Junior year at Pine Mountain Academy (PM) is going to be rough for fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West. With a name like Ryan Dean, things don't come easy. Luckily, most of his rugby teammates called him Winger after his rugby position or Eleven after his jersey number. After Winger steals a teacher's cell phone to make long distance calls to his crush and friend Annie, he…
Read moreThe World Below tells two different stories; one about Cath, a new divorcee who moves across country to her Grandmother's house to pick up the pieces of her life, and also that of her Grandmother Georgia, a woman who went to a sanatorium for tuberculosis and the affect it had on her life. Chapters alternate between the two to show the differences and similarities between…
Read moreThe covers of a good book, that is! Look no further than Milwaukee Public Library. Whether you want to laugh at another's messy foibles as they search for love or live vicariously through their sexcapades, we've got a book for you to check out and enjoy today. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a fast-paced and often hilarious comedy--even though the ending was a little…
Read moreThrow the Damn Ball: Classic Poetry by Dogs by R. D. Rosen, Harry Prichett, and Rob Battles Let your poetry-loving pooch share the couch for a read-aloud of this collection--poems from the canine perspective accompanied by photos of dogs being dogs. Most of the focus is on food, sticks, toys and body and potty humor--which is where it's at for dogs! Especially fun are…
Read moreHe was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, better known as W.E.B Du Bois, was all these things and more. He helped found both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP, was the first African American to receive a Ph. D from Harvard, served as chairman of the Peace Information Center, and…
Read moreNAACP pamphlet, 1917 Click each image, above, to enlarge. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. The NAACP was formed in 1909 with the goal to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Drawing in members of earlier…
Read moreAlexander Walters The National Afro-American Council was the first nationwide civil rights organization in the United States. It was organized in Rochester, New York in September 1898 by Timothy Thomas Fortune, editor of the nation's leading black newspaper The New York Age, and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Walters is pictured above. Alarmed by ongoing violence against African Americans, especially the brutal…
Read moreA Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson, a Coretta Scott King honor book, uses poetic verse to describe Emmett Till; a fourteen year old boy who was lynched in 1955 for whistling at a white woman while at the grocery store. The illustrations by Philippe Lardy offer powerful, bold symbols that follow the verse. Simeon's Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till…
Read more