A lonely, little stray dog survives several terrifying experiences, and eventually finds a good home.

From the bestselling author of Our Little Secret comes a suspenseful new thriller featuring two estranged sisters desperate to keep their deepest and darkest secret where it belongs—in the past. When I open the door, I see a face more than anything, the paleness of it stark against the dark hair. Long hair, familiar. Blue, damaged eyes. Immediately, I feel my knees might give out, like I might fall to the ground. I cover my mouth with both hands and stare. It’s her. It’s Ruth Van Ness. My sister. Alexandra Van Ness has the perfect life. She lives in an idyllic resort town tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, shares a designer loft with her handsome boyfriend, Chase, and has her dream job working in child protection. Every day, Alex goes above and beyond to save children at risk. But when her long-lost sister, Ruth, unexpectedly shows up at her door asking for help, Alex’s perfect life is upended. Growing up, Ruth was always the troublemaker, pulling Alex into her messes, and this time will be no different. Their relationship is fraught with hurts and regrets from their childhood that bind them to silence, but they can’t outrun them forever. Alex lets Ruth stay under one condition: we will never, ever, talk about the past. But when a local child is in danger, Alex becomes very involved and the secrets from long ago come back to haunt her with terrible consequences for everyone. A gripping look at the inescapable bond between sisters—and the devastating cost of a single mistake—Hurry Home will keep readers guessing who is telling the truth and who is lying until the very last page.

The oldest and most prestigious children’s literature award, the Newbery Medal has since 1922 been granted annually by the American Library Association to the children’s book it deems "most distinguished." Medal books enjoy an outsized influence on American children’s literature, figuring perennially on publishers’ lists, on library and bookstore shelves, and in school curricula. As such, they offer a compelling window into the history of US children’s literature and publishing, as well as into changing societal attitudes about which books are "best" for America’s schoolchildren. Yet literary scholars have disproportionately ignored the Medal winners in their research. This volume provides a critically- and historically-grounded scholarly analysis of representative but understudied Newbery Medal books from the 1920s through the 2010s, interrogating the disjunction between the books’ omnipresence and influence, on the one hand, and the critical silence surrounding them, on the other. Dust Off the Gold Medal makes a case for closing these scholarly gaps by revealing neglected texts’ insights into the politics of children’s literature prizing and by demonstrating how neglected titles illuminate critical debates currently central to the field of children’s literature. In particular, the essays shed light on the hidden elements of diversity apparent in the neglected Newbery canon while illustrating how the books respond—sometimes in quite subtle ways—to contemporaneous concerns around race, class, gender, disability, nationalism, and globalism.

With a touch of magic and a lot of heart, award winning author Ruth White tells the tale of Ruby, an orphan in the South in the 1940s, who discovers something stronger than family ties: love.

Human beings have long imagined their subjectivity, ethics, and ancestry with and through animals, yet not until the mid-twentieth century did contemporary thought reflect critically on animals' significance in human self-conception. Thinkers such as French philosopher Jacques Derrida, South African novelist J. M. Coetzee, and American theorist Donna Haraway have initiated rigorous inquiries into the question of the animal, now blossoming in a number of directions. It is no longer strange to say that if animals did not exist, we would have to invent them. This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collection reflects the growth of animal studies as an independent field and the rise of "animality" as a critical lens through which to analyze society and culture, on a par with race and gender. Essays consider the role of animals in the human imagination and the imagination of the human; the worldviews of indigenous peoples; animal-human mythology in early modern China; and political uses of the animal in postcolonial India. They engage with the theoretical underpinnings of the animal protection movement, representations of animals in children's literature, depictions of animals in contemporary art, and the philosophical positioning of the animal from Aristotle to Derrida. The strength of this companion lies in its timeliness and contextual diversity, which makes it essential reading for students and researchers while further developing the parameters of the discipline.

A New York Times and million copy bestseller, the classic handbook on reading aloud to children—revised and updated Recommended by “Dear Abby”, The New York Times and The Washington Post, for three decades, millions of parents and educators have turned to Jim Trelease's beloved classic to help countless children become avid readers through awakening their imaginations and improving their language skills. Now this new edition of The Read-Aloud Handbook imparts the benefits, rewards, and importance of reading aloud to children of a new generation. Supported by delightful anecdotes as well as the latest research, The Read-Aloud Handbook offers proven techniques and strategies—and the reasoning behind them—for helping children discover the pleasures of reading and setting them on the road to becoming lifelong readers.

First published in 1998, this book is the first comprehensive survey of the awards made to children’s books in the English-speaking world. The Volume covers nearly forty different prizes including well-known and established ones such as the Newbury Award, prizes instigated by the commercial sector such as the Smarties Prize, as well as nationally sponsored awards and prizes for illustrators. Detailed lists are provided of the winning titles and, where appropriate, the runners-up in each year that the award has been given. Ruth Allen also presents some fascinating and often entertaining insights into the motivations behind awards and how they are views by authors, illustrators, publishers, librarians, booksellers and potential purchasers. The various criteria applied by judges of these awards are also examined, with an assessment of whether they have always achieved the ‘right’ result. This Volume is both a useful guide for adults wishing to buy good books for children and an important tool for those researching the history of the children’s book industry.

First published in 1992, this Sourcebook is a basic working tool for all those concerned with children’s reading. It will help librarians and teachers to select a comprehensive stock of children’s’ fiction for their institutions.The authors in the sourcebook have been selected on the grounds of importance, popularity and current availability. Author entries are arranged in alphabetical order and indexes provided by title, series, age-range and genre. Each entry consists of some background information, and evaluative comment on style of the book, a list of the authors books with publisher, date and price, and literary agent where applicable. There is a suggestion of similar authors, sequels, related series and reader age range.