Search results for ""catalyst books""

Hannah always finds a way to get what she wants.Daughter to Chloe Cartwright, an eccentric prize-winning writer more interested in politics than parenthood, and sister to a rugby-star brother, Hannah has never excelled at much besides shoplifting. Discovering a talent for petty crime, she steals what she needs to fit in with her wealthier school friends, while at home, her mother''s sporadic paychecks often mean an empty fridge.As an adult, Hannah falls, almost by chance, into a successful career as partner to one of South Africa’s leading chefs. But the universe has a dark sense of humor. When her mother''s increasingly erratic behavior forces Hannah home again, she finds herself in a bizarre role reversal, caring for the mother who never had time to care for her. As she searches for ways— both conventional and radical— to ease Chloe’s suffe

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From debut Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Mapepa comes the saga of the four Taha sisters, and the indomitable matriarch who carried her daughters—and her community—through times of drought and violence in their Harare neighborhood. From the red soil of her garden in Southgate 1, a crowded suburb of Harare, Nyeredzi watches the world. She knows not to venture beyond the grasses that fence them off from the bush, where the city’s violent criminals and young lovers claim the night. But on this red soil, she is sovereign. It is here where she learns how to kill snakes, how to fight off a man, and how to take what she is due. It is here where Nyeredzi and her three older sisters are raised, and where they will each find a different destiny.Decades prior, a young woman abandons a position of great power to seek justice in the second Chimurenga War, only to return to find her world in shambles. So Zuva Mutongi sets off to build a world of her own, raising four daughters—Nyeredzi, Hannah, Abigail, and Ruth—and defending them from the evils beyond their small Harare home. But when a letter from her long-estranged brother calls her back to a past life, Zuva must reconcile with her duty and heal the broken community she left behind.Tsitsi Mapepa’s vibrant debut is the history of a new Zimbabwe, with resilient women and men who raised a nation from its ashes. It is the chronicle of an L-shaped house, long awaited and much beloved, and the guests, welcome and unwelcome, who cross its threshold. It is the coming-of-age of four sisters, who will discover the secrets of womanhood on the volatile streets of Harare. But above all, it is a love song to one woman—a soldier, healer, chief, and mother—whose fierce devotion to her people is a testament to the bonds of blood that bind us all.

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A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard SelectionFrom the award-winning author of Small Mercies, named a Best Middle-Grade Book of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews"I’ve decided that some people put out fires and leave the world cold and hopeless and others nurse the kindling, blow like mad and fan the flames with whatever they have at hand - so that everyone feels its warmth."A lot of things can feel just out of reach in 12-year-old Boipelo Seku's small, impoverished village of Cedarville, South Africa. The idea of one day living in a house that's big enough for his family is just a faraway dream. But when Boi stumbles on a story about a Canadian man who traded his way from a paperclip to a house, Boi hatches his own trading plan starting with a tiny clay cow he molded from river mud. Trade by trade, Boi and his best friend Potso discover that even though Cedarville lacks so many of the things that made the paperclip trade possible, it is fuller than either of them ever imagined.In a chain of events that turns Boi's tiny spark into a warming fire, Boi learns the power of friendship and community, and finds that something’s value isn’t in what you can trade for it, but in the good it brings to the people you love.With a motley crew of characters, wholehearted humor, and a whole lot of hope, The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap is a joyful read for lovers of The Penderwicks or classics like The Moffats.

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FROM THE AWARD-WINNING ANIMATION TEAM BEHIND THE FILMS KHUMBA, ZAMBEZIA, AND SEAL TEAM2024 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for TeensPearl has always felt more comfortable in the sea than surrounded by the people in her sleepy South African town who always seem to let her down. But when a new friend from below the surface is taken by poachers, Pearl may need a little help after all.Since her mother left, Pearl has spent more and more time in the ocean, fishing to help her father pay the bills. But when she gets mixed up with a group of illegal abalone poachers and starts diving near a restricted wreck, Pearl meets an ancient sea monster named Otto—who isn’t quite as monstrous as she thought. And when Otto’s enemies come back to finish what they started, Pearl is the only one who can save him, but only if she has the courage to let go of her past and open up to others—including the girl from class she’s got a crush on. With her one-eyed pup sidekick and a whole lot of nerve, Pearl may just be able to save Otto and finally tell the truth to her father… and, more importantly, to herself. With vibrant full-color illustrations, Pearl of the Sea is a South African adventure story exploring how we are both bound to and freed by nature, seen through the eyes of a tough teen-aged heroine determined to live life by her own rules.

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A Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book of 2022 A USBBY 2023 Outstanding International BookA 2022 Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner (Graphic Novels & Comics Category)Honorable mention, 2023 Children's Africana Book Awards2022 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity Award Overfloweth honoreeNominated for the TLA Maverick List All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa revives six true stories of resistance by marginalized South Africans against the country’s colonial government in the years leading up to Apartheid. In six parts—each of which is illustrated by a different South African artist—All Rise shares the long-forgotten struggles of ordinary, working-class women and men who defended the disempowered during a tumultuous period in South African history. From immigrants and miners to tram workers and washerwomen, the everyday people in these stories bore the brunt of oppression and in some cases risked their lives to bring about positive change for future generations. This graphic anthology breathes new life into a history dominated by icons, and promises to inspire all readers to become everyday activists and allies. The diverse creative team behind All Rise, from an array of races, genders, and backgrounds, is a testament to the multicultural South Africa dreamed of by the heroes in these stories—true stories of grit, compassion, and hope, now being told for the first time in print.

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Sixteen-year-old Ebba den Eeden is dealing with all the typical teenage things: first boyfriends, mean girls, overbearing aunts – and, of course, navigating the political schemes of a murderous dictator, running a farm to feed an entire city, preventing the genocide of 2,000 teenagers trapped inside South Africa’s famous Table Mountain, and saving the world from another apocalypse by reuniting four ancient amulets with the help of her ghostly ancestors. Just another day for a den Eeden! In The Thousand Steps, we met Ebba, a red-headed mixed-race teen with a mysterious birthmark who spent sixteen years underground when nuclear war caused massive sea level rise and flooded her home city of Cape Town. Now a second apocalypse is on the way, and according to an old family prophecy, Ebba is the only one with power to stop it. With Hal imprisoned, the Colony running out of food, Micah off leading the Resistance with a gorgeous new sidekick, and the Second “Calamity” only days away, Ebba must listen to her instincts, even if it means destroying the things she holds most dear. Who can she trust to help take down General de Groot and find the missing amulets – and who will betray her? In the second installment of Helen Brain’s Fiery Spiral trilogy, Ebba will learn the impossible decisions – and great sacrifice – that sometimes come with destiny. A dystopian fantasy that plays out on the shores of South Africa, for lovers of Akata Witch and Children of Blood and Bone. PRAISE FOR THE FIERY SPIRAL BOOK ONE “This novel will draw readers in with its high stakes and well-developed characters. […] A strong, character-driven work recommended for readers looking for dystopian fantasy with a social justice bent.” - School Library Journal “A deftly crafted, impressively original, and inherently entertaining novel […]. The Thousand Steps will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to any high school or community library YA Fiction collection.” - Midwest Book Review “Mixing mythology with real historical atrocities like apartheid, this is a solid tale featuring diverse characters who reflect the real-world communities of South Africa” —Kirkus Reviews

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Introducing Bait, the little toad with a big personality. Bait the toad loves the camera, and the camera certainly loves him! From his river-bed roots to TikTok stardom, Bait has never found a pose he couldn’t slay, or a hat he couldn’t style. In this side-splitting photo book, Bait is ready to prove that there’s more to amphibians than meets the eye. Whether it’s striking confident poses in the garden, sporting sassy homemade hats, or hanging out with his furry friends, this tiny toad has a lot to teach us all about being comfortable in our own skin.Brighten up your day or make a loved one laugh with Bait and his pals, the perfect gift for any age.

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The daughter of a river god, raised by a human father and bound to a tragic destiny. An African fantasy-adventure graphic novel inspired by the mythology of the Zambezi River and the history of the Kariba Dam, one of the largest dams ever constructed.From the director of Aau’s Song, a Star Wars: Visions film from Lucasfilm, and the director of the 2023 NYICFF award-winning The Smeds and the SmoosSiku has always called the Zambezi River her home. She understands the water – and strangely enough, it seems to understand her, too, bending to her will and coming to her aid in times of need. But things are changing on the river – a great dam is being built, displacing thousands of Shonga people – and things are changing in Siku, too, as her ability to manipulate water grows out of control, and visions of a great serpent pull her further from reality and her loving father, Tongai.When Tongai ventures to the Kariba Dam to find a cure for Siku and never returns, she sets off to find him with the help of Amedeo, the young son of Kariba’s chief engineer. Together, they traverse elephant graveyards, rugged jungles, and ancient ruins, outrunning pirates, bootleggers, and shape-shifting prophets ready to use Siku to their own advantage. But Siku soon discovers that her father has been shielding a terrible secret: Siku is actually the daughter of the Great River Spirit, Nyaminyami, and the only way to bring about the necessary rumuko - a ritual which has brought balance to the Zambezi for centuries - is for Siku to give up the only life she's ever known.With the future of the Shonga resting on her shoulders, Siku must journey to the source of the river to understand the ancient power hidden within her.

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From beloved Congolese comics creator Barly Baruti and Belgian comics critic Thierry Bellefroid, translated from the original French by Batchelder Award-winning translator Ivanka HahnenbergerA Harlem gangster’s trip to Central Africa to attend the legendary 1974 Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match becomes a one-way ticket to the seedy underground of Zaire—complete with espionage, murder, and a communist plot to overthrow Zaire''s infamous President Mobutu.When Ernest, a low-level gangster from Harlem, wins tickets to travel to Zaire to attend the "Rumble in the Jungle," the now-legendary bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, he’s eager to reconnect with his African roots and escape the ruth

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A 2024 IBBY Honour List Selection In the final years of South Africa’s Apartheid era, an unlikely trio—a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it. Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby— until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship—sparked by a shared secret— challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever. Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.

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By 1996, millions of South Sudanese have been killed, died of starvation, or fled the decades-long civil war ravaging their country. So when the Presbyterian Church in the United States begins recruiting a development team to work with war refugees in the region, Caroline and her husband Mark are eager to help. But it’s only months before ghosts from their individual pasts whistle in to disrupt their marriage and their new postings. Caroline finds relief in teaching and peace work in South Sudan, but the heavy responsibility she now carries for dozens of vulnerable families—coupled with the prevailing ideas of Biblical womanhood that put pressure on her personal life—makes it increasingly clear that Caroline is under-prepared for the high-stakes crisis in which she is now embedded. Through a number of consequential mistakes and increasingly debilitating self-doubt, Caroline clings to hope that her willingness to stand with the South Sudanese will count for something in the end. A deeply personal examination of South Sudan at war—and a woman at war with herself—Today is Tomorrow shines a warm light on the darkest of places.

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"This transcendent and powerful testament to the indomitable human spirit is not to be missed." —Publishers Weekly, starred reviewFrom 2022 Windham Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria NdlovuBook 1 in the City of Kings trilogy As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital after having suffered through a long illness, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. It is also the story of her forebears - Baines Tikiti, who, because of his wanderlust, changed his name and ended up walking into the Indian Ocean; his son, Livingstone Stanley Tikiti, who, during the war, took as his nom de guerre Golide Gumede and who became obsessed with flight; and Golide's wife, Elizabeth Nyoni, a country-and-western singer self-styled after Dolly Parton, blonde wig and all. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) - from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself. At turns mysterious and magical, but always honest, The Theory of Flight explores the many ways we lose those we love before they die.

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Ruthless underworld criminal Rocco Robano’s group of right wing fanatics, inspired by crazed evangelist Heinz Dieter, are responsible for mayhem and murder in the city of Cape Town. As they prepare to leave for their new home, Aurora, a protected community where the White Brothers, the Core, will live out their days in solidarity, they run amok in the city already cursed by xenophobia. Employed to find a set of missing uncut diamonds, ex-addict Rae Valentine, a feisty, sexy, intrepid, newly-minted Private Investigator, falls prey to the gang of men intent to use her and destroy her for sport. Rae can’t outrun the storm of righteous fury as the vicious gang escalate their violence. As a victim of a kidnapping, she does what she can to protect herself from these depraved and barbarous men, and to save her PI partner, Vincent Saldana, from certain death. From Cape Town to the banks of the Orange River in Namibia, the tension rises as Rae fights for her life and discovers that the missing diamonds are linked to the illicit dealings of the brutal gang without conscience.

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The final installment in Peter Church's Dark Web Trilogy “A fast-paced and gripping thriller—expect several twists along the way.” —Cosmopolitan Amid rumors of bartenders paid to spike drinks and then deliver drugged college women to paying, eager patrons, University of Cape Town (UCT) authorities move quickly to limit the damage—but the police don’t want to believe there is a problem. A world away in Seattle, Carlos De Palma, the shadowy operator behind Dark Video, is plotting his survival strategy in the ever-changing Internet landscape. With his wealthy clientele clamoring for heightened thrills, Carlos begins tapping into a new service that blurs the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds. Meanwhile, UCT student Robbie is sent into a sinister underground world where no price is too high to pay to deliver every fantasy—no matter how twisted. Bitter Pill, part of Church’s dark web trilogy, is a gripping thriller that sweeps through the intoxicating haunts of Cape Town’s nightlife to explode in an adrenaline-laced sprint through the violent landscape of stalking, sexual deviation, and murder.

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Religious and ethnic conflict may be the Horn of Africa's most enduring recent legacy. But beneath its recent history of war and displacement lies human stories—families, clans, lovers, neighbors, and friends, all bound together through common cultural, religious, and historical ties. The Lion's Binding Oath, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf's collection of short stories, introduces readers to the people of Somalia and their struggles: their humanity, faith, identity, friendship, and family bonds, as whispers of war grow louder around them. Through stories that span the years before and during Somali's civil war, Yusuf weaves together Somalia's political, social, and religious conflicts with portrayals of the country's love of poetry, music, and soccer. Yusuf's collection is a powerful examination of love and resilience in a country torn apart by war, and written with deep compassion for the lives of its characters. Ahmed Ismail Yusuf has lived in Minneapolis since fleeing Somalia in the late 80s. He did not speak English when he arrived, he was a high-school dropout, and he was not sure what his actual age was. Today he has two college degrees and is the author of Somalis in Minnesota, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. In 2017, The History Theatre of St. Paul, Minnesota produced his short play, “A Crack in the Sky,” a memoir about how Yusuf found inspiration in Maya Angelou and Muhammad Ali during his early days as an immigrant to the U.S.

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Hi!! I'm Epi Dermis, but my friends just call me Skin!Raise your hands if you sweat, tan, itch, have hair, or have freckles! I've been feeling pretty sensitive lately because everybody has something to say about me. But people don't always tell the truth.My color doesn't make me fast, strong, smart, or scary. I just want to shout, "It's just skin, silly!" "[A]n irresistibly brilliant, pitch-perfect page-turner that should be a must-read in every Pre-K and Elementary School in our country." — Henry Louis Gates JrAn illustrated children's book on the evolution of skin color, based on a collective 40+ years of peer-reviewed research from expert anthropologist Dr. Nina Jablonski and historian Dr. Holly Y. McGee, with a special foreword from celebrated literary critic and historian Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Meet Epi Dermis, your kid's quirky, clever guide to the origin of skin color! Using simple science and interactive activities, Epi takes readers on an adventure through human history to find out why skin is the hardest working organ in the body business. Whether it’s how migration and climate changed our skin's need for melanin, to why sweat is your body’s secret superpower, Epi’s got all the facts—and uses them to challenge false narratives about race and give kids the information they need to do the same.

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