In the aftermath of a major earthquake, eleven-year-old Maya overcomes her own fear to help others at home and in northeast Japan, where a tsunami caused great damage. Includes author's note about the facts behind the story.

Like a flower-or maybe a tenacious weed-Frank Forsberg managed to thrive in the arid soil of the Great Depression. Not that it was easy. Surely, traveling in a boxcar with hobos couldn't have given sixteen-year-old Forsberg reason to expect much of the future. But not only would he retire a Navy captain, he'd find love, friendship, and adventure along the way. After a slight detour through the school system, Forsberg found his way to the Navy-where he received an unexpected, lifelong education. His Navy career spanned three wars and saw America go through profound changes, from the unanimous support of World War II to the divisiveness of the Korean War and the Vietnam War. As a pilot, Forsberg faced challenges that would test his skills and resolve which ultimately strengthened his character. He also accepted what may be the even more harrowing mission of starting a family, something no amount of training could haveprepared him for. The kid that set out across the country with just over a dollar couldn't have known it at the time, but he was embarking on the American dream. Beyond Expectations is an exciting chronicle of that adventure ... a saga of facing seemingly impossible situations and living to laugh about it. It's been a wild ride so far. And that's just the first 90 years ...

With the end of his life approaching, an old man has only one regret. He has not been able to tell the full story of his childhood. The memories were painful. They had been buried for decades. But he could not reach the end of his life without the truth being told. 'The Pigeon House' is a moving story of a boy's triumph against the odds. It recounts his struggle with poverty, neglect, exploitation, disease and abuse. Through this vivid account, we meet his drunk and abusive mother, his remote father, the sadistic teacher, the uncaring doctor, the exploitative priest and the abusing nun. A conspiracy of silence within a Catholic institution sustains the regime of abuse. One brave figure tries to confront it - only to be banished. After that, it is a battle between abusive authority and a young boy's inner will to survive. The painful truth of what happened in the Pigeon House, and how one boy overcame it, brings compelling reaffirmation of the triumph of the human will.

Beyond Two Worlds brings together scholars of Native history and Native American studies to offer fresh insights into the methodological and conceptual significance of the "two-worlds framework." They address the following questions: Where did the two-worlds framework originate? How has it changed over time? How does it continue to operate in today's world? Most people recognize the language of binaries birthed by the two-worlds trope—savage and civilized, East and West, primitive and modern. For more than four centuries, this lexicon has served as a grammar for settler colonialism. While many scholars have chastised this type of terminology in recent years, the power behind these words persists. With imagination and a critical evaluation of how language, politics, economics, and culture all influence the expectations that we place on one another, the contributors to this volume rethink the two-worlds trope, adding considerably to our understanding of the past and present.

In this 1905 text, author Charles Hooper aims to help American homeowners and builders to create their dream homes and gardens with a minimum of mistakes.

For more than seven decades, homing pigeons provided the U.S. military with its fastest most reliable means of communication. Originally bred for racing in the early 1800s, homing pigeons were later trained by pigeoneers to fly up to 60 mph for hundreds of miles, and served the United States for almost 75 years, through four wars on four continents. Barely weighing a pound, these extraordinary birds carried messages in and out of gas, smoke, exploding bombs and gunfire. They flew through jungles, deserts and mountains, not faltering even when faced with large expanses of ocean to cross. Sometimes they arrived nearly dead from wounds or exhaustion, refusing to give up until they reached their objective. This book is the first complete account of the remarkable service that homing pigeons provided for the American armed forces, from its fledgling beginnings after the Civil War to the birds' invaluable role in communications in every branch of the U.S. military through both World Wars and beyond. Personal narratives, primary sources and news articles tell the story of the pigeons' recruitment and training in the U.S., their deployment abroad and use on the home front.