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Gullah Culture (11/11)
The Gullah (known as Geechee in Georgia and Florida) are descendants of West African slaves, whose numbers today range from 200,000-500,000.
The Gullah region traditionally extends along the coast from SE North Carolina, through Georgia to Northern Florida, including the Lowcountry region and its Sea Islands (see map at bottom left).
...
Heterochromia (11/11)
Pearl has one brown eye and one blue eye. Amiel says to her that this means '
tu eres de dos mundos. You are of two worlds.' Pearl's uncle says it means that she can see fairies and peaceful ghosts.
But what is it exactly?
Heterochromia simply means a difference in coloration and is caused by a relative excess or lack ...
Who is Cath Crowley? (11/11)
A Little Wanting Song left me wanting to know more about author Cath Crowley, but the biographical information immediately at hand was a little light, so I did some digging....
Cath Crowley is an Australian children's author. She was born in 1971 and grew up in a rural part of Victoria (
SE Australia) with three brothers and a dog.
...
The Doctors' Plot (11/11)
The Betrayal is loosely based on a series of investigations that took place toward the end of Joseph Stalin's rule in 1953, formally known as 'The Doctors' Plot.' This bizarre scheme wrongfully accused nine prominent Moscow doctors - the majority of whom were Jewish - of coordinating the deaths of high-ranking Soviet Party members. Rather...
The Symbolism of Ravens (10/11)
Raven Summer begins with a raven beckoning to Liam to follow him. He flies a bit ahead, stops, calls to Liam - Jak jak! Jak jak! - and then flies a bit ahead again. Like this, the raven leads Liam to the abandoned baby. What is the symbolism of this loud, large beaked, black bird?
Ravens figure prominently in many legends from ...
Noirmoutier (10/11)
A Secret Kept is set primarily in Paris and Noirmoutier (pronounced 'nwar mooteeay'), an island off the Atlantic coast of France in the Loire region. A popular tourist destination for both beach-lovers and history buffs, Ile de Noirmoutier (literally 'island of black monastery') has several claims to fame:
It is home to La Bonnotte...
Checking Facts (10/11)
Deadly Spin unravels misinformation surrounding the contentious topic of American health care. Considering that Wendell Potter has shown how difficult it is to uncover the truth about such a widely discussed issue as this, where can the average citizen turn to find unbiased facts? Some suggestions include:
PolitiFact
This website ...
Siberian Sampler (10/11)
Ian Frazier encounters a diverse range of Siberian foodstuffs on his journey, from the salmon he helps to catch in the Bering Sea off Chukotka, to the linty sausage he pulls out of his luggage time after time on a long train trip. Here is a sampling of morsels from the culinary landscapes Frazier explores.
Ukha – A brief ...
The Nature Conservancy (10/11)
Proulx purchased the square mile of land that she named 'Bird Cloud' from
The Nature Conservancy, an organization incorporated in the USA in 1951 with a mission to take 'direct action' to save threatened natural areas. The non-profit now has a presence in all fifty American states as well as in more than thirty other countries. It is ...
Menno Simons and the Mennonite Church (10/11)
Menno Simons was an Anabaptist religious leader born in 1496 in Witmarsen (the Netherlands). Although he was not the founder of this branch of religion, he was a very important figure in the organizing of the Dutch Mennonite church, and his followers became known as Mennonites.
According to the
Global Anabaptist Mennonite ...
Lady Duff Gordon (10/11)
Born on June 24, 1821, Lucie Duff Gordon was the daughter of
John Austin, a former army man and legal scholar, and Sarah Austin (daughter of John Taylor of Norwich), a respected translator. Lucie was schooled in Germany during her early years, and demonstrated an aptitude for languages. As an only child, she was frequently in the ...
Religious Snake Handling (10/11)
Pentecostalism is a sect of Christianity that originated in rural areas of the USA in the early 1900s. Members believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit results in a personal experience of God, but salvation requires that they practice the teachings of Jesus Christ. They take every word of the Bible as literal truth and act on those ...
Everyday Magic in The History of Love (10/11)
Although Nicole Krauss's three books to date would not be classified as magical realism (a style, according to Wikipedia, wherein, 'normal occurrences… are presented in a straightforward manner, which allows the 'real' and the 'fantastic' to be accepted in the same stream of thought') there is in her books an element of the magic ...
Deborah Ellis (10/11)
Deborah Ellis has been all over the world. And she hasn't just visited places, she's done things. Big things. She went to Pakistan to help at an Afghan Refugee Camp; she went to Israel and the Ghaza Strip to talk with Israeli and Palestinian children; and she went to Malawi and Tanzania to spend time with children orphaned by AIDS. ...
The Legacy of Alexander the Great (10/11)
Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), popularly known as Alexander the Great, was one of history's most successful military commanders. He is reputed to have never lost a battle, and his tactics are still studied in military academies. He successfully challenged the Persian Empire, the largest, most powerful kingdom ...
Apartheid and Race Relations in South Africa (10/11)
Apartheid ('separateness',
pronounced 'apar-tate' in Afrikaans, although many English speakers say 'apar-tide') was a government-enforced system of racial segregation instituted in South Africa (
map) in 1948. Control of the government at that time was held by White
Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch colonists who started to arrive in ...
When is blue green, and when is it grue? (09/11)
Deutscher has much to say about the color 'blue': its presence or absence in a language or culture, its sister-color, 'green' with which it combines as a single hue in some languages, and notes that it is the color most difficult for children to learn.
Did you know?
- Many languages do not have separate terms for blue ...
The Perfect Pie (09/11)
Joyce Maynard always seems to incorporate fresh produce and cooking into her stories, with a special affinity for baking. A scene in
The Good Daughters includes freshly baked biscuits from scratch and ripened strawberries, while the preparation of a peach pie in
Labor Day provides one of the most poignant moments in the book.
...
Hard-boiled vs. Noir (09/11)
Hard-boiled fiction arose in the United States in the aftermath of WWI, and gained popularity and refinement in the years leading up to WWII. The popular genre was a direct reflection of the pessimism, uncertainty and disillusionment sweeping the country in the wake of gangster-driven crime, political scandal and economic crisis, and ...
Waste Not, Want Not (09/11)
Every day Americans waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl football stadium.
Food waste makes up as much as 25% of what's in America's landfills.
Household recycling of items like aluminum, glass, and plastic increased 400% in the decade to 1999; meanwhile, only 2.5% of eligible food waste is composted.
The average family of four ...
Robert Graves and the White Goddess (09/11)
What is Robert Graves doing, you might ask, in a book about rowdy teen boys? His presence is pervasive from the very first chapter, when the mysterious and beautiful new geography teacher, Aurelie, talks to Howard the Coward about how to get his history students engaged with the First World War:
'You should read them ...
The Team of Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis (09/11)
Husband and wife Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis live in a neighborhood in Forest Park, a 5000 acre northwestern wilderness on the edge of Portland, Oregon. To Colin and Carson, who spend hours and hours walking through the forest, it
feels like its own country, vastly different from, yet so close to, the city. This is the inspirational...
Practice Babies (09/11)
All it took was the unexpected image of a cute, bare-bottomed baby to set the wheels of
The Irresistible Henry House in motion. While Lisa Grunwald was researching another book, she happened upon an online exhibition detailing the history of Cornell University's home economics program which ran from 1900-1969. Originally ...
Why Quebec Speaks French (09/11)
The province of Quebec is Canada's second most populous province, after Ontario. It is the only Candian province to have French as its sole official language, and has a predominantly French speaking population with 4 out of 5 ranking French as their first language, and 95% able to speak it. Eight percent state that English is their first ...
The Israel National Trail (09/11)
In To the End of the Land, the central characters backpack along the northern stretch of the Israel National Trail, which is also known as 'The Galilee.'
The Israel National Trail (INT) is a 597 mile long (955 km) hiking trail that crosses the entire country of Israel, north to south, running from the city of Dan on the Lebanese ...
The British Women's Suffrage Movement (09/11)
Ethel and Maud's agitation for women's suffrage is a critical element in Fall of Giants. According to Follett: 'of all the massive changes that took place in the 20th century, the biggest was equality for women.'
Though there were instances of agitation for a woman's right to vote in Britain prior to the formation of the National...
Schizophrenia (09/11)
What is schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that distorts a person's sense of reality. It impedes a person's ability to regulate his or her emotions and often makes socializing, decision making and logical thinking very difficult. As set forth by the US National Library of Medicine, there are multiple kinds of ...
The Appeal of Doomed Lovers (09/11)
Search the web for 'famous love stories' and you'll find that most sites rank Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 1st place. Considering how few of the general populous will have actually read or watched a performance of Shakespeare's arguably most famous play in recent years it seems likely that what keeps this pair of star-crossed lovers...
The Tower of London (09/11)
If you've read the The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise you'll already have been taken on a veritable history tour of The Tower of London and the Yeoman Warders, popularly known as Beefeaters, who guard it. For those who haven't read the book yet or, for that matter have but would like a quick summary of some of the history of the Tower,...
Ray Harryhausen (09/11)
Harryhausen, the cat at the center of This Must Be the Place, is a living totem of his owner's patron saint, the real-life animator Ray Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in the field of animation, and the inspiration behind Racculia's Amy, who builds her life around the surreal art of making model monsters for the ...
The Perfect Squeeze: Julio Lobo's Manipulation of "The Good Neighbor Policy" (09/11)
In The Sugar King of Havana John Paul Rathbone describes one of the most successful and cunning business moves of Julio Lobo's career - a manipulation of FDR's Good Neighbor Policy which, according to Eduardo Kaplan of The Wall Street Journal, 'placed [Lobo] in a different league.'
As part of the Good Neighbor Policy, FDR ...
Real Dogs Portrayed in Fiction (09/11)
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe creates a believable character in Maf, a character based on Marilyn Monroe's dog. Fiction about or including dogs has a popular and long history.
Wikipedia offers an expansive page listing the dogs in literature including Odysseus's faithful companion Argos, and ...
Coleridge's Frost at Midnight and The International Dark Sky Association (08/11)
Brilliant provokes much thought on a variety of topics: circadian rhythms; the health dangers of light exposure; the depiction of natural and man-made light in art (Brox discusses three of Van Gogh's night paintings and explains what light and darkness was like for him.); the Columbian Exhibition; the eccentric and visionary Nikola ...
Art as Devotion: Theyyam Dancers (08/11)
The subjects of Dalrymple's Nine Lives seek transcendence and divine communion in different ways. Some embrace aceticsm, while for others like the wandering Baul minstrel, the reciter of holy epics, or the maker of bronze deities, 'art and religion are one.'
The most vivid practitioner of art as devotion is Hari Das, the dalit &#...
Vish Puri's Favorite Dishes (08/11)
Investigator Vish Puri just won't stop his quest for the elusive killer. Unless, of course, it's dinner time. Or lunch time. Or time for an afternoon snack. If you already like Indian food, The Man Who Died Laughing will make your mouth water. And if you haven't tried Indian food, here's a cheat sheet to some of the Most Private ...
Early Cookbooks and Recipes (08/11)
In
The Cookbook Collector, George purchases a large collection of old and rare cookbooks - all of which exist in real-life.
Cookbooks have a wonderful and interesting history. The earliest surviving recipe collection in English are the 200 or so recipes known as the The Forme of Cury ('The Rules of Cookery') which is believed to ...
The Navajo Nation (08/11)
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous political and cultural entity within the United States which covers northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and parts of southeastern Utah. This is part of the area known as the Four Corners region, where the borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet, which became USA territory...
Siobhán Parkinson (08/11)
On May 11, 2010, Siobhán Parkinson (pronounced sh-vawn) became the first Irish
Children's Literature Laureate (aka Laureate Na nÓg) ever. (Na nÓg is an Irish term meaning 'the young' or 'young people'). Held for two years, the main purpose of the position is to expose youths to good, high quality children's literature and ...
Human Microbes (08/11)
In an article in
The Daily Telegraph, Dr. Roy Sleator, a lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, states that, 'We are, in essence, only 10 percent human. The rest is pure microbe.' In a
June 2011 report, National Public Radio's Science Desk Correspondent, Robert Krulwich, agrees. Yes, he says, our bodies do indeed consist of...
Self-Publishing Successes (08/11)
Hilary Thayer Hamann self-published her novel with the help of her former husband's print and design company, consciously choosing to forego the typical path of agents, editors, and salespeople. The book found a disparate but fervent audience and started winning awards. A film producer inquired about movie rights and encouraged Hamann...
Catherine de Medici (07/11)
Catherine de Medici was born on April 13, 1519 in Florence, Italy. Her mother, Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, died a few days later either of plague or of syphilis contracted from her husband, Lorenzo II de Medici, Duke of Urbino (a sovereign state in northern Italy), who died from the disease a few weeks later. Madeline and Lorenzo had...
Bonobos (07/11)
Vanessa Woods with bonobos in a wildlife sanctuary
in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Sydney Morning Herald
Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are one of the two species that make up the genus Pan,
along with Pan troglodytes, the Common Chimpanzee. Chimps and bonobos are the
closest extant relative to humans, sharing almost 99% of our...
The History of The Hardy Boys (07/11)
Shortly after Will and Devon begin investigating the mysterious death of their high school quarterback, they name themselves the Hardy Boys. Here they are texting as they create this new identity:
Smiley_Man3000: With all the inside info I get from my dad and your big brain, we can solve this Chambers thing!
HamburgerHalpin: ...
The White Mountain National Forest (07/11)
It is no wonder that Elliott Hansen chose the White Mountains of New Hampshire
to restore health and hope to his friends and family. The White Mountains have long been revered as a deeply spiritual place by the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micman, Maliseet, and other Native American tribes in the region. With its breathtaking scope...
The Swallows of San Juan Capistrano (07/11)
All my life, the swallows returning every March 19th to San Juan Capistrano, California, has been a symbol of the strength of nature and of how some things never change. Except they do and, what's more, maybe it never happened anyway, or, even worse, we may be responsible when things do change.
For over a century, St. Joseph's Day ...
Colony Collapse Disorder (07/11)
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon in which bees mysteriously disappear from their hives. 'The main symptom of CCD is simply no or a low number of adult honey bees present but with a live queen and no dead honey bees in the hive. Often there is still honey in the hive, ...
A Quick Tour of Chinese Cities Found in Rock Paper Tiger (07/11)
Since the 2008 Olympics, China has become more of a tourist destination than ever. For those of us who haven't ventured that far, here is an overview of the cities where Ellie Cooper tried to elude her pursuers.
Beijing
Also known as Peking, Beijing is the capital of The People's Republic of China as well as its political, educational...
Emma Donoghue (07/11)
Emma Donoghue is an award-winning Irish writer who lives in Canada. She has published seven novels, three collections of short stories, three works of non-fiction and various productions for stage, radio and screen.
In her own words: 'Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, I am the youngest of eight children of ...
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