The author introduces young readers to Neverbelieve, an island in the middle of the sea with unusual creatures and astonishing discoveries.

Reading the World’s Stories is volume 5 in the Bridges to Understanding series of annotated international youth literature bibliographies sponsored by the United States Board on Books for Young People. USBBY is the United States chapter of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), a Switzerland-based nonprofit whose mission is bring books and children together. The series promotes sharing international children’s books as a way to facilitate intercultural understanding and meet new literary voices. This volume follows Children’s Books from Other Countries (1998), The World though Children’s Books (2002), Crossing Boundaries with Children’s Books (2006), and Bridges to Understanding: Envisioning the World through Children’s Books (2011) and acts as a companion book to the earlier titles. Centered around the theme of the importance of stories, the guide is a resource for discovering more recent global books that fit many reading tastes and educational needs for readers aged 0-18 years. Essays by storyteller Anne Pellowski, author Beverley Naidoo, and academic Marianne Martens offer a variety of perspectives on international youth literature. This latest installment in the series covers books published from 2010-2014 and includes English-language imports as well as translations of children’s and young adult literature first published outside of the United States. These books are supplemented by a smaller number of culturally appropriate books from the US to help fill in gaps from underrepresented countries. The organization of the guide is geographic by region and country. All of the more than 800 entries are recommended, and many of the books have won awards or achieved other recognition in their home countries. Forty children’s book experts wrote the annotations. The entries are indexed by author, translator, illustrator, title, and subject. Back matter also includes international book awards, important organizations and research collections, and a selected directory of publishers known for publishing books from other countries.

A Guided Reader to Early Years and Primary English draws on extracts from the published work of some of the most influential education writers to provide insight, guidance and clarity about key issues affecting early years practitioners and primary English teachers. The book brings together key extracts from classic and contemporary writing and contextualises these in both theoretical and practical terms. The extracts are accompanied by a summary of the key ideas and issues raised, questions to promote discussion and reflective practice, and annotated further reading lists to extend thinking. Taking a thematic approach and including a short introduction to each theme, the chapters cover: Models of and approaches to early years and primary English; Speaking and listening in English lessons: story-telling, drama, ‘booktalk’ and debate; Reading and responding to texts in English lessons; Writing in English lessons: finding a ‘voice’; Knowledge about language: grammar, spelling, punctuation and handwriting; The rich landscape of children’s literature; Non-fiction in English lessons; Planning, assessing and recording children’s progress: the learning cycle. Aimed at trainee and newly qualified teachers, those working towards Masters level qualifications and all those involved in the teaching of early years and primary English, this accessible, but critically provocative text will be an essential resource for those that wish to deepen their understanding of early years and primary English education.

*A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INDIE NEXT PICK* Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

Thirteen of us, hanging out at the mall on Saturdays, having sleepovers every other weekend, sharing histories, working through our diversities, our problems with our moms, with boys, with zits and being "fat," we were pretty sure we had it all together. Until our losses began to stack up in the form of a close friend's death, diversities that threatened to split us up, parents losing their jobs in the deepening recession, some of us losing our homes; some losing our way; on top of that, the mall, our favorite hangout haven on the planet, closing its doors. And then, out of nowhere, our lives began to change. Mostly because of the mysterious woman that showed up toward the end of our eighth grade year, and the way she shook up our lives forever.