"Snowbirds will turn your image of the Amish upside down. Lucy will grab your heart and run away with it." --Robin MacCready, winner of the Edgar award for Buried Every year, Lucy waits eagerly for the arrival of the "snowbirds," the Old Order Amish who come trundling into Florida on buses from the north, bringing Lucy's best friend Alice, with whom she's spent every winter she can remember. This winter is different. At sixteen, Alice is in the middle of "Rumspringa," a season in which Amish teens try out forbidden temptations, in order to get them out of their system. Lucy is part of a different sect, in which teens aren't allowed such bold experimentation, and she's fighting to keep up as Alice races from one wild party to the next. Then, one night after just such a party, Alice vanishes. Wracked by guilt, Lucy knows that she should have been watching out for Alice, but instead, she was kissing Faron, an Older Order boy shunned by his society. Now, Lucy plunges into a search for her best friend--while also hiding her own secret, which could put her in even more danger.

This is the first ethnographic study of Snowbird, North Carolina, a remote mountain community of Cherokees who are regarded as simultaneously the most traditional and the most adaptive members of the entire tribe. Through historical research, contemporary fieldwork, and situational analysis, Sharlotte Neely explains the Snowbird paradox and portrays the inhabitants' daily lives and culture. At the core of her study are detailed examinations of two expressions of Snowbird's cultural self-awareness--its ongoing struggle for fair political representation on the tribal council and its yearly Trail of Tears Singing, a gathering point for all North Carolina and Oklahoma Cherokees concerned with cultural conservation.

One of the most familiar North American birds, the snowbird, otherwise known as the Dark-eyed Junco, can be seen darting across forest floors, pecking at suburban birdfeeders, and foraging at the edges of parks, streams, and roads all across the continent. By one estimate, upwards of 630 million Juncos populate North America: twice the number of people living here in the U.S. No Bird Like the Snowbird: Integrative Approaches to Understanding Evolutionary Diversity in the Avian Genus Junco presents diverse expertise not just on the Dark-eyed Junco, but on the Junco genus more broadly. Collectively, the contributors draw on research, methods, and findings from organismal biology and evolutionary biology in order to show how juncos match their physiology and behavior to their environment via endocrine and timing mechanisms, and how Junco evolutionary history can provide insight into population divergence and the formation of new species. In so doing, they not only provide a definitive account of the Junco genus and speak to the its continuing importance as a model organism in a time of rapid global change, they also merge two major biological fields that are typically kept apart, with the goal of offering biologists an integrative framework for further studies into adaptation and population divergence.

Following the murder of her parents Willanna faces an uncertain future as she and her younger brother move from Tennessee in 1883 to the Dakota Territory where she trains her first horse.

She is the headstrong daughter of the hound and the bear, heir to all her royal parents' magic and able to transform at will into any animal she wishes. He is an outcast, a boy without magic, determined to make his way in the forest beholden to no one. Though Liva and Jens are as different as night and day, from the time their paths first cross they are irresistibly drawn to one another. Each wrestles with demons: Liva with the responsibility that comes with the vast magic she's inherited, Jens with the haunting memories he's left behind. Separately, they keep a lookout for each other and for the immense snowbird whose appearances signify a dark event on the horizon. When a terrible threat surfaces, Liva and Jens set out in an attempt to protect all they hold dear. Much is at stake—for while their failure could spell an end to all magic, their success could bring them together at last.

A decade of crime, treachery, and adventures of the Medellin Cartel. Andrew Richard Barnes survived crashes, gunfire, treachery, and betrayal and still lived to tell the tale. Snowbird explores the heinous crimes and dangerous expeditions of the man who flew the first cocaine shipment for the Medellín Cartel into the United States. As a young pilot with a family at home and little money to spare, Barnes was easily coerced by promises of wealth to make these daring excursions. After his first trip in 1977, he realized there was no going back and continued the dangerous flights for over a decade. William Norris sits down with Barnes as he recounts his experience smuggling drugs for the Columbian cartel. As a pilot himself, Norris includes anecdotes of aircrafts and flying intertwined with Barnes’s captivating drug smuggling adventures.

BOY Novak turns twenty and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill, Massachusetts, isn't exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of being the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman - craftsman, widower, and father of Snow. SNOW is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished - exactly the sort of little girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a certain inscrutability at times, that's simply a characteristic she shares with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow's sister, Bird. When BIRD is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo's family have presented to her, and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart.

Snowbird Secrets: A Guide to Big Mountain Skiing is "a collection of lessons learned by skiing big mountains, as taught by big mountains." It reveals how this 3-ring resort is affected by wind, weather and exposure and how, in turn, this knowledge informs one's choice of descent down its multi-faceted terrain. The 22 chapters take readers on a tour of this gigantic winter playground, in the process sharing the secrets to mastering the mountain. Even elite expert skiers will discover perspectives they may have experienced and been unable to express. Mike Rogan, the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) National Alpine Team Captain and the living embodiment of the perfect turn, notes, "Nowhere else will you understand the white dance as inside these scrolls. You will not be a complete Alpine Slider until you finish this book." Secrets is like a backstage pass to an arena concert; its authors, Jackson Hogen and "Guru" Dave Powers, make you feel the beating pulse that invests every run down these natural amphitheaters with the invisible energy of the gravity stream. No other book on skiing has illuminated the concept of flow with such vivid examples, drawn from two lifetimes devoted to skiing in sync with the mountain. "Secrets is about flowing into the zone, be it the athletic performance zone or the Zone of Life. It should be required reading for all students... and their instructors," says the creator of the cutting-edge Clendenin Ski Method (CSM) and 2-time World Freestyle Champion John Clendenin. Whether you're already a master of the mountain or one who aspires to be, Secrets has countless lessons intertwined between its covers. You'll learn the advantages of being early in the turn, of drifting instead of carving and taking what the mountain gives you. "Snowbird Secrets applies to all skiing," observes the prime mover behind expertskier.com, Peter Keelty, "from the local bunny hill to the vast reaches of the Chugash. We believe it to be among the most important skiing books ever written. In our opinion, Secrets is must reading for anyone serious about skiing. Moreover, Secrets is a cracking good read."

Snowbird travels south to Florida, seeking warmth, but he is not sure if he escaped or if he needs to be rescued.