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LET’S PARTY!

Featuring 10 popular party themes, from dinosaurs to superheroes, fairies to pirates, each section of the book includes a cake, a main, side dishes, party crafts and favors, and decor for a festive atmosphere. Party planners are encouraged to mix and match, adding and adapting material from different sections to best fit their needs, and […]

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NO WAY BUT FORWARD

Hammam, Khalil, and Hussam, writes Barber, “are ordinary people living in an extraordinary context.” All three are Palestinian men who came of age during the intifada and Israeli occupation of their home in the Gaza Strip. While the book’s insightful introductory chapter offers readers ample historical context, the author, a professor emeritus at the University […]

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ELITA

While enjoying their lunch break outdoors on Elita Island, home to a federal penitentiary, two prison guards encounter a feral child who appears to be around 12, but is actually 17. Because the girl, who’s being called Atalanta Doe, doesn’t speak, the social worker assigned to the case is elated when she hears about Professor […]

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I KNOW WHAT I SAW

Seventeen-year-old Eliza Loft’s high-school experience in Whitehall—a “Podunk” town in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York—isn’t exactly idyllic. After her mother died of cancer when Eliza was 12 years old, the teen rebelled, and on a drunken night with her two best friends up in the woods, she did some regrettable things. In an […]

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JUST LIKE QUEEN ESTHER

Atara wears a crown everywhere she goes—in fact, her name even means crown. One day, her mom reads her a book about Purim, and Atara sees herself in Queen Esther; while Esther hid her Jewish identity, for a long time Atara never told her parents she was really a girl. Just as Esther’s crown made […]

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THE SPEAR AND THE SENTINEL

War veteran and widower “Voodoo” leads a group of hackers and “wrench-turners” for the United States Naval Special Warfareunit at the Directorate in San Diego. His skills earned him a spot in a rescue operation the previous year in Japan; now, the CIA station chief in Japan wants the same team for a mission in […]

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BOYS

Pete Barnes finds a terrified young Black boy named Alex Broadnax—shivering from the cold and covered in blood—hiding in his father’s milk barn in Leakesville, North Carolina. Alex witnessed the murder of his entire family by the Ku Klux Klan and is now on the run. Poppa Barnes, despite his unabashed racism, takes Alex in […]

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ON HEALING

Kalaichandran, a pediatrician and journalist, starts by revisiting her travails working at an Ontario hospital where, she says, the hostility of senior staff caused her to develop anxiety, depression, and high cholesterol levels. The ordeal prompted her to research connections between mental and physical healing and embark on a tour of alternate therapies. The journey […]

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NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Rory, a former Honor Warrior, loves Ingefær, a battle wizard, very much. They have traveled together for years working as bounty hunters and are ready to begin the next part of their journey together: marriage. While Rory has been hesitant to propose to Ingefær after so many of his loved ones have died, Furæyar Shrine, […]

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I’M LUCKY TO HAVE MY PARENTS

The brown-haired, light-skinned narrator and their parents are a tightknit family. With their mom, the protagonist bakes, draws, and builds cardboard houses; with their dad, they go on walks, make up stories, and roughhouse. They love their time with each parent, but when all three are together, things don’t always go as smoothly. Mom and […]