Illustrations and rhyming text describe the University of Florida's mascots Alberta and Albert's vacation, as they take a road trip through Florida while school is out for the summer.

An explanation of the geological processes that formed Florida.

The Life and Times of Albert Capo reveals the social, economic, and cultural atmosphere that existed during the latter two-thirds of the twentieth century. The immigrant population that lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s faced many challenges, the least of which was learning a new language as they slowly integrated themselves into American society. Most boys Albert’s age did not encounter the peculiar situations or problems that confronted Albert. The streets of New York were Albert’s playground during his formative years, as it was for most boys living in ethnic conclaves throughout the city. Living through the Depression and prewar years gave Albert a unique perspective on the rapid change in American society. The American landscape looked quite different prior to the nineteenth century; there were no electric illumination of homes, no telephones, radios, TVs, automobiles, or central heating of homes. The importance of the twentieth century cannot be overestimated. The folks who lived through the twentieth century witnessed more technological advancements, inventions, and discoveries than the entire past history of mankind. Along with scientific discoveries was the fight for civil rights for women as well as minorities, two world wars, the development of nuclear energy and the atomic bomb, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the conquest of outer space by landing a man on the moon. It would take many volumes to describe that which has advanced the cause of civilization during the past one hundred years; and it would stagger the imagination to ponder the vicissitudes of technology for the next one hundred years—if we don’t destroy ourselves in the process.

“Miami, Florida: A Sunshine State’s Unauthorized and Unredacted Journey…Tome I” is a breathtakingly written memoir with an impressive tale of resiliency, redemption and self-searching identity. Those readers who had been following Gerdes’ trilogy memoir about his life journey going back to Les Cayes and Port-au-Prince, will undoubtedly be served once more by another no less fascinating and unpredictable tale of a journey!

1995-1996 South Dakota Prairie Pasque Award 1997-1998 Utah Children's Book Award 1995-1996 Texas Lone Star Reading List 1997-1998 Young Hoosier Book Award Master List (Indiana) 1995-1996 Nebraska Golden Sower Young Adult Award Runner-Up 1996 Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Master List (Florida) Runner-up for Rebecca Caudill Award (Illinois) Best of the Texas Lone Star Reading Lists When his baby sister disappears from the river near their summer home, eighth grader Chris fights the assumption that she has drowned and sets off on a journey to discover the truth. It's been three miserable months since 13-year-old Chris Barton lost his little sister, Molly. "Missing, presumed drowned" was what the paper said, and surely that is what everyone believes. After all, the Bartons had been picnicking by the river when Molly disappeared. One night, Chris views a video he made the day Molly was lost. There doesn't seem to be anything unusual here: a rest stop, lunch by the river, a hungry squirrel, a familiar ice cream van. But the video harbors an awful secret. In the middle of the night, Christ Barton wakes from fitful sleep—and begins a journey filled with fear, doubt, and impossible hopes.

"Gripping . . . Cutter Wood subverts all our expectations for the true crime genre.” —Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Then the motel is set on fire; her boyfriend flees the county; and detectives begin digging on the beach of Anna Maria Island. Author Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler’s motel as the search for her gained momentum. Driven by his own need to understand how a relationship could spin to pieces in such a fatal fashion, he began to talk with many of the people living on Anna Maria, and then with the detectives, and finally with the man presumed to be the murderer. But there was only so much that interviews and transcripts could reveal. In trying to understand how we treat those we love, this book, like Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, tells a story that exists outside documentary evidence. Wood carries the investigation of Sabine’s murder beyond the facts of the case and into his own life, crafting a tale about the dark conflicts at the heart of every relationship.

Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay • Finalist for the Southern Book Prize A New York Times Critics’ Best Books of the Year • An NPR Best Book of the Year • A NYLON Best Nonfiction Book of the Year • A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of the Year • An Entrophy Magazine Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year • A Brooklyn Rail Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year • A Baltimore Beat Best Book of the Year A Paris Review Staff Pick • A Chicago Tribune Exciting Book for 2017 • A Rolling Stone Culture Index Reccomendation • A Buzzfeed Most Exciting Book for 2017 • A The Millions Great 2017 Book Preview Pick • A Huffington Post 2017 Preview Pick • A NYLON Best 10 Books of the Month • A Lit Hub 15 Books to Read This Month A Poets & Writers New and Noteworth Selection • A PW Top 10 Spring Pick in Essays & Literary Criticism • An Emma Straub Reccomendation on PBS “One of the themes of ‘Sunshine State,’ Sarah Gerard’s striking book of essays, is how Florida can unmoor you and make you reach for shoddy, off-the-shelf solutions to your psychic unease…. The first essay is a knockout, a lurid red heart wrapped in barbed wire.... This essay draws blood.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times "Unflinchingly candid memoir bolstered by thoughtfully researched history…. A nuanced and subtly intimate mosaic… her writing, lucid yet atmospheric, takes on a timeless ebb and flow.” — Jason Heller, NPR.org "Stunning." — Rolling Stone “These large-hearted, meticulous essays offer an uncanny x-ray of our national psyche... showing us both the grand beauty of our American dreams and the heartbreaking devastation they wreak.” — Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You Sarah Gerard follows her breakout novel, Binary Star, with the dynamic essay collection Sunshine State, which explores Florida as a microcosm of the most pressing economic and environmental perils haunting our society. In the collection’s title essay, Gerard volunteers at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a world renowned bird refuge. There she meets its founder, who once modeled with a pelican on his arm for a Dewar’s Scotch campaign but has since declined into a pit of fraud and madness. He becomes our embezzling protagonist whose tales about the birds he “rescues” never quite add up. Gerard’s personal stories are no less eerie or poignant: An essay that begins as a look at Gerard’s first relationship becomes a heart-wrenching exploration of acquaintance rape and consent. An account of intimate female friendship pivots midway through, morphing into a meditation on jealousy and class. With the personal insight of The Empathy Exams, the societal exposal of Nickel and Dimed, and the stylistic innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel Binary Star, Sarah Gerard’s Sunshine State uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face.