The story of a young Southeast Asian girl's life with her eccentric blended family in Lesotho, and her search for the truth about her absent father, is a parable for the country's own quest for freedom and maturity.Red Dust, Red Sky is set in southern Africa during the time of official apartheid. A family originally from India lives in exile in the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, a tiny country entirely surrounded by South Africa itself. The aftermath of the murder of a student activist at the hands of the South African police - betrayal, the struggle for redemption and years of life underground - is the basis for this powerful story. The language is beautiful, the plot riveting, the characters vivid, edgy and humorous, full of life and eccentric energy, sexual and otherwise. The story is told by Kokoanyana, a girl growing up in the small and closed belief system of rural Lesotho. She is obsessed with discovering the story of her lost father, but the many lies her mother tells her to avoid the potentially dangerous truth has sensitized Koko to the many lies and delusions of the adults around her. This is a world of concealed facts, obscure events, and phenomena only explicable in terms of the ancestors, Shiva, and the South African Defence Force. Kokoanyana's persistent pursuit gradually unearths pieces of the puzzle. But as the family's political history reveals itself, the soldiers advance.

Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems collects work from Eric Paul Shaffer's seven volumes and thirty-five years of publication. On voyages around the Pacific Rim, from California to Okinawa to Hawai'i, Shaffer's sharp eye for natural and human detail delights and illuminates. A charter member of the "Clear Pool School," Shaffer writes direct, profound, and often funny poems celebrating the American vernacular and encouraging a broader sense of the human, humane, ecological, and planetary. Lāhaina Noon Today, I'm a shadowless man. The sun calls me into the street, and I walk alone into the light of noon. The moment has come. I stand quietly on Front Street balancing the sun on my head. My shadow crawls in my ear to hide in the small, dark world of my skull. The sun illuminates the shadow in my skin, and I shine like a second moon, reflecting all the light I cannot contain.

"A sudden and violent explosion deep in the wastes of Antarctica hurls high into the stratosphere a vast cloud of lethal red dust which sweeps across the world. Wherever the dust settles people succumb to a strange plague until only a few survivors are left - the Immunes. A small band of Immues battle the odds and win through to New Zealand where they meet a group of scientists known as S.A.S., who have a palliative for the plague ..."--Jacket.

Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of interest in the consequences of political violence and displacement for the young. However, when speaking of “children” commentators have often taken the situation of those in early and middle childhood as representative of all young people under eighteen years of age. As a consequence, the specific situation of adolescents negotiating the processes of transition towards social adulthood amidst conditions of violence and displacement is commonly overlooked. Years of Conflict provides a much-needed corrective. Drawing upon perspectives from anthropology, psychology, and media studies as well as the insights of those involved in programmatic interventions, it describes and analyses the experiences of older children facing the challenges of daily life in settings of conflict, post-conflict and refuge. Several authors also reflect upon methodological issues in pursuing research with young people in such settings. The accounts span the globe, taking in Liberia, Afghanistan, South Africa, Peru, Jordan, UK/Western Europe, Eastern Africa, Iran, USA, and Colombia. This book will be invaluable to those seeking a fuller understanding of conflict and displacement and its effects upon adolescents. It will also be welcomed by practitioners concerned to develop more effective ways of providing support to this group.

Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

Cross Words refers to cultural hybrids, trans-cultural alliances, and associations. This fascinating compendium documents—in essays, conversations, and socratic raps—the vital work poets perform when they write across borders. Anne Waldman is the author of more than forty collections of poetry, the editor of numerous anthologies, and, for The Iovis Trilogy, the winner of the Shelley Memorial Award and the USA PEN Center Award for Poetry. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Laura E. Wright is a poet, translator, and librarian. With Anne Waldman, she co-edited Beats at Naropa (Coffee House Press, 2009).