Best friends Justin and Carlos are forced to play on rival baseball teams. By the end of the season, they aren't even talking.

The Battle of the River Plate was the first major naval confrontation of the Second World War, and it is one of the most famous. The dramatic sea fight between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles off the coast of South America caught the imagination in December 1939. Over the last 60 years the episode has come to be seen as one of the classics of naval warfare. Yet the accepted interpretation of events has perhaps been taken for granted and is ripe for reassessment, and that is one of the aims of Richard Woodman's enthralling new study. 'This author has made it all so very riveting, it really is a book which is hard to put down until finished.' Royal Geographical Society 'Graphic, thought provoking - highly recommended.' Britain at War

There's no telling what a game of baseball might bring—but it's not every day that an afternoon at the ballyard includes ball-launching cannons and shovel-wielding base thieves! In Pirates at the Plate, a story conceived and illustrated by artist Mark Summers, with text by Aaron Frisch, a ballgame turns into a one-of-a-kind showdown between cowboys and pirates. With stars such as a slugging Blackbeard and a hard-throwing Wild Bill Hickok, the great summer pastime becomes a rowdy adventure.

A study and reassessment of the major World War II battle in the South Atlantic between the British and German navies. The Battle of the River Plate was the first major naval confrontation of the Second World War, and it is one of the most famous. The dramatic sea fight between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles off the coast of South America caught the imagination in December 1939. Over the last sixty years the episode has come to be seen as one of the classics of naval warfare. Yet the accepted interpretation of events has perhaps been taken for granted and is ripe for reassessment, and that is one of the aims of Richard Woodman’s enthralling new study. Praise for The Battle of the River Plate: A Grand Delusion “This author has made it all so very riveting, it really is a book which is hard to put down until finished.” —Royal Geographical Society “Graphic, thought provoking—highly recommended.” —Britain at War

It was a long way for Wilmer Plate, from piloting a two-seater off a grass strip in Crane, Texas, to serving as an aircraft commander of a B-24 heavy bomber on a combat mission over Oldenburg, Germany, on May 30, 1944 with the lives of ten men depending on him. Wilmer Plate has not written a history book, he has painted a picture of life as it was for ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges--Back cover.

A memoir of fathers and sons, baseball, a world at war, and second chances. “I loved [it]. You will, too” (Jim Morris, author of The Oldest Rookie). Gene Moore was a small-town Illinois farm boy whose passion for “America’s Pastime” made him a local legend. It wasn’t long before word spread, and the Brooklyn Dodgers came calling on the teenage phenom who could hit a ball a country mile. Headed for stardom, and his dream within reach, Gene’s future in the majors was cut short by World War II. In 1944, after joining the US Navy, Gene found himself on a top-secret mission: guarding German sailors captured from U-505, a submarine carrying one of the infamous Enigma decoders. Stuck with guard duty, he decided to bide the time by doing what he loved. Gene taught the POWs how to play baseball. It was a decision that would change Gene’s life forever. The story of a remarkable man told by his inspired son, “Gene’s journey from promise to despair and back again, set against a long war and an even longer post-war recovery . . . [is] a 20th-century epic that demonstrates how, sometimes, letting go of a dream is the only way to discover one’s great fortune” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

"Why is it that food prices are so high that millions of South African families go hungry, while the prices paid to farmers for that same food are so low that many cannot stay in business? Why are the people that produce our food -- farmworkers -- among the most insecure of all? Why do high levels of rural poverty persist while corporate profits in the food sector keep rising? How did a country with a constitutional right to food become a place where one in four children is so malnourished that they are classified as stunted? An Empty Plate analyses the state of the South African agri-food system. Ledger demonstrates how this system is perpetuating poverty, threatening land reform; entrenching inequality and tearing apart our social fabric. The book asks two crucial questions: how did we get to this point and how might we go about solving the problem. This is a story of money, of power, of unanticipated consequences, and of personal and social tragedy. But it is also a story of what is possible if we reimagine our society and build a new system on the foundation of solidarity and ethical food citizenship."--Back cover.