Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.

In Lives Between the Lines, Michael Vatikiotis traces the journey of his Greek and Italian forebears from Tuscany, Crete, Hydra and Rhodes, as they made their way to Egypt and the coast of Palestine in search of opportunity. In the process, he reveals a period where the Middle East was a place of ethnic and cultural harmony - where Arabs and Jews rubbed shoulders in bazaars and teashops, intermarried and shared family history. While lines were eventually drawn and people, including Vatikiotis's family, found themselves caught between clashing faiths, contested identities and violent conflict, this intimate and sweeping memoir is a paean to tolerance, offering a nuanced understanding of the lost Levant.

Contains ideas for teaching reading and writing in the K-12 curriculum that include qualities of good writing, introducing literature, and rethinking of the writing workshop.

The Tour is a book that will take you on two journeys, one past and one present. Each fall, Bill Staines leaves his home in New England and sets out on a 5-week tour of North America, playing his music for fans and friends, and covering almost 15,000 miles of open highway. On the 20th anniversary of the tour, he began writing this narrative. Read these pages and you will journey with Bill and get to know some of the people and places that make his story worth telling. The Tour is also the chronicle of a life, from the time that Staines spent growing up in the Boston-Cambridge folk music scene in the early 1960s to the present, when he has come to be considered one of the most respected singer-songwriters on the folk music scene today. It is all here, and it is all written from the heart.

Does anyone ever see us for who we really are? Jo Knowles’s revelatory novel of interlocking stories peers behind the scrim as it follows nine teens and one teacher through a seemingly ordinary day. Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger—the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won’t be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a “big girl,” she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse—or so it seems. Over the course of a single day, these voices and others speak loud and clear about the complex dance that is life in a small town. They resonate in a gritty and unflinching portrayal of a day like any other, with ordinary traumas, heartbreak, and revenge. But on any given day, the line where presentation and perception meet is a tenuous one, so hard to discern. Unless, of course, one looks a little closer—and reads between the lines.

This thought-provoking companion to Nikki Grimes’ Coretta Scott King Award-winning Bronx Masquerade shows the capacity poetry has to express ideas and feelings, and connect us with ourselves and others. Darrian dreams of writing for the New York Times. To hone his skills and learn more about the power of words, he enrolls in Mr. Ward’s class, known for its open-mic poetry readings and boys vs. girls poetry slam. Everyone in class has something important to say, and in sharing their poetry, they learn that they all face challenges and have a story to tell—whether it’s about health problems, aging out of foster care, being bullied for religious beliefs, or having to take on too much responsibility because of an addicted parent. As Darrian and his classmates get to know one another through poetry, they bond over the shared experiences and truth that emerge from their writing, despite their private struggles and outward differences.

The Daily Telegraph correspondent tells his “fascinating history, not just of newspapers, but of his personal life, fleeing Nazi Germany, as a child” (The Independent). Berlin-born, John Izbicki lived through the horrors of Nazi persecution and, on the day after his eighth birthday, he witnessed the Kristallnacht, and the smashing of his parents’ shop windows. On the day Germany invaded Poland and Berlin experienced its first wartime blackout, the Izbickis escaped to Holland and from there on to England. The author describes what it feels like to have been a refugee, unable to speak or understand a single word of English, and how he was persuaded by a kind policeman to change his name from Horst to John. He also leads the reader along the remarkable journey he traveled from school to university, the first of his family to enter higher education, and through his adventurous time as a commissioned army officer during two years of national service spent in Egypt and Libya. But the best part of his life was yet to come when this young refugee decided to make journalism his profession. The boy who, not that many years earlier, could speak not a word of English, became the distinguished education correspondent of the country’s leading quality newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. After eighteen years in that responsible position, he was sent to Paris to head the Telegraph’s office there. When he left the newspaper to join the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics, he played a leading part in transforming the country’s polytechnics into its “new universities.” “From Nazi Germany to Fleet Street—the story of a charming survivor.” —The Guardian