A much-needed field guide to the more than 120 species of ferns and fern allies occurring naturally in the state, Ferns of Alabama provides yet another window into Alabama's amazing biodiversity. Ferns of Alabama is a beautiful, full-color guidebook to the great variety of ferns and fern allies that populate Alabama woods, stream banks, prairies, glades, roadsides, and trails. Along with the ecologically similar but genetically unrelated horsetails, clubmosses, and quillworts, ferns are nonflowering vascular plants of ancient lineages that date back to the Devonian era. Although they are now known to be unrelated, all of these groups of plants were once thought to be part of a single division of the plant kingdom called pteridophytes because of their similarities in reproductive biology, and they are generally studied together. These plants occur in great variety and abundance in Alabama because of the temperate climate, the sufficient year-round moisture, and the multitude of available habitats, soils, and microclimates in the state. The individual species accounts by John W. Short and Daniel D. Spaulding contain a description of the plant and its habitat, range, history, conservation status, and common names. Color photographs by T. Wayne Barger, Alan Cressler, Sarah R. Johnston, L. J. Davenport, and John W. Short show the ferns in their native settings and black and white line drawings by Marion Montgomery, Sue Blackshear, and John W. Short highlight major features and peculiarities of form. Maps illustrate the county-bycounty distribution of the more than 120 species described. Taxonomic keys designed for the nonscientific user make it easy to pinpoint the identity of a subject being studied in the field, and a glossary explains necessary botanical terms. There is also an appendix by Alan Weakley addressing taxonomic change.

In this compelling, action-packed book, Watt Key gives us the thrilling coming-of-age story of the unique and extremely appealing Alabama Moon, the basis for the film of the same name starring Jimmy Bennett and John Goodman. For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. They keep to themselves, their only contact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store. When Moon's father dies, Moon follows his father's last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn't know or understand; he's become property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. As the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there. This title has Common Core connections. Alabama Moon is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

An insider's perspective in a conversational, yet unapologetic style on the events and conditions that shaped modern-day Alabama.

The Coretta Scott King Award–winning Gone Crazy in Alabama by Newbery Honor and New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of the Gaither sisters as they travel from the streets of Brooklyn to the rural South for the summer of a lifetime. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother Big Ma and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles’s half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven’t spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that’s been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible. Powerful and humorous, this companion to the award-winning One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven will be enjoyed by fans of the first two books, as well as by readers meeting these memorable sisters for the first time. Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming will find much to love in this book. Rita Williams-Garcia's books about Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern can also be read alongside nonfiction explorations of American history such as Jason Reynolds's and Ibram X. Kendi's books. Each humorous, unforgettable story in this trilogy follows the sisters as they grow up during one of the most tumultuous eras in recent American history, the 1960s. Read the adventures of eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, as they visit their kin all over the rapidly changing nation—and as they discover that the bonds of family, and their own strength, run deeper than they ever knew possible. “The Gaither sisters are an irresistible trio. Williams-Garcia excels at conveying defining moments of American society from their point of view.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Coretta Scott King Award winner * ALA Notable Book * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year * ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice * Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * Washington Post Best Books of the Year * The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book * Three starred reviews * CCBC Choice * New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing * Amazon Best Book of the Year

A native son and accomplished historian does not flinch from pointing out Alabama's failures from the past 100 years; neither is he restrained in calling attention to the state's triumphs in this authoritative, popular history of the past 100 years.

A “soul-stirring debut,” Boys of Alabama tells the “bewitching” (Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine) tale of sixteen-year-old Max’s first year in America. “Daring, unusual . . . and startlingly fresh” (Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio), Boys of Alabama announced Genevieve Hudson’s place in the canon of the southern gothic alongside Donna Tartt and Harper Lee. Newly arrived in Alabama, Max falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power. Although his German parents don’t know what to make of a South pining for the past, shy Max thrives after being taken in by the football team. But when he meets fishnet-wearing Pan in physics class, they embark on a quixotic, consuming relationship. Writing in “prose that is always imaginative and sensual” (Sarah Neilson, Believer), Hudson offers a complex portrait of masculinity, religion, immigration, and the adolescent pressures that require total conformity.

Includes 20 projects to make, designer and author demonstrates how she learned to sew and how she has learned that what she makes is important to the community where she grew up.