Mr. Gauguin's Heart

Mr. Gauguin's Heart
Author: Marie-Danielle Croteau
Publisher: Tundra Books (NY)
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2007
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0887768245

Retells the story of how the painter Paul Gauguin learned to paint after his father's death of a heart attack during the family's move to Peru.

Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart
Author: John Eldredge
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2011-04-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400200393

In all your boyhood dreams of growing up, did you dream of being a "nice guy"? Eldredge believes that every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is how he bears the image of God; that is what God made him to be.

Louis Undercover

Louis Undercover
Author: Fanny Britt
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2017-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1554988608

A stunning graphic novel from the award-winning creators of Jane, the Fox and Me. In this powerful new graphic novel from Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, we meet Louis, a young boy who shuttles between his alcoholic dad and his worried mom, and who, with the help of his best friend, tries to summon up the courage to speak to his true love, Billie. Louis’s dad cries — Louis knows this because he spies on him. His dad misses the happy times when their family was together, just as Louis does. But as it is, he and his little brother, Truffle, have to travel back and forth between their dad’s country house and their mom’s city apartment, where she tries to hide her own tears. Thankfully, Louis has Truffle for company. Truffle loves James Brown lyrics, and when he isn’t singing, he’s asking endless questions. Louis also has his friend Boris, with whom he spots ghost cop cars and spies on the “silent queen,” the love of his life, Billie. When Louis and Truffle go to their dad’s for two weeks during the summer, their father seems to have stopped drinking. And when Truffle has a close call from a bee sting, their mother turns up and the reunited foursome spend several wonderful days in New York — until they reach the end of the road, again. A beautifully illustrated, true-to-life portrayal of just how complex family relationships can be, seen through the eyes of a wise, sensitive boy who manages to find his own way forward. Key Text Features speech bubbles Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

All My Friends Are Dead

All My Friends Are Dead
Author: Avery Monsen
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 145213538X

If you're a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you're a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you're a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud illustrated humor book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children's book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life while exploring each cartoon character's unique grievance and wide-eyed predicament. From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable.

Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin
Author: David Sweetman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 648
Release: 1995
Genre: Art
ISBN:

This biography of the French artist describes his travels, lifestyle, love affairs, and the battle with syphilis that eventually took his life.

Spork

Spork
Author: Kyo Maclear
Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2017-04-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1771388056

A humorous ñmulti-cutleryî tale about how Spork --- half spoon, half fork --- finally finds his place at the table. A charming story for anyone who has ever wondered about their place in the world.

The Snail with the Right Heart

The Snail with the Right Heart
Author: Maria Popova
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781592703494

Based on a real scientific event and inspired by a beloved real human in the author's life, this is a story about science and the poetry of existence; about time and chance, genetics and gender, love and death, evolution and infinity -- concepts often too abstract for the human mind to fathom, often more accessible to the young imagination; concepts made fathomable in the concrete, finite life of one tiny, unusual creature dwelling in a pile of compost amid an English garden. Emerging from this singular life is a lyrical universal invitation not to mistake difference for defect and to welcome, across the accordion scales of time and space, diversity as the wellspring of the universe's beauty and resilience.

The Abundance

The Abundance
Author: Annie Dillard
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2016-03-15
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0062433016

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself “Annie Dillard’s books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event.”—Marilynne Robinson, Washington Post Book World “Annie Dillard is, was, and will always be the very best at describing the landscapes in which we find ourselves.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Annie Dillard is a writer of unusual range, generosity, and ambition. . . . Her prose is bracingly intelligent, lovely, and human. ”—Margot Livesey, Boston Globe “A writer who never seems tired, who has never plodded her way through a page or sentence, Dillard can only be enjoyed by a wide-awake reader,” warns Geoff Dyer in his introduction to this stellar collection. Carefully culled from her past work, The Abundance is quintessential Annie Dillard, delivered in her fierce and undeniably singular voice, filled with fascinating detail and metaphysical fact. The pieces within will exhilarate both admiring fans and a new generation of readers, having been “re-framed and re-hung,” with fresh editing and reordering by the author, to situate these now seminal works within her larger canon. The Abundance reminds us that Dillard’s brand of “novelized nonfiction” pioneered the form long before it came to be widely appreciated. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through neighborhood streets, a teenager memorizes Rimbaud’s poetry—with beauty and irony, inviting readers onto sweeping landscapes, to join her in exploring the complexities of time and death, with a sense of humor: on one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar. Reminding us of the indelible contributions of this formative figure in contemporary nonfiction, The Abundance exquisitely showcases Annie Dillard’s enigmatic, enduring genius, as Dillard herself wishes it to be marked.

A Memoir of Vincent van Gogh

A Memoir of Vincent van Gogh
Author: Jo van Gogh-Bonger
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2018-04-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606065602

The general outlines of Vincent van Gogh’s life—the early difficulties in Holland and Paris, the revelatory impact of the move to Provence, the attacks of madness and despair that led to his suicide—are almost as familiar as his paintings. Yet neither the paintings nor Van Gogh’s story might have survived at all had it not been for his sister-in-law, the teacher, translator, and socialist Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Jo married the painter’s brother, Theo, in 1889, and over the next two years lived through the deaths of both Vincent and her new husband. Left with an infant son, she inherited little save a cache of several hundred paintings and an enormous archive of letters. Advised to consign these materials to an attic, she instead dedicated her life to making them known. Over the next three decades she tirelessly promoted Vincent’s art, organizing major exhibitions and compiling and editing the correspondence, the first edition of which included, as a preface, her account of Van Gogh’s life. This short biography, written from a vantage point of familial intimacy, affords a revealing and, at times, heartbreaking testimony to the painter’s perilous life. An introduction by the art critic and scholar Martin Gayford provides an insightful discussion of the author’s relationship with the Van Goghs, while abundant color illustrations throughout the book trace the development of the painter’s signature style.