In the wilds of Upstate New York, a young dog is abandoned on a lonely country road--an act that propels him into an epic journey of adventure and self-discovery. After meeting four other strays, the newly-formed canine fellowship sets off on a quest to find the Whispering Fields, a legendary, hidden sanctuary for all homeless dogs.

Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This book makes an urgent intervention in the history of the conflict, which to date has been characterized by a fixation on sensational violence—or ignored altogether. Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three people who found themselves at the center of Punjab’s human rights movement: Baljit Kaur, who armed herself with a video camera to record essential evidence of the conflict; Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who became a beloved “people’s judge”; and Inderjit Singh Jaijee, who returned to Punjab to document abuses even as other elites were fleeing. Together, they are credited with saving countless lives. Braiding oral histories, personal snapshots, and primary documents recovered from at-risk archives, Kaur shows that when entire conflicts are marginalized, we miss essential stories: stories of faith, feminist action, and the power of citizen-activists.

The dramatic story of neighbors in a small Danish fishing village who, during the Holocaust, shelter a Jewish family waiting to be ferried to safety in Sweden. It is 1943 in Nazi-occupied Denmark. Anett and her parents are hiding a Jewish woman and her son, Carl, in their cellar until a fishing boat can take them across the sound to neutral Sweden. The soldiers patrolling their street are growing suspicious, so Carl and his mama must make their way to the harbor despite a cloudy sky with no moon to guide them. Worried about their safety, Anett devises a clever and unusual plan for their safe passage to the harbor. Based on a true story.

“Why can’t we all just get along?” Rodney King famously asked as Los Angeles burned. A quarter of a century later, the question has more power and resonance than ever. The tales in Scenes from the Catastrophe reflect our fractured world, capturing the misadventures and travails of the marginal and the displaced, of people aching for an affirmation of who they are and where they belong. These short stories examine the fault lines of citizens’ personal and professional lives in the twenty-first century and the causes of the subterranean rumblings that so often herald violence. In “The Reckoning,” a revolutionary ideology gone berserk leads to mass killings of financial sector professionals. In “The Forgotten Case,” a cruel prank exposes the politically correct machinations behind life on a remote college campus. “Another Manhattan” relates the abduction of an editor of a once fiercely anti-corporate alternative weekly newspaper. “The Ordeal” depicts the consequences of a failed comedian’s unraveling in a city on the verge of riots. The violent and shocking tales in this book depict the death of civilization.

The rich curriculum's content is infused with critical thinking skills, and an easy-to-use teacher's guide outlines student objectives with each chapter, providing the answers to the assignments and weekly exercises. The final lesson of the week includes both the exam, covering insights on the week's chapter, as well as essays developed through the course of that week's study, chosen by the educator and student to personalize the coursework for the individual learner.