the rest and leave as quickly as she came?




Bo at Ballard Creek


Book Description

It's the 1920s, and Bo was headed for an Alaska orphanage when she won the hearts of two tough gold miners who set out to raise her, enthusiastically helped by all the kind people of the nearby Eskimo village. Bo learns Eskimo along with English, helps in the cookshack, learns to polka, and rides along with Big Annie and her dog team. There's always some kind of excitement: Bo sees her first airplane, has a run-in with a bear, and meets a mysterious lost little boy. Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill is an unforgettable story of a little girl growing up in the exhilarating time after the big Alaska gold rushes.




Winter Camp


Book Description

In the “compelling” (Kirkus Reviews) sequel to Toughboy and Sister, the two young kids struggle as they learn to survive at a winter trapping camp during the harsh Alaskan winter. Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Toughboy and his younger sister have been living with Natasha, an eldery, cantankerous Athabascan Indian. In the late fall, Natasha flies with them to a camp where the children learn to trap and live during the Alaskan winter. But when an old miner is seriously injured and Natasha has to leave to get help, Toughboy and Sister are pushed to their limits as they learn to survive for themselves while caring for the injured miner.




Toughboy and Sister


Book Description

They’ve never faced danger before. Now they’re alone—and they have no choice. Every summer, Toughboy and his younger sister stay at their isolated family fish camp on the Yukon River. There, away from their Alaskan village, they help their parents catch and smoke salmon. But that was before their mother died and everything changed. This year, their father brings them back to the camp, but before he can set things up, he vanishes. No one knows that Toughboy and Sister have been left alone in the wilderness to fend for themselves. Days and then weeks pass. Their food runs out, and their radio stops working. What are they going to do now? “This quiet, simply told story speaks in a distinctive voice about stoic courage, dignity, and survival.”—The Horn Review “Sure to satisfy survival-story fans.”—Kirkus Reviews




Agnes Grey


Book Description

As the daughter of a modest minister, Agnes Grey has low prospects in life. After her father loses most of the family’s savings, Agnes is determined to help out and takes a position as governess for a wealthy family. Being a governess turns out to be more challenging than she could have predicted as she has to manage spoiled children and petty parents, while dependent on their approval for her livelihood. Agnes Grey is the first novel by Anne Brontë, published in 1847, and today considered an everlasting classic. Like the famous Jane Eyre, by Anne’s sister Emily Brontë, it deals with the precarious position of the governess and how the young women taking on that role were treated. It is a poignant and insightful novel that explores rigid class structures and the challenges it poses to women. ANNE BRONTË [1820-1849] was an English poet and novelist. She was the youngest of the three Brontë authors, her older sisters being Emily and Charlotte. Anne died young, probably from tuberculosis, having published the novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the latter hailed today as one of the first feminist novels.




Wrapped


Book Description

Seventeen-year-old Agnes Wilkins is about to make her debut into 1815 London society at a lavish party, where she meets Lord Showalter, a wealthy and eligible man who collects Egyptian antiquities and who is hiding a dangerous secret.




Bo at Iditarod Creek


Book Description

Ever since five-year-old Bo can remember, she and her papas have lived in the little Alaskan mining town of Ballard Creek. Now the family must move upriver to Iditarod Creek for work at a new mine, and Bo is losing the only home she's ever known. Initially homesick, she soon realizes that there is warmth and friendship to be found everywhere . . . and what's more, her new town may hold an unexpected addition to her already unconventional family. As with Bo at Ballard Creek, this stand-alone sequel is a story about love, inclusion, and day-to-day living in the rugged Alaskan bush of the late 1920s. Full of fascinating details, it is an unforgettable story.




Agnes and Her Amazing Orchid


Book Description

Nominated for the 2019 Singapore Book Awards, Best Children's Picture Book In the 1800s, a girl named Agnes Joaquim was passionate about plants. She even learned to grow cool-weather European vegetables in the tropical heat of Singapore. As she grew up, she collected many prizes for her plants. One day, after many trials and difficulty, she created a brand-new orchid. She showed it to an orchid expert named Henry Ridley, who officially named the flower the Vanda Miss Joaquim. This is the story of how one woman's ingenuity and determination created a flower that became world famous...and Singapore's National Flower in 1981. "Agnes and Her Amazing Orchid chronicles the remarkable journey of a brilliant horticulturist. An excellent introduction to our national flower, this wonderful book also provides a glimpse into the orchid breeding process. Singapore has a rich heritage in orchid cultivation, being one of the leading orchid hybridisation centres in the world. I hope this engaging story will inspire an interest in horticulture and botany amongst our children." —Kenneth Er, CEO of National Parks Board "A remarkable story of Agnes Joaquim’s passion for horticulture, whose interest in breeding orchids led her to become the first woman to breed a hybrid orchid – Singapore’s national flower the Vanda Miss Joaquim. Her story inspires us all to pursue our dreams." —Rosa Daniel, Deputy Secretary (Culture) Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth




Notre-Dame


Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2022 FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY BOOK AWARD The profound emotion felt around the world upon seeing images of Notre-Dame in flames opens up a series of questions: Why was everyone so deeply moved? Why does Notre-Dame so clearly crystallise what our civilisation is about? What makes ‘Our Lady of Paris’ the soul of a nation and a symbol of human achievement? What is it that speaks so directly to us today? In answer, Agnès Poirier turns to the defining moments in Notre-Dame’s history. Beginning with the laying of the corner stone in 1163, she recounts the conversion of Henri IV to Catholicism, the coronation of Napoleon, Victor Hugo’s nineteenth-century campaign to preserve the cathedral, Baron Haussmann’s clearing of the streets in front of it, the Liberation in 1944, the 1950s film of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn, and the state funeral of Charles de Gaulle, before returning to the present. The conflict over Notre-Dame’s reconstruction promises to be fierce. Nothing short of a cultural war is already brewing between the wise and the daring, the sincere and the opportunist, historians and militants, the devout and secularists. It is here that Poirier reveals the deep malaise – gilet jaunes and all – at the heart of the France.




Anna's Athabaskan Summer


Book Description

A young Athabaskan girl and her family make the annual return to their summer fish camp where they prepare for the long winter ahead.