In this story, poor Dad had two problems. First he made a mistake because he was thinking hard about his important work. Then a lot of noise stopped him from hearing an important message. He was very sorry.

In the tumult of 1970s New York City, kids are expected to figure out issues of race that adults haven't when seventh graders are bused from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica. Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are three mixed-race girls who have always felt like outsiders in their mostly white neighborhood in Queens, but at least they have each other. Now it's seventh grade, and they're part of an experiment where kids will go on a long bus ride to integrate a new school in a black neighborhood. Maybe there the three girls can finally fit in. But Francesca's parents put her in private school. And Jamila and Josie discover that they're not even in the same classes. How do they find their place in a school divided between black and white? And what about the boys wanting to be friends--and maybe more? Can kids come together when grown-ups stay apart? In this tender story of friendship and family love, award-winning author Marina Budhos captures what it's like to tip from twelve to thirteen and to try to carry the dreams of adults.

Rowan came back from the shamans in Mongolia a changed boy. The three most debilitating effects of his autism - his incontinence, his endless tantruming, and his inability to make friends - were gone.But a year almost to the day since Rowan's improvement he started regressing: the accidents and tantrums reappeared, terrifying his father Rupert. Something had to be done.Father and son embarked on a new quest, journeying from the bushmen of Namibia to the coastal rainforests of Queensland, Australia and finally to the Navajo reservations of the American southwest, where Rowan was transformed - they had begun the Long Ride Home.

IPPY 2012 Outstanding Books of the Year, "Most Likely to Save the Planet" Award Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist for Autobiography/Memoirs A vivid, sweeping, passionate story about a modern-day adventure, this is a beautiful chronology of Lucian Spataro and his team’s record-setting Arabian horse ride across the United States to draw attention to the destruction of the world’s rainforests. Told with wit and eloquence, the story moves from the beaches and crowded streets of Los Angeles, across Death Valley and the Painted Desert, through hundreds of towns and cities in the Midwest, before ending on the East Coast in an effort to bring an eye to environmental issues that in 1989 had no visibility or advocate in the United States. The urgency and importance of Spataro’s mission remains today as 20 years later the situation has not improved. Like the original ride itself, this book serves as both a report from the environmental front line and a fresh call to action.

In 1974 a disenfranchised young man from a broken home set out to do the impossible. With a hundred dollars in his pocket, a beat up cavalry saddle, and a faraway look in his eye, John Egenes saddled his horse Gizmo and started down the trail on an adventure across the North American continent. Their seven month journey took them across 11 states from California to Virginia, ocean to ocean.. As they left the pressing confinement of the city behind them, the pair experienced the isolation and loneliness of the southwestern deserts, the vastness of the prairie, and the great landscapes that make up America. Across hundreds of miles of empty land they slept with coyotes and wild horses under the stars, and in urban areas they camped alone in graveyards and abandoned shacks. Along the way John and Gizmo were transformed from inexperienced horse and rider to veterans of the trail. With his young horse as his spiritual guide John slowly began to comprehend his own place in the world and to find peace within himself. Full of heart and humor, Egenes serves up a tale that's as big as the America he witnessed, an America that no longer exists. It was a journey that could only have been experienced step by step, mile by mile, from the view between a horse's ears.

"[The author's] Long Ride took place between July 8, 2012 and September 13, 2014"--Author's note.

Adventure begins when six Minnesota women head out to the Black Hills of South Dakota for a fun-filled trail ride. While telling wild tales around a campfire, they witness a mind-blowing, spectacular aurora borealis. Early the next morning they ride a little-known trail only to get lost. When they return to camp, exhausted, they find that a massive solar flare has damaged the electric grid. In a changed world, with no electricity, no cell phone service and no gasoline, these stranded women take control and decide to ride their horses back home. What started as an adventure turns into a test of survival. They must work together to find food and water, face rattlesnakes, suffer through brutal thunderstorms and wrestle with their personal demons--all without succumbing to fear. These female centaurs ride out of the hills, through the Badlands and into a new awareness.