The Zook in the Book


Book Description

When Zook jumps out of Amy Sue's book, things get pretty wild. Zook has many talents including being a chef. Zook makes his famous Mook batter that suddenly escapes the pot and slithers out through the streets of the town. How will they get it back? What will Amy Sue do? What will the town do! The amazing way it works out will make you chuckle.Will the Zook come back for another adventure? We'll see!




The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook


Book Description

In this warmhearted middle-grade novel, Oona and her brother, Fred, love their cat Zook (short for Zucchini), but Zook is sick. As they conspire to break him out of the vet’s office, convinced he can only get better at home with them, Oona tells Fred the story of Zook’s previous lives, ranging in style from fairy tale to grand epic to slice of life. Each of Zook’s lives has echoes in Oona’s own family life, which is going through a transition she’s not yet ready to face. Her father died two years ago, and her mother has started a relationship with a man named Dylan—whom Oona secretly calls “the villain.” The truth about Dylan, and about Zook’s medical condition, drives the drama in this loving family story. Praise for The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook STARRED REVIEW "Rocklin’s characters are fully developed: readers will be invested. Set in Oakland, readers are also treated to a refreshingly authentic child’s view of a diverse city. The only imperfection in this novel is that it ends." —Booklist, starred review “Oona’s character is a combination of Harriet the Spy in curiosity and Anastasia in spunk. Another emotionally satisfying outing from Rocklin; hanky recommended.” —Kirkus Reviews "Just as she did in One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street, Rocklin intertwines her characters so smartly that the many coincidences and serendipitous events feel organic to the story. The story’s ending—bittersweet, inevitable, and true—offers much-needed catharsis for the family and for anyone who has ever loved a pet." —The Horn Book "This heartwarming family tale is filled with resilient and thoughtful characters who are willing to learn from their mistakes. Readers who enjoy the novels of Jeanne Birdsall and Leslie Crunch will appreciate this charming story." —School Library Journal "There is a strong sense of place in this loving story with the ending sure to generate some tears. This would make a strong library lesson extension activity." —Library Media Connection Awards SCBWI’s Golden Kite Award for Fiction - 2012 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award




Unstoppable


Book Description

Over the next decade, two out of every three companies will face the challenge of their corporate lives: redefining their core business. Buffeted by global competition and facing an uncertain future, more and more executives will realize that they must make fundamental changes in their core even as they continue delivering the goods and services that keep them in business today. Unstoppable shows these managers how to look deep within their organizations to find undervalued, unrecognized, or underutilized assets that can serve as new platforms for sustainable growth. Drawing on more than thirty interviews with CEOs from companies such as De Beers, American Express, and Samsung, it shows readers how to recognize when the core needs reinvention and how to deploy the "hidden assets" that can be the basis for tomorrow's growth. Building on the author's previous books, Profit from the Core and Beyond the Core, this book shows how any company in crisis can transform itself to become truly unstoppable.




The Butter Battle Book: Read & Listen Edition


Book Description

The Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss's classic cautionary tale, introduces readers to the important lesson of respecting differences. The Yooks and Zooks share a love of buttered bread, but animosity brews between the two groups because they prefer to enjoy the tasty treat differently. The timeless and topical rhyming text is an ideal way to teach young children about the issues of tolerance and respect. Whether in the home or in the classroom, The Butter Battle Book is a must-have for readers of all ages. This Read & Listen edition contains audio narration.




The Eagle Soars


Book Description




Own Your Weird


Book Description

Tired of all the "shoulds" that guide your life? Want to create a life full of meaning? Work on your own terms? See the world a little differently? Then it's time to Own Your Weird. Creative entrepreneur Jason Zook certainly walks the walk of "owning his weird." He's had some crazy yet successful schemes -- he's made over a million dollars by having more than 1,600 companies pay him to wear their t-shirt (a project called I WearYour Shirt). Later he auctioned off his last name twice, for $50K each time. He then self-published his first book Creativity for Sale by nabbing sponsors and generating $75K in revenue. Now Own Your Weird is targeted to other potential "out of the box" thinkers who dream not only of doing work on their own terms, but also creating a meaningful life. Consider Jason your spirit guide, offering strategies for honing in on what makes you weird, recognizing when feedback is just another form of procrastination, and how to stop with social media already. There's a specific set of strategies and exercises that can help you prioritize your life over your business, by identifying your MMM (Minimum Monthly Magic) number. He also offers examples from his own life (how he got out of $124K worth of debt, escaped the pressure to have a big wedding, and has thrived on social media by primarily ignoring it). Own Your Weird is the permission slip you need to take that big risk. To finally chase down that big idea. And to let go of "supposed to" thoughts. See how life opens up when you break out of the blueprint.




Color by Fox


Book Description

Locating a persistent black nationalist desire - yearning for home and community - in the shows produced in the 1980s and 1990s, Zook shows how the Fox hip-hop sitcom both reinforced and rebelled against earlier black sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s.




I See Black People


Book Description

"I See Black People" is a narrative history of the behind-the-scenes politics of black television and radio ownership, including the stories of the failure of the Black Famlly Channel, The World African Network, and Russell Simmons Fabulous TV, as well as that of Catherine Hughes, who'd aggressively acquired radio stations, becoming the first black woman to head a firm that publicly traded on the stock exchange. While securing its place in the marketplace, the company is now 20 percent black owned. By offering insights into the failure of public policy that have impeded black access to ownership through the last thirty years, the author explores that current state of black media and questions its direction.




A Walk Through the Rain Forest


Book Description

The award-winning team behind Can We Save the Tiger? and Ape invites young readers to explore the breathtaking biodiversity of a Malaysian tropical rain forest. Conservation biologist Martin Jenkins and acclaimed fine artist Vicky White expertly guide readers into the complex ecosystem of Malaysia’s Taman Negara. Conversational prose and photorealistic black-and-white artwork—punctuated by four jaw-dropping full-color spreads—evoke the whir of cicadas and the low call of a pheasant. Pages fill with ants and elephants, leopards and hornbills, gibbons and bats, as animals spread and fertilize seeds to help maintain a magnificent old-growth forest. Every living thing in the rain forest is interconnected, and a dazzling full-color index guide at the end of the book challenges readers to circle back and marvel at animals they may have missed in the dense foliage. Meticulously researched and visually arresting, this creative tour de force is a young conservationist’s dream: the ecotour of a lifetime.




The Founder's Mentality


Book Description

A Washington Post Bestseller Three Principles for Managing—and Avoiding—the Problems of Growth Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What’s more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further—and can actively lead to decline. The key insight from Zook and Allen’s research is that managing these choke points requires a “founder’s mentality”—behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder—to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers: • An insurgent’s clear mission and purpose • An unambiguous owner mindset • A relentless obsession with the front line Based on the authors’ decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder’s Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds—not just start-ups—and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader—not only a founder—can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.