While watching a heart-warming story unfold during a peaceful morning looking out at a Minnesota lake, Scott Rykken took a remarkable series of photos of a loon, a painted turtle, and a muskrat interacting. It was touching to see how different species could interact so peacefully. The cover photo was originally posted on Facebook and went viral, shared by thousands of viewers and seen by millions around the world. People were reminded that friendships can happen at any time and in many forms. The photo was the inspiration for this picture book about how friends love and help each other.

“Kids like me didn’t go to Vietnam,” writes Jack McLean in his compulsively readable memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. “Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war,” he writes. It didn’t remain that way for long. A year later, after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and stateside duty in Barstow, California, the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. McLean, like most available Marines, was retrained at Camp Pendleton, California, and sent to Vietnam as a grunt to serve in an infantry company in the northernmost reaches of South Vietnam. McLean’s story climaxes with the horrific three-day Battle for Landing Zone Loon in June, 1968. Fought on a remote hill in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam, McLean bore witness to the horror of war and was forever changed. He returned home six weeks later to a country largely ambivalent to his service. Written with honesty and insight, Loon is a powerful coming-of-age portrait of a boy who bears witness to some of the most tumultuous events in our history, both in Vietnam and back home.

"When the spring thaw of a frozen Minnesota lake brings about shocking revelations that lead to violence, 15-year-old Wes Ballot embarks on a search for his missing father, the truth about his mother's death and a future he must claim for himself."--

From the New York Times bestselling author of Billionaire Blend—a mystery with a sleeping beauty that is “so much fun to read.”* It’s Fairy Tale Week in New York City, and Clare Cosi has given her coffee truck a “Jack and the Beanstalk” makeover for the Central Park festival. Her ex-husband has contributed a bag of African coffee beans with alleged magical properties, and his octogenarian mother is giving out readings of the grinds. But Clare remains skeptical—until she receives a vision that helps her find a young model’s body in the park’s woods. The police dismiss “sleeping beauty” as the victim of a drug overdose. But when Clare uncovers evidence that points to murder, she winds up with a dangerous predator on her heels and an investigation that leads right back to her own NYPD detective boyfriend. If she doesn’t solve this mystery fast, those magic beans predict an unhappy ending. *Once Upon a Romance

Continuing the sacred tradition of her ancestors, in Once Upon an Eskimo Time Edna Wilder retells a year in her Eskimo mother’s life. Wilder eloquently captures the oral storytelling traditions of her people, and she employs descriptions of the weather and harsh climates of Alaska’s Norton Sound to illustrate the hardiness of her mother’s spirit. Family values, subsistence living, and the cycle’s of life form a narrative that captures the now-vanished lifestyle along the Bering Sea. “Readers of whatever age will enjoy Nedercook’s delightful account of the day-to-day, legends, and beliefs of the ancient Eskimo village of Rocky Point.”—Ames Tribune

Deep in the woods of Maine, the Revolutionary War is still fresh in settlers' minds as a young man named Peter Loon sets off to find a mysterious person. Peter quickly falls into a series of startling entanglements. He befriends a nomadic parson whose humble intelligence and steady head prove useful, especially when the two find themselves in the middle of a bitter land battle and Peter and Parson Leach must tread the razor-thin line between law and justice. Peter Loon is a breathtaking tale of high adventure and great humility.

After adopting two children in Newfoundland, Canada Peggy's Journey of Hope leads to the back woods of northern Minnesota where she builds a rustic cabin with the help of friends. The cabin is situated on forty acres with a small duck pond. She lives without electricity or running water and finds daily encounters with wild animals: deer, moose and even bear. Look for Book Three in the Journey of Hope Series, South to the Kingdom of the Sun.

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