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A Nest Full of Stars |
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| Author: |
James Berry |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0060527471 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6--In his foreword, Berry explains that he was raised in Jamaica and always longed to hear the music of the Caribbean Creole language in poetry. These 60 selections, divided into six broad categories, are simple and spoken in the voice of a child. Most of the poems concern the universal events and emotions of childhood, such as the excitement of a good grade in school or the sounds of a snoring father, and will appeal to young writers and readers. However, the most interesting poems are those that depict island life. For example, from "Everyday Music": "All a mix together/village sounds make my music/with fighting dogs yelping/birds in trees twittering/a lonely goat bleating/hidden ground doves cooing/hidden mongoose shrieking." Occasional British words or island lingo may be unfamiliar to youngsters... |
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Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero |
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| Author: |
Ashley Smith |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0310270677 |
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From Publishers Weekly
This is less the story of a woman being held hostage in her apartment than an inspirational tract that could serve as a companion volume to The Purpose-Driven Life and become required reading in rehab clinics. Smith had been weaning herself off of speed, pot and Xanax when, after having been up the previous night snorting "ice" (methamphetamines, or "those drugs," as she frequently says) and setting up her new apartment, Brian Nichols held her hostage after killing several people while escaping from an Atlanta courthouse. Over the next seven hours, Smith convinced herself that God sent Nichols to straighten her out, and, between her cutting lines of speed for him to snort off her bathroom counter, showing him pictures of her daughter and family, reading him passages of ThePurpose-Driven Life, helping him ditch a... |
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What A Wonderful World |
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| Author: |
Bob Thiele |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689800878 |
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From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2?Those of us familiar with the music of Louis Armstrong may cringe somewhat at this earnest, albeit colorful interpretation of his famous song. Bryan's vibrant, neon-colored illustrations tell a story of kids making puppets that will act out the lyrics?"I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright, blessed day, the dark, sacred night." Multicultural puppets and "Satchmo" dance away as the children behind the stage wave clouds, flowers, rainbows, and other props. The usual picture-book crowd is too young to know of Louis Armstrong or his nickname, and those who are old enough and do know of him may not especially want to think of him as a puppet. The song is a celebration of the world and its varied inhabitants and each page in the book reflects this, but all of these well-meaning... |
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Sing to the Sun |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0064434370 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-6-- ``Sing to the sun/ It will listen/And warm your words/ Your joy will rise/ Like the sun/ and glow/ Within you.'' Thus begins this collection of original poems that captures the beauty of nature along with human emotion and circumstance, and children are sure to enjoy its rhymic descriptive verse. Bryan does a magnificent job of conveying an evocative and palpable message to young listeners and readers. Illustrations in his distinguished style depict characteristics of African-American culture combined with flowers, birds, fish, rising suns, and full moons to create a splendid artistic work with wide appeal. --Barbara Osborne Williams, Queens Borough Public Library, Jamaica, NYCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this... |
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Ashley Bryan's ABC of African-American Poetry |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689812094 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry is not an alphabet book. Award-winning children's book author and former teacher Ashley Bryan has simply hit upon a straightforward way to present the work of his favorite African American poets: he uses a letter of each poem to organize the 25 excerpts and one African American spiritual. His vibrant artwork, with bold strokes of paint reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh, successfully captures the essence of each piece. "As I read," Bryan writes, "images sprang from the lines of the poets... Finally, I chose the sketches that offered a balanced play of images and did finished paintings from them in tempera paints and gouache colors." Poems ranging from the intense to the whimsical reflect the diverse voices of poets such as Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton,... |
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The Story of the Three Kingdoms |
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| Author: |
Walter Dean Myers |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0064434753 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Myers (Brown Angels) and Bryan (Sing to the Sun) make a dynamite team. Here, the hot colors, sweeping lines and stylized figures that characterize Bryan's art form a bold backdrop for the author's equally dramatic original fable. Long ago, Myers writes, the world was divided into three kingdoms: earth, ruled by Elephant; sea, ruled by Shark; and air, ruled by Hawk. The three quarrel mightily as to who is greatest, and they laugh at the People, who, they say, exist only to do their bidding. With time, the People outwit the haughty trio by learning from the stories they tell around the fire at night. The tale of a child catching a butterfly at rest, for instance, sparks a plan to capture Hawk in the baobab tree. In the end, the People realize they have the greatest power of all: "the gift of story and the wisdom it... |
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Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets |
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| Author: |
Naomi Shihab Nye |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0688161936 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
"How should we use poetry?" people sometimes ask poet Naomi Shihab Nye. She responds, "Read it! Share it with one another! Find poems that make you resonate. Different poems will do this for every person. We 'use poetry' to restore us to feeling, revitalize our own speech, awaken empathy." Over the past 25 years Nye has "used poetry" in classroom workshops in schools all over the country. In this lush, amusing, and touching anthology she gathers 100 poems and divides them into four groupings: "My Shadow Is an Ant's Night" (poems about the self and the inner world), "Think How Many Stories Are in Your Shirt" (about where we live), "My Grandma Squashes Roaches with Her Hand" (about family), and "Silence Is Like a Tractor Moving the Whole World" (about the imagination). Students in grades 1 through 12 are represented in... |
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The Story of the Three Kingdoms |
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| Author: |
Walter Dean Myers |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613029461 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
Myers (Brown Angels) and Bryan (Sing to the Sun) make a dynamite team. Here, the hot colors, sweeping lines and stylized figures that characterize Bryan's art form a bold backdrop for the author's equally dramatic original fable. Long ago, Myers writes, the world was divided into three kingdoms: earth, ruled by Elephant; sea, ruled by Shark; and air, ruled by Hawk. The three quarrel mightily as to who is greatest, and they laugh at the People, who, they say, exist only to do their bidding. With time, the People outwit the haughty trio by learning from the stories they tell around the fire at night. The tale of a child catching a butterfly at rest, for instance, sparks a plan to capture Hawk in the baobab tree. In the end, the People realize they have the greatest power of all: "the gift of story and the wisdom it... |
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Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613336666 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
Book Review
Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry is not an alphabet book. Award-winning children's book author and former teacher Ashley Bryan has simply hit upon a straightforward way to present the work of his favorite African American poets: he uses a letter of each poem to organize the 25 excerpts and one African American spiritual. His vibrant artwork, with bold strokes of paint reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh, successfully captures the essence of each piece. "As I read," Bryan writes, "images sprang from the lines of the poets... Finally, I chose the sketches that offered a balanced play of images and did finished paintings from them in tempera paints and gouache colors." Poems ranging from the intense to the whimsical reflect the diverse voices of poets such as Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton,... |
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Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0689840454 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry is not an alphabet book. Award-winning children's book author and former teacher Ashley Bryan has simply hit upon a straightforward way to present the work of his favorite African American poets: he uses a letter of each poem to organize the 25 excerpts and one African American spiritual. His vibrant artwork, with bold strokes of paint reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh, successfully captures the essence of each piece. "As I read," Bryan writes, "images sprang from the lines of the poets... Finally, I chose the sketches that offered a balanced play of images and did finished paintings from them in tempera paints and gouache colors." Poems ranging from the intense to the whimsical reflect the diverse voices of poets such as Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton,... |
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Lion and the Ostrich Chicks |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613909291 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
Illustrated with line art, each of four tales from a different region of Africa highlights the power of common sense. Ages 5-11. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From School Library Journal
Grade 1-6 Bryan presents lively, tellable stories about animal and human characters. He includes extensive dialogue and numerous songs from four previously published collections of the folklore of the Masai, Bushmen, and Hausa, and from Angola. The stories give no evidence of their African origin, which is a result of three of the sources that Bryan used being decontextualized, which was typical of African folklore collections at the turn of the century. The morals of these stories are universal in application.... |
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Ashley Bryan's African Tales, Uh-Huh |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689820763 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Description
Come gather round, young and old, and hear these stories from Africa, retold and illustrated by the incomparable Ashley Bryan. The fourteen stories in this collection are some of his favorites, previously published in The Ox of the Wonderful Horns; Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum (Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration); and Lion and the Ostrich Chicks (Coretta Scott King Honor Book).Retold with rich, musical narration, and illustrated with Mr. Bryan's distinctive paintings, these tales are full of fun and magic and a few lessons to be learned. They are tales of tricksters, chieftains, and both wise and foolish creatures. You will learn why Frog and Snake never play together, or why Bush Cow and Elephant are bad friends, or of the problems that a husband has because he likes to count spoonfuls. Although the stories... |
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Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero |
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| Author: |
Ashley Smith |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Compact Disc |
| ISBN: |
0310271282 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
This is less the story of a woman being held hostage in her apartment than an inspirational tract that could serve as a companion volume to The Purpose-Driven Life and become required reading in rehab clinics. Smith had been weaning herself off of speed, pot and Xanax when, after having been up the previous night snorting "ice" (methamphetamines, or "those drugs," as she frequently says) and setting up her new apartment, Brian Nichols held her hostage after killing several people while escaping from an Atlanta courthouse. Over the next seven hours, Smith convinced herself that God sent Nichols to straighten her out, and, between her cutting lines of speed for him to snort off her bathroom counter, showing him pictures of her daughter and family, reading him passages of ThePurpose-Driven Life, helping him ditch a... |
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Aneesa Lee and the Weaver's Gift |
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| Author: |
Nikki Grimes |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0688159974 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
In a series of thoughtful, interlocking poems, Grimes (Meet Danitra Brown) skillfully uses the metaphor of weaving to explore the world of a talented girl. The young weaver's strands of black, white and Japanese heritage have "produced a pleasing,/ living, breathing tapestry/ christened Aneesa Lee." The poet reveals Aneesa Lee's life and thoughts through the intricate patterns of her work ("a herringbone of sadness,/ threads of anger and gladness"; "Her yarns express her deepest thoughts/ in variegated tints"). The themes of the bookAfamily, community, artistic vision, dedication to craft and loveAbuild to a resonant climax in the last poem where Grimes suggests that, "From the age of bronze/ To the age of space,/ From Ankara to Zanzibar,/.../ The loom connects us all/ In a community/ Of cloth." Bryan's (Beat the... |
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Ashley Bryan's Beautiful Blackbird and Other Folktales |
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| Author: |
Performed by Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Compact Disc |
| ISBN: |
1883332990 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3-Bryan performs six stories from his published works on this rousing collection. First up is the title tale, from his Coretta Scott King Award-winning picture book (Atheneum, 2003), in which the blackbird shares a bit of his black color with each of the other birds. The other stories are from Ashley Bryan's African Tales, Uh-Huh (Atheneum, 1998). Several are pourquoi tales, explaining "Why Frog and Snake Never Play Together" and "How Animals Got Their Tails"; others tell of tricksters getting their comeuppance, such as "Tortoise, Hare, and the Sweet Potatoes" and "Hen and Frog." Bryan's tales come alive on the page with his stylized writing, and his delivery and vocal performance are a perfect match. Using repetition, vocal modulation, and other classic storytelling techniques, Bryan... |
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Ashley Bryan: Poems and Folktales, Vol. 2 |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Audio |
| ISBN: |
1883332117 |
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From AudioFile
Bryan reads his poems from Sing to the Sun and tells his stories, "Ananse the Spider in Search of a Fool," "The Cat's Purr," "Turtle Knows Your Name" and "The Story of Lightning and Thunder." The stories work better than the poetry, but the program really demonstrates a storyteller who is better in person than on audio-cassette. In person, Bryan is electrifying, using his body and his face to create a visually exhilarating performance; on tape, the inflections and variations in pitch and timing seem peculiar and difficult to grasp. S.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum |
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| Author: |
Ashley Bryan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0689711077 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Five Nigerian folktales, masterfully retold, are accompanied by vibrant woodcuts. Ages 8-12. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Here are five Nigerian folktales, retold in language as rhythmic as the beat of the story-drum, and illustrated with vibrant, evocative woodcuts.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Starring You and Me (Mary-Kate and Ashley Sweet 16 Series) |
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| Author: |
Melissa Senate |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0060528117 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Description
The summer is over, but the fun is just beginning!To do this: *Help Penny and Brian stage free concert at school. *Get new students to audition for fall musical! *Make plan to get DJ Wild Will to talk about concert on his radio show. *Make new plan to get DJ Wild Will to talk about concert. *Help Danielle get role in school musical. *Cancel Brian's and Penny's concert??? Ages 8-12
About the Author
Mary-Kate and Ashley have been celebrities since the day when, at the age of nine months, they joined the cast of the hit sitcom "Full House" in their shared role as Michelle. Each of Mary-Kate and Ashley's 14 years since has witnessed the outstanding expansion of their popularity...their fans have literally grown up alongside the twins! First in television and feature films,... |
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