Tree of Cranes


Book Description

As a young Japanese boy recovers from a bad chill, his mother busily folds origami paper into delicate silver cranes in preparation for the boy's very first Christmas.




Ginkgo


Book Description

DIVPerhaps the world’s most distinctive tree, ginkgo has remained stubbornly unchanged for more than two hundred million years. A living link to the age of dinosaurs, it survived the great ice ages as a relic in China, but it earned its reprieve when people first found it useful about a thousand years ago. Today ginkgo is beloved for the elegance of its leaves, prized for its edible nuts, and revered for its longevity. This engaging book tells the full and fascinating story of a tree that people saved from extinction—a story that offers hope for other botanical biographies that are still being written./divDIV /divDIVInspired by the historic ginkgo that has thrived in London’s Kew Gardens since the 1760s, renowned botanist Peter Crane explores the evolutionary history of the species from its mysterious origin through its proliferation, drastic decline, and ultimate resurgence. Crane also highlights the cultural and social significance of the ginkgo: its medicinal and nutritional uses, its power as a source of artistic and religious inspiration, and its importance as one of the world’s most popular street trees. Readers of this extraordinarily interesting book will be drawn to the nearest ginkgo, where they can experience firsthand the timeless beauty of the oldest tree on Earth./div




Under the Cherry Blossom Tree


Book Description

A cherry tree growing from the top of the wicked landlord's head is the beginning of his misfortunes and a better life for the poor villagers.




Faith of Cranes


Book Description

Faith of Cranes weaves together three parallel narratives: the plight and beauty of sandhill cranes, one man's effort to recover hope amid destructive climate change, and the birth of a daughter. CLICK HERE to download the first chapter from Faith of Cranes "Faith of Cranes is a love song to the beauty and worth of the lives we are able to lead in the world just as it is, troubled though it be. Lentfer's storytelling achieves its joys and universality not via grand summations but via grounded self-giving, familial intimacy, funny friendships, attentive griefs, and full-bodied immersion in the Alaskan rainforest. The writing is honest, intensely lived, and overflowing with heart: broken, mended, and whole." —David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and God Laughs & Plays Hank Lentfer listened to cranes passing over his home in southeast alaska for twenty years before bothering to figure out where they were going. On a very visceral level, he didn't want to know. After all, cranes gliding through the wide skies of Alaska are the essence of wildness. But the same animals, pecking a living between the cornfields and condos of California's Central Valley, seem trapped and diminished. A former wildlife biologist and longtime conservationist, Lentfer had come to accept that no number of letters to the editor or trips to D.C. could stop the spread of clear cuts, alter the course of climate change, or ensure that his beloved cranes would always appear. And he had no idea that following the paths of cranes would lead him to the very things he was most afraid of: parenthood, responsibility, and actions of hope in a frustrating and warming world. Faith of Cranes is Lentfer's quiet, lyrical memoir of his home and community near Glacier Bay that reveals a family's simple acts -- planting potatoes, watching cranes, hunting deer -- as well as a close and eccentric Alaskan community. It shows how several thousand birds and one little girl teach a new father there is no future imaginable that does not leave room for compassion and grace.




One Thousand Paper Cranes


Book Description

The inspirational story of the Japanese national campaign to build the Children's Peace Statue honoring Sadako and hundreds of other children who died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima. Ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sadako Sasaki died as a result of atomic bomb disease. Sadako's determination to fold one thousand paper cranes and her courageous struggle with her illness inspired her classmates. After her death, they started a national campaign to build the Children's Peace Statue to remember Sadako and the many other children who were victims of the Hiroshima bombing. On top of the statue is a girl holding a large crane in her outstretched arms. Today in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, this statue of Sadako is beautifully decorated with thousands of paper cranes given by people throughout the world.




1001 Cranes


Book Description

WHEN 12-YEAR-OLD ANGELA Kato arrives in L.A., the last thing she wants to do is spend the entire summer with her grandparents. But in the Kato family, one is never permitted to complain. Grandma Michi and Aunt Janet put Angela to work in their flower shop, folding origami and creating 1001 crane displays for newlyweds. At first, Angela learns the trade begrudgingly. But when her folding skills improve and her relationships with family and friends grow, Angela is able to cope with her troubles, especially her parents’ impending divorce.




Grandfather's Journey


Book Description

A picture book masterpiece from Caldecott medal winner Allen Say now available in paperback! Lyrical, breathtaking, splendid—words used to describe Allen Say’s Grandfather’s Journey when it was first published. At once deeply personal yet expressing universally held emotions, this tale of one man’s love for two countries and his constant desire to be in both places captured readers’ attention and hearts. Fifteen years later, it remains as historically relevant and emotionally engaging as ever.




The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki


Book Description

**Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Winner** **Middle School Book of the Year-- Northern Lights Book Awards** **Skipping Stones Honor Award Winner** For the first time, middle readers can learn the complete story of the courageous girl whose life, which ended through the effects of war, inspired a worldwide call for peace. In this book, author Sue DiCicco and Sadako's older brother Masahiro tell her complete story in English for the first time--how Sadako's courage throughout her illness inspired family and friends, and how she became a symbol of all people, especially children, who suffer from the impact of war. Her life and her death carry a message: we must have a wholehearted desire for peace and be willing to work together to achieve it. Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on her city of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. Ten years later, just as life was starting to feel almost normal again, this athletic and enthusiastic girl was fighting a war of a different kind. One of many children affected by the bomb, she had contracted leukemia. Patient and determined, Sadako set herself the task of folding 1000 paper cranes in the hope that her wish to be made well again would be granted. Illustrations and personal family photos give a glimpse into Sadako's life and the horrors of war. Proceeds from this book are shared equally between The Sadako Legacy NPO and The Peace Crane Project.




A Porcupine in a Pine Tree


Book Description

A truly Canadian Christmas carol is now available in a sturdy board book format! This Canadian Christmas carol became an instant holiday classic. Now the whole family can join in the fun with this new, specially adapted board book version -- the perfect first Christmas book for every preschooler on your list! Enjoy all of Werner Zimmermann's zany illustrations, count the characters from 1 to 12, and sing along. It's Christmas as only Canadians can celebrate it -- with squirrels curling, Mounties munching donuts, hockey players-a-leaping.... and A Porcupine in a Pine Tree!




Land of the Cranes (Scholastic Gold)


Book Description

From the prolific author of The Moon Within comes the heart-wrenchingly beautiful story in verse of a young Latinx girl who learns to hold on to hope and love even in the darkest of places: a family detention center for migrants and refugees. Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe-Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be. Will Betita and her family ever be whole again?