This non-fiction title supports and explains a child's world, reinforcing positive social messages around being a contributing family member, a good student, and a good citizen. When paired with its fiction title counterpart, it allows emerging readers to engage with both fiction and informational texts on the same subject matter, thus gaining different perspectives, new vocabulary, and new approaches to the same content.

Through this book, help your readers learn about community and the part we all play in keeping it clean. Without sanitation workers, our world would be a very different place. Guide early readers through this fascinating book about trash and the important job of sanitation workers.

The caste system is supposed to be inescapable-you cannot change the caste into which you are born. But are there ways to elude the system? Concealing Caste tells the stories of women and men in India who, though born into communities stigmatized as 'untouchable,' are perceived by others as 'high caste.' Like the literature on racial passing in the American context, the short stories and autobiographical essays in this volume reveal the inner workings of a vicious social order, illuminating the contradictions of caste hierarchy through the experience of those who clandestinely transgress its boundaries. Concealing Caste is the first collection of Dalit writings focused on this public secret. Bringing together Dalit literature from Marathi, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, English and Malayalam-including stories and essays never before translated-this landmark anthology illustrates the agonizing choices and at times devastating consequences faced by Dalits who experiment with identity in a society shot through with the principle of birth-based inequality.

In this transformative memoir, a man confronts the harsh realities of living with bipolar disorder. Battling suicidal depression, manic episodes, homelessness, and repeated stays in psychiatric hospitals and jails, he reveals his journey through severe mental illness. Despite the turmoil, his life stands as a testament to overcoming immense obstacles and gaining profound spiritual insights. From a young age, he sought wisdom and meaning, even in the darkest times. Music became his sanctuary, a language to express his soul’s depths. Teaching himself to read music and play the piano at five, and later studying classical guitar in his twenties, music was not just a hobby but a lifeline. When the storm of his mental illness began to calm with the help of a compassionate doctor, he found stability. This allowed him to pursue a degree in Sociology and become a mentor, sharing his passion for music with others. Despite relentless challenges, he cultivated happiness and gratitude. His creative spirit flourished as a singer/songwriter at nineteen, and his poetic voice found an audience in his thirties when he began to publish his work. Now, in his fifties, his heart is set on giving hope to others who suf fer from mental illness. He is a beacon of belief that with faith in God, one can navigate through the fiercest storms and emerge stronger. His story is a testament to resilience, the transformative power of faith, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. This memoir is not just a recounting of hardships but a powerful narrative of resilience, hope, and the unwavering human spirit. It invites readers to see beyond the challenges of mental illness and embrace the possibility of a fulfilling and meaningful life.

"Where lies the boundary between meaning and sentiment? Between memory and nostalgia? America and Americana? What is and what was? Does it move?" —Donovon Hohn, A Romance of Rust Part travelogue, part cultural criticism, part music appreciation, It Still Moves does for today's avant folk scene what Greil Marcus did for Dylan and The Basement Tapes. Amanda Petrusich outlines the sounds of the new, weird America—honoring the rich tradition of gospel, bluegrass, country, folk, and rock that feeds it, while simultaneously exploring the American character as personified in all of these genres historically. Through interviews, road stories, geographical and sociological interpretations, and detailed music criticism, Petrusich traces the rise of Americana music from its gospel origins through its new and compelling incarnations (as evidenced in bands and artists from Elvis to Iron and Wine, the Carter Family to Animal Collective, Johnny Cash to Will Oldham) and explores how the genre is adapting to the twenty-first century. Ultimately the book is an examination of all things American: guitars, cars, kids, motion, passion, enterprise, and change, in a fervent attempt to reconcile the American past with the American present, using only dusty records and highway maps as guides.

America's largest city generates garbage in torrents—11,000 tons from households each day on average. But New Yorkers don't give it much attention. They leave their trash on the curb or drop it in a litter basket, and promptly forget about it. And why not? On a schedule so regular you could almost set your watch by it, someone always comes to take it away. But who, exactly, is that someone? And why is he—or she—so unknown? In Picking Up, the anthropologist Robin Nagle introduces us to the men and women of New York City's Department of Sanitation and makes clear why this small army of uniformed workers is the most important labor force on the streets. Seeking to understand every aspect of the Department's mission, Nagle accompanied crews on their routes, questioned supervisors and commissioners, and listened to story after story about blizzards, hazardous wastes, and the insults of everyday New Yorkers. But the more time she spent with the DSNY, the more Nagle realized that observing wasn't quite enough—so she joined the force herself. Driving the hulking trucks, she obtained an insider's perspective on the complex kinships, arcane rules, and obscure lingo unique to the realm of sanitation workers. Nagle chronicles New York City's four-hundred-year struggle with trash, and traces the city's waste-management efforts from a time when filth overwhelmed the streets to the far more rigorous practices of today, when the Big Apple is as clean as it's ever been. Throughout, Nagle reveals the many unexpected ways in which sanitation workers stand between our seemingly well-ordered lives and the sea of refuse that would otherwise overwhelm us. In the process, she changes the way we understand cities—and ourselves within them.

No decade in American history continues to fascinate us like the Sixties. No decade combines such hopeful idealism with such violence and disillusionment, or witnesses such profound political, cultural, and personal upheavals. And no decade benefits more from being seen through the eyes of those who experienced firsthand the shocks and revelations that still reverberate today. Newly revised and updated, with an expanded introduction, From Camelot to Kent State tells the story of ten of the most dramatic years in the life of America-and of fifty-nine men and women who lived through those years. In their own words, civil rights activists, soldiers who fought in Vietnam, anti-war protesters, student radicals, feminists, Peace Corps workers, and many others take us inside the major events and movements of the period. Far from a dispassionate history of the Sixties, these stories bristle with the tension and immediacy of lived experience. How did it feel to wake up into step out of a helicopter into a Vietnamese jungle; to ride south on a freedom bus, to march on the Pentagon; to take over a college administration building; to hear Jimi Hendrix play the national anthem at Woodstock; to attend the first consciousness-raising meetings for women at the Bread and Roses caf?? This captivating oral history will let you know. Included are first-hand accounts from both the famous-including Eldridge Cleaver, Abbie Hoffman, Philip Berrigan, and John Lewis-and the ordinary men and women who were swept up in major historical events, From Camelot to Kent State offers a uniquely valuable view of a decade that forever changed the history and consciousness of America.