Grade level: 6, 7, 8, e, i, s.

It is early September 1973 and the archipelago of the Bahamas has just received its independence from England. After kicking the British out of the country and realizing the result is an overwhelming shortage of teachers, the Bahamian Ministry of Education turns to North America for help, sending advertisements for qualified teachers as far north as Northern Canada. Buster Murdock, an adventurous, peace-loving young man fresh from graduate school, takes the bait. While lured to the magnetism of living in the Caribbean and its turquoise waters, Buster is also attracted to the idea of a quiet, peaceful island paradisea desire not unknown to many men from all walks of life. But as soon as his plane lands in Nassau, Busters dreams are quickly shattered by reality. While attempting to fit into the Bahamian culture and way of life, Buster must gain the respect of his pre-teen students, make friends with other teachers, and battle his way through loneliness. But when he finds what he hopes is love, Buster soon learns that life is unpredictable at best. Wild Dog Caribbean is the colorful tale of a restless American teacher who must survive outside the spheres of his old, accustomed environment and find a new normal while living and working amid an ever-changing 1970s Bahamian culture.

Miranda Sherry instantly became “a writer to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) with her extraordinary debut novel reminiscent of The Lovely Bones and Little Bee, about a murdered woman who observes from the afterlife as her teenage daughter, the sole survivor of a farm massacre, recovers from the trauma amidst a family’s startling dysfunction. Yesterday, Sally and her teenage daughter Gigi were living a charmed bohemian life in the African bush. Now Sally is dead, and Gigi is alone in the world. But Sally cannot move on. She lingers unseen in her daughter’s shadow. When Gigi moves in with her aunt’s family in Johannesburg, Sally comes too. When Gigi’s trauma stirs up long-buried secrets, Sally watches helplessly from the beyond as the family unravels. When her young niece develops an obsession with African magic, Sally calls upon their neighbor Lesedi, the beautiful, modern-day witch doctor, who can communicate with the dead and plies her trade in secret behind the closed gates and high walls of their affluent suburb. Gigi’s fragile healing process is derailed when she receives some shattering news, and in an effort to protect her cousin instead puts the girl in imminent danger. Now Sally must find a way to prevent her daughter from making a mistake that could destroy the lives of all who are left behind. A suspenseful drama focusing on marriage and fidelity, sisterhood, and the fractious bond between mothers and daughters—and set in a contemporary, urban world that belies a simmering wildness—Black Dog Summer is a gorgeously written debut, with a pace that will leave you breathless.

"Summer" by Dallas Lore Sharp is the fourth last volume of the natural history - outdoor book series by the author. Excerpt: "I believe that a child's interest in outdoor life is a kind of hunger, as natural as his interest in bread and butter. He cannot live on bread and butter alone, but he ought not to try to live without them. He cannot be educated on nature-study alone, but he ought not to be educated without it. To learn to obey and reason and feel—these are the triple ends of education, and the greatest of these is to learn to feel. The teacher's word for obedience; the arithmetic for reasoning; and for feeling, for the cultivation of the imagination, for the power to respond quickly and deeply, give the child the out-of-doors."

WINNER OF THE PRIX LANDERNEAU DES LECTEURS 2018 Described as 'eerie and sensual' by The Guardian, Wild Dog tells the story of a young couple who discover dark secrets in the remote French countryside. 'Reads like a modern fairy tale' New York Journal of Books Franck and Lise, a French couple in the film industry, rent a cottage in the quiet hills of the French Lot to get away from the stresses of modern life. In this remote corner of the world, there is no phone signal. A mysterious dog emerges, looking for a new master. Ghosts of a dark past run wild in these hills, where a German lion tamer took refuge in the First World War … Franck and Lise are confronted with nature at its most brutal. And they are about to discover that man and beast have more in common than they think. A literary sensation in France, Wild Dog is a dark, menacing tale of isolation, human nature and the infinite savagery of the wild.