In the much-anticipated third entry in Edeet Ravel's delightful series, Pauline Carelli-Bloom is off to London to visit her grandmother. She's thrilled by all the different cultures she encounters in the great city -- and thrilled even more with Nigel Sivananda, a dashing young New Age devotee with, as she faithfully records in her diary, "blue eyes that pierce your soul and penetrate your thoughts." Now that her soul's been pierced and her thoughts penetrated, will Pauline also be swept completely off her feet? Will she return to her dull-but-faithful boyfriend Yoshi or escape to an ashram with Nigel in search of adventure and everlasting enlightenment? One thing is certain: Pauline's life is never boring, and neither is her journey toward self-discovery. Relating her latest adventures in life and love with quirky humor and an ever-present flair for the dramatic, Pauline presents a warm and funny snapshot of teen life, unfiltered and uncensored.

Single mother Elise is completely devoted to her eleven-year-old son. He is her world. But that world is violently and cruelly destroyed in a single, terrifying moment when he is killed in a car accident just outside their home. Suddenly alone in her house, surrounded by suffocating memories, Elise faces a future that feels unspeakably bleak and colourless-and pointless. All Elise can think of is joining her son. But in her final, unspoken promise to him, she realizes she must stay alive until she finds someone to take care of his beloved cat, Persephone. As her unique relationship with this trusting creature grows, Elise is forced to confront her past and find the courage to move forward with her life.

Struggling just to get by day-to-day, seventeen-year-old Fern's main source of happiness is the constant reassurance of her hard-working mother, but when her mother suddenly dies Fern must find a way to survive in the real world on her own.

To six-year-old Dori, everything seems possible. To her family and their Peers—secular, left-leaning North American Jews—the young state of Israel seems to offer the same promise, as the starry-eyed kibbutz movement prepares the ground for their ideals of justice and cooperation to take root and flourish. They settle on Eldar in northern Galilee, determined to create a new utopia, but life on this remote hill, three kilometres from the Lebanese border, is far more complex than any of its inhabitants could have imagined. The Last Rain tells the story of Eldar's emergence as a kibbutz through the eyes of Dori, as well as through documentary fragments that take the reader on a labyrinthine journey through the characters' collective past. With humour, sensitivity, and a deep love for the land, The Last Rain follows the coming of age not only of a young girl, but also of a country in the first fraught years of its existence.

Maya and Rosie meet one day at the local dry cleaner's and their instant friendship quickly blossoms into an inseparable bond. Both are children of Holocaust survivors, but Maya refuses to become entangled in her mother's past, while Rosie is drawn into her parents' haunted world.

Representing a broad range of ethnic diversity, these in-depth profiles present fascinating accounts of lives and careers, the circumstances under which works were produced, and their literary significance. Each profile also includes critical evaluation, a list of the author's principal works with date first published, a list of major critical works, and a portrait or photograph where available.