Foster High

July 1861. On Independence Day, the citizens of Washington, DC, are celebrating as if there isn't a war. But the city is teeming with green Union recruits while President Lincoln and his War Department are focused on military strategy to take Richmond in Secessionist Virginia in order to bring the conflict to a swift end. Manassas, Virginia, near Bull Run Creek, is in their sights. The very next morning, as Congress convenes once more, a dead body is found hanging from the crane beneath the unfinished dome of the Capitol.

After learning about Nazi persecution of his family, Herschel Grynszpan (pronounced "Greenspan"), an impoverished 17-year-old Jew living in Paris, bought a small handgun and on November 7, 1938, went to the German embassy and shot the first German diplomat he saw. When the man died two days later, Hitler and Goebbels made the shooting their pretext for the great state-sponsored wave of anti-Semitic terror known as Kristallnacht, still seen by many as an initiating event of the Holocaust.

In 11 beautifully wrought stories - ranging from occupied Czechoslovakia to California's Central Valley to the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest - Mark Slouka explores moments in life when our backs are to the wall. Alternately harrowing and redemptive, these are stories of ordinary men and women, doing everything possible to tighten their grip on life.

The world is full of wonderful and terrific things to learn, and you can never be too young or too old to start! Give your kids the absolute best in education and their continued desire to learn with the Top 21 Science Experiments for Kids which is fun, engaging, educational, and what is best, can be done on a low budget!

When the Dragon Ships began to tear through the trade lanes and ravage coastal towns, the hopes of the arichipelago turned to the Windspeakers on Tash. The solemn weather-shapers, with their eyes of stone, can steal the breeze from raiders' sails and save the islands from their wrath. But the Windspeakers' magic has been stolen, and only their young apprentice, Shina, can bring their power back and save her people.