snakes
Chomp
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Hiaasen, Carl, PUBLISHER: Ember, Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one. When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called "Expedition Survival," Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself--to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's boneheaded star, before the shoot is over. But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger seems to actually believe his PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna--a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her old man and needs a place to hide out. They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun... It's anyone's guess who will "actually" survive "Expedition Survival."...
Possum Nocturne
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Ramspeck, Doug, PUBLISHER: Northshore Press, The poems in Possum Nocturne imbue the physical world with human traits and human consciousness, the speakers imagining the landscapes of their days as alive with portentous meaning. In David Hume wrote in A Natural History of Religion: "There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds... hence the frequency and beauty of the prosopopoeia in poetry, where trees, mountains, and streams are personified." The works in this collection are about animism and superstition, about characters who are convinced that a hoot owl whispers to us, that a black tupelo limb is an augury, that three crows in a black willow tree portend death, that a dry stream bed suggests that a spouse or relative will have a miscarriage, and that we can read our futures in the entrails of a pickerel frog or in a hognose snake skin found draped beside a river bank. Indeed, snakes in these poems often serve as mysteries and occultations. What could be more "other" than a creature without arms or legs, that muscles around on its own belly, that often has vertical slits as pupils, and that sticks out its tongue to "understand" the air? The world for the characters in these poems, then-mostly poems situated in the American Midwest and American South-is alive with its own form of consciousness and secret meanings.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Millard, Candice, PUBLISHER: Broadway Books, At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, "The River of Doubt" is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth. The River of Doubt--it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron. After his humiliating election defeat in , Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil's most famous explorer, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever. Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. "The River of Doubt" brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived. From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt's life, here is Candice Millard's dazzling debut.
Herd of Cows, Flock of Sheep
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Walton, Rick / Olson, Julie, PUBLISHER: Gibbs Smith Publishers, $ hardcover x 10 in, 32 pp, Color Illustrations Throughout, Rights: W, Children's Picture Book What's more fun than a clowder of cats, a rafter of turkeys, a swarm of bees, or a pack of dogs? Herd of Cows Flock of Sheep -the latest word play from the king of language arts picture books, Rick Walton. After bringing in his corn, potatoes, beans, and tomatoes before a rainstorm, Farmer Bob decides to settle down for a good night's rest. While he snoozes away, the river rises high enough to set his bed afloat down the river. This sends his animals into a panic-a drove of pigs outlines a plan, a colony of beavers races to chew down trees, a school of fish tries to create a dam, and so forth, until finally Farmer Bob is rescued by a nest of snakes and a herd of horses. It's a barnyard adventure that will leave bands of children begging for more. Author of Once There Was a Bull frog, Bullfrog Pops and many other wonderful children's books, Rick Walton lives with his wife and four children in Provo, Utah, where he writes on whatever is available and gets pretty much what he deserves. You can find out more about Rick at www.rickwalton.com. Julie Olson was born in Maryland, grew up in Evansville, Indiana, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.F.A. in illustration. She lives near Utah's Rocky Mountains, where she devotes her time to illustration and family.