After learning about maps in school, Lisa maps all the favorite places of her dog Penny.

About the Book Topper and Penny are two young siblings that are growing up fast. Now in fourth and fifth grade, they love their family and friends and all the laughter and entertainment that comes with them. Even though they are very different and act like normal children, they show that love comes from all the interactions they have together, not just unique events like sibling squabbles. They interact with each other and their friends and family like real children, with a child’s understanding and knowledge, that any reader can relate to their own experience as a child. About the Author Jacinda Ann Downing has worked as an Early Childhood educator for over twenty years. She believes this is a God-given gift that she certainly does not take for granted. She has one daughter and two sons. Her hobbies include reading, writing, working out, weekend getaway, playing and watching sports, and window shopping. Downing also attends church regularly for spiritual growth and fellowship, has an active prayer life, and most of all enjoys helping others. She is very family-oriented and believes that a strong family is developed through prayer, love, gatherings, and communication.

Lisa's homework assignment is to measure something. The fun begins when she decides to measure her dog, Penny.

Do you worry about our planet, with its environmental crises, global warming, widespread violence, and global poverty? Do you feel powerless to change your life and impact your world? What in the World Is Going On reframes these crises as an invitation to open our minds and hearts to a new awareness of our fundamental interdependence with all beings. With breathtaking optimism, it offers courage and hope to all who hold the world in their hearts and grieve. Crises bring opportunities. We are poised to vastly expand our consciousness, allowing us to address our deep fears and create communities which embrace and serve all of us. The rich conversation between Manjushri, the Tibetan teacher, and the student probes the roots of our fears and challenges our common assumptions about the roles of science and markets in our world. It rejects the inflated claims of our ego-selves and the stifling confines of materialism. The Teacher assures us everything can be changed. We can escape our isolation, celebrate our interdependence with all beings, and heal our communities. The worldwide web allows us to connect with like-minded people around the world. This epochal shift in energy and consciousness is well underway. The Teacher encourages all of us to trust our emerging visions, dissolve the fears shrouding our best selves, and allow our natural compassion to flow out into the world.

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism. Penny Von Eschen escorts us across the globe, backstage and onstage, as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other jazz luminaries spread their music and their ideas further than the State Department anticipated. Both in concert and after hours, through political statements and romantic liaisons, these musicians broke through the government's official narrative and gave their audiences an unprecedented vision of the black American experience. In the process, new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East--collaborations that fostered greater racial pride and solidarity. Though intended as a color-blind promotion of democracy, this unique Cold War strategy unintentionally demonstrated the essential role of African Americans in U.S. national culture. Through the tales of these tours, Von Eschen captures the fascinating interplay between the efforts of the State Department and the progressive agendas of the artists themselves, as all struggled to redefine a more inclusive and integrated American nation on the world stage.

Welcome to my inside flap. You know, most inside flaps in books try to sum up what the book's all about, and they usually have plenty of fancy terms like, "magically woven," or "packed with laughs," or "a triumph of the human spirit." And, of course, all of this is just a thinly veiled attempt to get you, the book browser, to buy the book. But not on my inside flap, no sir. I've got too many stories to tell, and I can't waste any space. So, with that in mind, here's a caption for the photograph of me on pages 58-59. I really enjoy a nice traditional Japanese steam bath. And so do my two lovely companions, Timori (left) and Masako. They're both flight attendants for a Japanese airline. And before you get any ideas, we're just friends. You know Tyra's the only one for me.

Where Worlds Collide is the fascinating story of a biologist's spectacular discovery that has deeply changed the way we view the world.