A small free kiss in the dark by
When designer and computer scientist John Maeda was tapped to be president of the celebrated Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, he had to learn how to be a leader quickly. He had to transform himself from a tenured professor--with a love of argument for argument's sake and the freedom to experiment--into the head of a hierarchical organization. The professor is free to speak his mind against "the man." The college president is "the man." Maeda has had to teach himself, through trial and error, about leadership. In Redesigning Leadership, he shares his learning process. Maeda, writing as an artist and designer, a technologist, and a professor, discusses intuition and risk-taking, "transparency," and all the things that a conversation can do that an email can't. In his transition from MIT to RISD he finds that the most effective way to pull people together is not social networking but free food. Leading a team?
How I live now by
It would be much easier to tell this story if it were all about a chaste and perfect love at an Extreme Time in History. But let's face it. . . Daisy is sent to England from New York to live with her cousins for a perfect summer. There are four of them: Osbert, isaac , Edmond and Piper. Three boys and a girl. And two dogs and a goat. Daisy has never met anyone like them before. Especially Edmond. This summer will change her life. it will change the world too.
Midnight Zoo by
2011 - Book of the Year
Two gypsy boys are fleeing through a war-ravaged countryside during the night carrying a secret bundle. The boys stumble across a town that has been reduced to smoking rubble, and a zoo that is still intact. When the boys take shelter in the zoo, they discover a menagerie of talking animals. Both the boys and the animals tell their tales and their desire for freedom.
Milkweed by
He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he’s a boy who realizes it’s safest of all to be nobody.
Briar Rose by
A powerful retelling of Sleeping Beauty that is "heartbreaking and heartwarming." An American Library Association "100 Best Books for Teens"An American Library Association "Best Books for Young Adults"Ever since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma's stories about Briar Rose. But a promise Rebecca makes to her dying grandmother will lead her on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth of Gemma's astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose . A journey that will lead her to unspeakable brutality and horror. But also to redemption and hope.
Refuge by
REFUGE centres around a 14-year-old male Afghan who spent much of his life in Pakistan refugee camps before making the voyage from Indonesia to Australia. As the boat crashes against the rocks of Christmas Island he loses consciousness and awakes to find himself in the life he has always dreamed of in Australia, but with no memory of how he got there: not unusual, says his doctor father. AS it is the school holidays he becomes one of a gang of kids who roam the beach, led by an older boy, although he slowly realises that the true power is wielded by ten year old Susanna - who has been ten years old for twenty years. Each of the children in the gang has come to Australia as a place of hope or refuge and they represent the times and places of Australia′s greatest migrations. Their life is everything they have dreamed of, from the wonderful House of Women for Chinese Tien Ling to Irish Dairmid′s farm, Luis′s fishing boat, the library that goes on forever, and the musical concerts for German David Goldberg. Slowly our Afghan boy realises that each day he can make the choice: to stay in the dream or walk through the door on the beach, or to go back to the sea and the rocks and accept real life instead.
White Rose by
Tells the story of Sophie Scholl, a young German college student who challenges the Nazi regime during World War II as part of the White Rose, a non-violent resistance group.
March by
The new novel from the internationally bestselling author of Year of Wonders.An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone to serve the Union cause as chaplain to the Federal troops. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union - which he learns is also capable of acts of barbarism and racism - but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness in a Washington hospital, he must reassemble the shards of his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of what he has endured.Taking inspiration from the real-life story of Louisa May Alcott's father - educator, activist and confidante of Emerson, Garrison and Thoreau - March spans the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South through the dark first year of the Civil War as the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats.March is a love story set in a time of catastrophe. It explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.
Someone else's War by
Based on true events, SOMEONE ELSE'S WAR is a novel that spans the life of the author's maternal grandmother, a reluctant spy and British agent in World War Two. Olga Stambolis arrives in Athens in 1936 as an out-of-work actress with no money, few friends and a shame that has followed her across the world. Her skills as a linguist and mimic lead her into the Greek resistance at the time the country is pulled into the war. Even as the Germans march into Athens, Olga continues to rescue British airmen and sabotage the enemy's vital supply routes. Until the day she is caught. Meanwhile in Australia, her children are facing their own personal and wartime challenges. One daughter, Nellie, is caught in Darwin as Japan prepares to bomb the town. Through the entwined stories of mother and daughters, we are taken into the events of two countries and two sets of lives from 1916 to 1943.
Red ribbon by
As fourteen-year-old Ella begins her first day at work she steps into a world of silks, seams, scissors, pins, hems and trimmings. She is a dressmaker, but this is no ordinary sewing workshop. Hers are no ordinary clients. Ella has joined the seamstresses of Birkenau-Auschwitz, as readers may recognise it. Every dress she makes could mean the difference between life and death. And this place is all about survival.
Ella seeks refuge from this reality, and from haunting memories, in her work and in the world of fashion and fabrics. She is faced with painful decisions about how far she is prepared to go to survive. Is her love of clothes and creativity nothing more than collaboration with her captors, or is it a means of staying alive? Will she fight for herself alone, or will she trust the importance of an ever-deepening friendship with Rose? One thing weaves through the colours of couture gowns and camp mud - a red ribbon, given to Ella as a symbol of hope.