From its captivating illustrations to its heartwarming story, "The Light of the Moon and the Baobab Tree" is an unforgettable tale of friendship and generosity that helps kids overcome their fear of the dark and will soon be your child's favorite bedtime treat. The book first introduces children to the moon and the baobab tree, two dear friends that create a magical light that fills the lives of the forest creatures with happiness and love for each other. The more fun they have together and the more they appreciate each other, the bigger the magic grows. Soon, the baobab and the moon want to share this wonderful light with the whole world, but first they need to ask a special friend for help. Discover how the blessings of this magical light spread to the children while they're sleeping, and watch as it fills them with love and joy, too!

A spectacular oversize photo book celebrating Africa’s most majestic trees—which are now facing an unprecedented ecological threat. Baobabs are one of Africa’s natural wonders: they can live more than 2,000 years, and their massive, water-storing trunks can grow to more than one hundred feet in circumference. They serve as a renewable source of food, fiber, and fuel, as well as a focus of spiritual life. But now, suddenly, the largest baobabs are dying off , literally collapsing under their own weight. Scientists believe these ancient giants are being dehydrated by drought and higher temperatures, likely the result of climate change. Photographer Beth Moon, already responsible for some of the most indelible images of Africa’s oldest and largest baobabs, has undertaken a new photographic pilgrimage to bear witness to this environmental catastrophe and document the baobabs that still survive. In this oversize volume, Moon presents breathtaking new duotone tree portraits of the baobabs of Madagascar, Botswana, South Africa, and Senegal. She recounts her eventful journey to visit these monumental trees in a moving diaristic text studded with color travel photos. This book also includes an essay by Adrian Patrut, leader of a research team that has studied Africa's largest baobabs and alerted the world tot he threat these majestic trees are facing. Baobab is not only a compelling photo book and travel narrative, but also a timely ecological warning.

Captivating black-and-white photographs of the world’s most majestic ancient trees. Beth Moon’s fourteen-year quest to photograph ancient trees has taken her across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some of her subjects grow in isolation, on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves; others maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization. All, however, share a mysterious beauty perfected by age and the power to connect us to a sense of time and nature much greater than ourselves. It is this beauty, and this power, that Moon captures in her remarkable photographs. This handsome volume presents nearly seventy of Moon’s finest tree portraits as full-page duotone plates. The pictured trees include the tangled, hollow-trunked yews—some more than a thousand years old—that grow in English churchyards; the baobabs of Madagascar, called “upside-down trees” because of the curious disproportion of their giant trunks and modest branches; and the fantastical dragon’s-blood trees, red-sapped and umbrella-shaped, that grow only on the island of Socotra, off the Horn of Africa. Moon’s narrative captions describe the natural and cultural history of each individual tree, while Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections at The New York Botanical Garden, provides a concise introduction to the biology and preservation of ancient trees. An essay by the critic Steven Brown defines Moon’s unique place in a tradition of tree photography extending from William Henry Fox Talbot to Sally Mann, and explores the challenges and potential of the tree as a subject for art.

Photographer Beth Moon revisits the world’s oldest trees in the darkest places on earth, using color photography to capture vibrant nighttime skies. Throughout much of the world, night skies are growing increasingly brighter, but the force that protects the remaining naturally dark sky, unpolluted by artificial light, is the same that saves its ancient trees—isolation. Staking out some of the world’s last dark places, photographer Beth Moon uses a digital camera to reveal constellations, nebulae, and the Milky Way, in rich hues that are often too faint to be seen by the naked eye. As in her acclaimed first volume, Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, these magnificent images encounter great arboreal specimens, including baobabs, olive trees, and redwoods, in such places as South Africa, England, and California. In her artist’s statement, Beth Moon describes the experience of shooting at night in these remote places. An essay by Jana Grcevich, postdoctoral fellow of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, provides the perspective of a scientist racing to study the stars in a world growing increasingly brighter. Clark Strand, the author of Waking Up to the Dark: Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age, takes a different tack, illuminating the inherent spirituality of trees.

Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza. A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband—these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren’t too far out of reach. But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told. Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life—her future—is hers to fight for.

‘Take this woman into custody,’ thunders the Reverend. ‘Arrest her. She has viciously attacked me, and in that bundle is wrapped a dead child!’ It is 1860: four lives intertwine. Chrissy Hogarth is arrested in St Dunstan's church while a blizzard blows outside. Lokim – a gentle herdsman – is attacked by a lion in the heat of central Africa. James Stewart – a medical student – tutors the children of the great David Livingstone, while in Dundee Mina Stephen – the daughter of a rich shipbuilder – nurses a growing social conscience. Before they meet, Chrissy must remember a traumatic event and Lokim will suffer the privations of a terrible journey. James must face the realities of life and death on the Zambezi and Mina will learn that a dark secret is concealed within her privileged family home. Based around events described in contemporary letters, journals and a 1908 biography, Dappled Lightcaptures the idealism of Stewart whose reputation was damaged by rumours of a relationship with Mary Livingstone, but who went on to dedicate his many talents to the ending of slavery, the advancement of education and the promotion of racial equality.

This volume collects papers presented at the annual French Literature Conference, sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures of the University of South Carolina.