Helene was a strong-willed princess, raised in France but closely connected with the court of Queen Victoria. After the premature end to a romance with Victoria's grandson, she married into the royal family of Italy. However, Helene began extended adventuresome trips into Africa where she became a big-game hunter, explorer and travel writer, escaping from an unhappy marriage and the boredom of court life. Her travels took her around the world, but her sense of royal duty brought her back to nurse aboard a hospital ship in Libyan waters, then to an important role as head of the Italian Red Cross nurses during the First World War while her husband headed Italy's Third Army, and her two sons served in the artillery and the navy. Afterwards, her strong Italian nationalism made her an ally to Gabriele d'Annunzio and Benito Mussolini, but the disastrous Second World War saw her grandchildren interned in Austria and her older son die as a British prisoner-of-war while she continued her charitable work in Naples. When the country voted to become a republic in 1946, Helene was the only member of the royal family allowed to remain in Italy with her second 'secret' husband.

A brilliant and emotionally resonant exploration of science and family history. A vibrant young Hispano woman, Shonnie Medina, inherits a breast-cancer mutation known as BRCA1.185delAG. It is a genetic variant characteristic of Jews. The Medinas knew they were descended from Native Americans and Spanish Catholics, but they did not know that they had Jewish ancestry as well. The mutation most likely sprang from Sephardic Jews hounded by the Spanish Inquisition. The discovery of the gene leads to a fascinating investigation of cultural history and modern genetics by Dr. Harry Ostrer and other experts on the DNA of Jewish populations. Set in the isolated San Luis Valley of Colorado, this beautiful and harrowing book tells of the Medina family’s five-hundred-year passage from medieval Spain to the American Southwest and of their surprising conversion from Catholicism to the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 1980s. Rejecting conventional therapies in her struggle against cancer, Shonnie Medina died in 1999. Her life embodies a story that could change the way we think about race and faith.

Explores the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema.

Fate Turns Leander loves three things: information, truth, and his sister. For her sake, he clambered down off the palace roofs to take a place as a sub-librarian in the library. He earns their keep in a world of books, papers, and the pursuit of answers to any and all questions. One more successful mission means promotion to full librarian—cementing his and his sister’s place on the ground. But at night in his lonely bed, he dreams of a woman as far out of reach as a star in the sky. Seen and admired only from a distance: Danissa, the youngest of the magical Dancing Princesses. Sent to the summer palace to investigate a mystery—the destruction of a royal treasure—his investigation leads to Danissa. Promotion hinges on extracting vital information, but gaining her love requires restraint and secrecy. Work or love? Or find a way to win both? Two cautious hearts collide in a sweet romance in A Healer Princess.

Best friends, big fans, a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting novel, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen, & illustrated throughout with comics. Once upon a time, two best friends created a princess together. Libby drew the pictures, May wrote the tales, and their heroine, Princess X, slayed all the dragons and scaled all the mountains their imaginations could conjure. Once upon a few years later, Libby was in the car with her mom, driving across the Ballard Bridge on a rainy night. When the car went over the side, Libby passed away, and Princess X died with her. Once upon a now: May is sixteen and lonely, wandering the streets of Seattle, when she sees a sticker slapped in a corner window. Princess X? When May looks around, she sees the Princess everywhere: Stickers. Patches. Graffiti. There's an entire underground culture, focused around a webcomic at IAmPrincessX.com. The more May explores the webcomic, the more she sees disturbing similarities between Libby's story and Princess X online. And that means that only one person could have started this phenomenon---her best friend, Libby, who lives.

At this time in history when Life on Earth is threatened, it is imperative to prepare the children and teach them values that will set humanity on course to a healthier future for everyone. The Princess of Freedom teaches young people the living skills of forgiveness and tolerance so we may overcome our differences and live in peace and brotherhood. It teaches children to serve as caretakers of Mother Earth and it inhabitants, and to appreciate the beauty of our planet and the wisdom of the animals as guides and teachers for humanity. "The Princess of Freedom weaves profound life lessons into a wholesome and delightful tale. From a teacher's perspective, I see it as literature to stimulate the imagination and creativity of a child." -- Phyllis Blain, Elementary teacher

The Robber with the Witch's Head presents almost fifty new stories about demons and clever maidens and princes. Bursting with life, this is a storyteller's dream, full of adventure and magic, translated by Jack Zipes.