Friday, November 4, 2011
The Dreamer (Ala Notable Children's Books. Older Readers)
- ISBN13: 9780439269704
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin’s “little story?†Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab worldâ€"and of our own.
A forty-year-old sch! oolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinionsâ€"and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosieâ€"enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.
Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening.
With ! prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the! Nile, M ary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today’s headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Day is a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel.A panoramic yet intimate history of the American leftâ€"of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who have fought for a more just and humane society, from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam Chomskyâ€"that gives us a revelatory new way of looking at two centuries of American politics and culture.
Michael Kazinâ€"one of the most respected historians of the American left working todayâ€"takes us from abolitionism and early feminism to the labor struggles of the industrial age, through the emergence of anarchists, socialists, and communists, right up to the New Left in the 1960s and ’70s. While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been, in the traditional view, a sto! ry of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In American Dreamers, Kazin tells a new history: one in which many of these movements, although they did not fully succeed on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society that led to equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; multiculturalism in the media and the schools; and the popularity of books and films with altruistic and antiauthoritarian messages.
Deeply informed, at once judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, American Dreamers is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it.
From the time he is a young boy, Neftal\u00ed hears the call of a mysterious voice. Even when the neighborhood children taunt him, and when his harsh, authoritarian father ridicules him, and when he doubts himself, Neftal\u00ed kn! ows he cannot ignore the call. Under the canopy of the lush ra! in fores t, into the fearsome sea, and through the persistent Chilean rain, he listens and he follows. . . Combining elements of magical realism with biography, poetry, literary fiction, and sensorial, transporting illustrations, Pam Mu\u00f1oz Ryan and Peter S\u00eds take readers on a rare journey of the heart and imagination.
PRAISE FOR PAM MUNOZ RYAN:
\u0022Told in a lyrical, fairy tale-like style....Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events with one family's will to survive.\u0022--Publishers Weekly, starred review, ESPERANZA RISING
\u0022Ryan writes a moving story in clear, poetic language that children will sink into, and the book offers excellent opportunities for discussion and curriculum support.\u0022 --Booklist, ESPERANZA RISING
\u0022Ebullient and tautly structured....With a pacing that moves along at a gallop, this is a skillful execution of a fascinating historical tale.\u0022--Publishers Weekly, starred review, RIDING FREEDOM
ADDITIONAL AW! ARDS AND HONORS FOR ESPERANZA RISING:
-Willa Cather Award
-Americas Award Honor Book
-Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
-NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
-Smithsonian Notable Book
-Children's Literature Choice List
-Notable Books for a Global Society
-Jefferson Cup Award - Worthy of note
-Judy Goddard AZ Young Adult Author of the Year Award
-Judy Lopez Memorial Award
AWARDS AND HONORS FOR RIDING FREEDOM:
-California Young Reader Medal winner (Intermediate Category)
-IRA Teacher's Choice
-Parenting Magazine \u0022Reading Magic\u0022 Award winner
-Recognition of Merit for a First Novel Award - Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People
