Lost (and Found) at Sea
Curious City has an ocean view. Or at least, if we walk out our doors and down a steep hill we found ourselves on a sheltered bay of the Atlantic. From the beach these last weeks, you can watch people squeezing the last sails of the season before high winds and cold settle in. As the refugee crisis continues to play out on the beaches of the Middle East, Northern Africa and Europe, those images screen in over my idyllic Maine view. And, of course, the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed ashore is there. That is an image of lost childhood that we can never unsee. Kevin...
Read MoreWho Made You King of the Beasts?
World Lion Day 2015 comes in with a roar and a continued uproar about Zimbabwe’s Cecil the Lion being illegally killed by an American. Like all such things, America’s reaction (by animal rights activists, conservationists, hunters, cat lovers, children, and the mighty media) says more about our culture than it says about one dentist (with too much money and too little respect). And like all such things, it reveals the cultural isolation that is America – living apart from countries like Zimbabwe where lions are a complicated and dangerous affair. And who made the lion...
Read MoreScavenge Some Summer Reads
Curious City joined Chris Lenois on Green Mountain Mornings for this discussion of Summer Reading. Listen to the podcast here. __________________________________________________________________ Book Scavenger By Jennifer Chambliss Bertman Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) Age range: 9 – 14 Years Locate at a Indie Bookstore For twelve-year-old Emily, the best thing about moving to San Francisco is that it’s the home city of her literary idol: Garrison Griswold, book publisher and creator of the online sensation Book Scavenger (a game where books are hidden in cities all...
Read MoreBy Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X’s Early Years as an Audiobook Download
Celebrate Malcolm X’s 90th Birthday with a Spoken Word Performance of His Teen Years! Meet Malcolm X Before He Knew He Was Destined to Fight for #BlackLivesMatter! FREE MP3 SPOKEN WORD On 5/21/15 a free MP3 audiobook download of the acclaimed young adult novel X: A Novel will be available for one week. Readers who grab that file between 5/21/15 (8 AM EST) and 5/27/15 will be able to keep the spoken word performance of Malcolm X’s teenage years indefinitely. SIGN UP VIA TEXT You can sign-up on the spot to get a text alert when the download file becomes available....
Read MoreBooks to Pull Spring Out of Hiding
Let’s admit it. This Winter is a guest that has stayed far too long. We stand in our lawns waiting for him to pack up, shake hands with us and head down the road in a big rusty snowplow. He is supposed to be gone by Easter (if not sooner). But here we are at Easter weekend and we have not seen more than a glimpse of Spring. She is being shy this year. Spring does not want to come into New England until Winter he’s reeved up his old truck and started backing out of the driveway. It is time to start dropping some serious hints with Winter. I charge you to head to your...
Read MoreAsking, But Why?: Girls and Economic and Social Justice
Naima asks, “But why?” when reminded she cannot drive her father’s rickshaw to help her family because she is a girl. Gender inequality in labor is just one of the beautifully handled international issues in Mitali Perkin’s slim novel, Rickshaw Girl. Days after the 2015 International Women’s Day rallying cry of, “”Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!,” Curious City features five books where girls asked, “but why?” when faced with economic and social injustices. Curious City joined Chris Lenois on Green Mountain...
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