English Heritage

Bruce Pascoe has collected a swathe of literary awards for Dark Emu, and now he has brought together the research and compelling first-person accounts in a book for younger listeners. Using the accounts of early European explorers, colonists and farmers, Bruce Pascoe compellingly argues for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. He allows the listeners to see Australia as it was before Europeans arrived.

Leah Williams is back in the quaint town of Heritage, Michigan, and ready to try again to make her business a success. But blank slates are hard to come by, and a piece of her past is waiting for her there. Heir to the Heritage Fruits company, Jonathan Kensington is the guy who not only made Leah's past difficult, he also seems determined to complicate her present as well.

Drummond Lathan has never wished for any form of the strange talents that curse his mother's bloodline. Serving as his father's advisor, negotiator, and second in command, his position as Lathan heir and his highly honed skill as a warrior garner him more than enough attention without the added burden of the hushed whispers his talented siblings have to bear.

New York Times reported a most surprising piece of news. On May 12-13, the last battle of the Civil War had been fought at the southernmost tip of Texas—resulting in a Confederate victory. Although Palmetto Ranch did nothing to change the war's outcome, it added the final irony to a conflict replete with ironies, unexpected successes, and lost opportunities. For these reasons, it has become both one of the most forgotten and most mythologized battles of the Civil War.

Caught between the past and the future, can friendship survive in changing times? Thirteen years have passed since the railway came to the Borders, bringing changes that would radically alter the lives of the people who lived there. Yet the steam train was not the only legacy from the men who built the railway - in their wake they left several fatherless children. One such child is Kitty Scott. Wild through neglect and an outcast within the community, Kitty is a loner...

Tavish Lathan sees the future in his dreams. Because he lacks a full command of the talent he inherited from his mother, his predictions don't always come to pass. So when death clouds the destiny he foresees for a beautiful visitor to the Lathan keep, Tavish prays this foreshadowing will be one of his unfulfilled visions.

Two years ago, Margaret left her Arctic home for the outsiders’ school. Now she has returned and can barely contain her excitement as she rushes toward her waiting family - but her mother stands still as a stone. This strange, skinny child, with her hair cropped short, can’t be her daughter. “Not my girl!” she says angrily. Margaret’s years at school have changed her. Now 10 years old, she has forgotten her language and the skills to hunt and fish. She can’t even stomach her mother’s food. Her only comfort is in the books she learned to read at school.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. He played professional football, major league baseball, and won Olympic gold medals in track and field. But his life wasn't an easy one. Born on the Sac and Fox Reservation in 1887, he encountered much family tragedy, and was sent as a young boy to various Indian boarding schools: strict, cold institutions that didn't allow their students to hold on to their Native American languages and traditions.

Exotic and diverse, richly colourful and intriguingly complex: India is one of the most exciting countries to visit in the world today. Sanjeev Bhaskar, of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42, grew up in 70s surburban West London, so his regular family visits to India to see his relatives gave him an endless fascination for its bizarre contradictions. Now Sanjeev is going back with a BBC film crew to delve deeper into what makes this country such a compelling phenomenon.

Caroline Jane Knight is the last of the Austen Knight family to grow up at Chawton House, the 16th-century English manor house on the ancestral estate where Jane Austen lived and wrote. Caroline ate at the same dining table, read in the same library, explored the same country lanes and shared the same dreams of independence as Jane Austen did.

Peace. Prosperity. Freedom. After 50 years it ends. In the world of Scyllia darkness is coming. The evil sorcerer Enlokirim has risen from the grave, seeking revenge against those that destroyed him. He searches for the Triangles of Power: nine magical stones that are individually powerful, but even more dangerous together. Amras Oronar, an outcast elf warrior, leads a group of adventurers in hope of stopping Enlokirim.

Stian’s first meeting with the Elves in their valley didn't quite go as he had hoped. While healing from his wounds, he’s tasked with trying to earn their trust, which, because of past occurrences, won’t be easy. In order to win them over, he’ll need to learn a whole lot more about them - and about magic. However, Stian is facing a much more serious threat...and he’ll need a lot more than magic to be able to respond to this newfound danger. He’ll need the support of allies.

Both Stian and his fiancée, the prettiest and nicest girl in the village, understand that by helping the Guardians they could get the much-coveted support for their relationship that they’ve been after. But a simple tracking and hunting trip turns out to be much longer, and much more complicated than Stian anticipated. In order to be successful, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery in the wilderness that turns into the adventure of a lifetime.

Europe, on the eve of the Second World War, and a Jewish family feels the Nazi danger closing in. Led by their indomitable mother, Marie, the Reesers make a daring escape from under the watchful eyes of the Gestapo, fleeing their comfortable home in Czechoslovakia to safety and a new life in Canada. Their lives are saved, but all else is lost, including four beautiful and valuable paintings that Marie loved.

When she hears that the small town of Heritage, Michigan, is looking for a new librarian, Libby Kingsley jumps at the opportunity. Little did she know the library is barely more than a storage closet stuffed with dusty, outdated books. What the community really needs is a new building. But the only funds available are those being channeled into the new town square, and the landscape architect in charge of the project wants nothing to do with her plans.

Stories about Hiawatha come in many versions. This educational book tells the tale of Hiawatha as an important precolonial figure who united the Five Nations. Listening to Hiawatha’s tale will open the eyes to the way of living of the early Canadian tribes as well as their customs, beliefs, and traditions. A lot can be learned about early Canada from the life of Hiawatha.

Listen to author Marilyn Singer read this lively collection of poems about dance to the rhythm of each style. The poems are accompanied by original music.

No one expects to meet their father at their mother’s funeral. But for Gabby Medina, that’s exactly what happens. Her dad abandoned her when she was a baby, and now he’s back. And he wants to give her a house. Gabby doesn’t want the house—or him. But she could use the money. So Gabby agrees to take it under two conditions: First, she can sell the house whenever she wants. Second, accepting it doesn’t mean she accepts him.

George Washington Carver began life as a slave in the tumultuous world of pre - Civil War Missouri. After the war, the orphaned Carver worked as a farmer, a hotel cook, and a laundryman while pursuing an education. As a professor at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Carver spearheaded the initiative to cultivate peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes to revive the South's dismal agricultural economy. He is most remembered for the invention of peanut butter.

Dive in with nationally recognized miler Greg Gibson as he takes you from his father’s triumphs and disappointments in the Depression and World War II, through Greg’s own rural childhood in Eastern Washington, where he first dreams of becoming a world-class athlete.