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Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas, has long been enshrined as an authentic American hero. This biography brings his private life, motives, personality and character into sharp focus, and examines the skills he employed as a central player in events leading to the Texas Revolution.
A Day at SFA takes young children on a tour through Stephen F. Austin State University's Lumberjack land. Whether visiting Homer Bryce Stadium where the ferocious Lumberjacks dominate the field, the Johnson Coliseum where Lumberjack athletes show off their talents,or the newly built STEM center with its magical planetarium, this is a book for Lumberjack fans of all ages. Images bursting with color lead readers through the tall pines in the award-winning azalea garden to the famous Ag Pond tucked behind the Military Science building.
than in half the creeds? and in the scriptural promise that ?Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.?. For the past forty years, Dr. Johnson has recorded hundreds of oral history interviews with New Londoners and East Texans and filed mental notes as he heard conversations about things that happened on that that day when infancy protected his awareness of the horror in New London. I was in first grade in Leonard, Texas, 125 miles away, never conscious of the tragedy, probably because my parents wanted to shelter me. It was not until six years later when I was in elementary school in Hooks, Texas, that one of my teachers told my class the harrowing story of New London. After her dramatic tale, we unnerved students cautiously walked the hallways sniffing the air for scents of odorized gas. As an insider, Dr. Johnson was prepared for his role as the future New London dramatist by studies in history and journalism leading to a Ph.D.
About a previous book, poet Martha Collins describes Kevin Clark's ability to move "seamlessly" between subjects and timeframes; she notes, "Kevin Clark's poems perform the magic his passion dictates and his intelligence won't quite allow." Indeed, the reader finds such magic, the seamless juxtaposition of incongruities in his latest book. Take, as an example, "In Between" from The Consecrations, where he rocks between the "pure matter" of "simple science" while watching the "late moonlight / glow riding" his wife's skin "as she slept," to the haunting call of midnight, moon, and wind that dare the poet into the dark. What he finds in that "in between," the seamless place where incongruities make sense of our existences, is sound that betrays "belief / in only the tactile." He finds, consequently, an energy or power that, "untouchable," emanates from her as she sleeps. The ability to see from contrary vantage points poises Kevin Clark in a place where he can lead us to the simplest blessings. This is no forgetting, and, in Kevin Clark's world, all things are consecrated and holy.
Stephen Austin brought American colonists to Texas; negotiated with the Mexican government to help those settlers, and braved the frontier to keep an American presence in Texas. The story of this small, frail man from Missouri is the story of Texas.
Derek Updegraff's latest collection of fifteen short stories, Pup! Et cetera, continues his exploration of fictional characters whose lives are fascinating and completely unexpected. Take, for example, the wife who cartwheels and backflips in the living room or the two men in "Husky" who hug and sob and console one another. Consider the man who holds "a bag of ice between his hands because he's the poor bastard who grabbed the hot potato." There is, in this book, a pulse of familiarity in all the strangeness, something to cling to "as sirens rage louder and louder," and "One walks to the door and says, 'Come. Let's make more rock piles instead.'"
Many immigrants experience the concept of third space, a culture and language unique to themselves within the intersection of past and present, of there and here. In Dandelions in Third Space, Edytta Wojnar describes her own experiences with this third space she created for herself after emigrating from Poland, which resulted in the loss of language and family. Within this collection of 70 poems, many explore acculturation, investigating what it means to be an immigrant, what it means to be a writer who has lost a language. Expanding the metaphorical concept of third space to marriage, Wojnar describes the continual translation and adoption that occurs between two people's backgrounds and psychological traits. Wojnar doesn't shy away from any topic, describing her experiences as an immigrant, a wife, and a mother with refreshing, sometimes brutal, honesty. "My Mother's Necklace", Dandelions in Third Space "I left my home country & learned a lie can be true-- life can be wasted & there is a metaphor for every loss-- even language."
Athena Kashyap's newest collection, Sita's Choice, explores issues relating to women, especially in India. Taking off from Sita, the main female character in the Ramayana, explores her decision to leave her husband, Ram, and return to her mother, Earth. These mythical and magical poems examine the duality of nature, the sacrifices women make daily, and the deeper societal ills such as female foeticide, dowry deaths, violence against women, and the role of the media, "Ravan's hundred thousand eyes," in perpetuating this violence. The book also explores motherhood through poems that look at the mother-child bond, "the formless, uncharted shape of love," as well as the pain of childbirth, "It rises--multi-hued, magnificent."
Big Hug is a beautifully told story for children everywhere. It's Li'l Fox's first day of daycare and she is scared. New place. New friends. New worries. After her mom wraps her in a big hug and leaves her to go to work, Li'l Fox seeks comfort from her new classmates through friendly hugs. But after she is rejected on multiple accounts, Li'l Fox must learn that if she wants to make a new friend she must first remember to be brave.
I'm Samson: Maybe a Dog chronicles the adventures of a very special dog named Samson. Being a Saint Bernard, Samson grows and grows until he is quite large, with a large furry head and huge paws. Samson lives with his family in a very old and lovely town named San Augustine, right in the middle of the Deep "Piney Woods" of East Texas, a happy place to be, with the Sabine National Forest and Toledo Bend Reservoir on the east side and the Angelina National Forest and Sam Rayburn Reservoir on the west. Connecting it all with the rest of Texas is a most wonderful road . . . El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. This ancient Spanish Trace, blazed in 1691, meanders through the Lone Star State all the way to Mexico, having been traveled by every imaginable kind of person and a myriad of animals both large and small for more than three hundred years. Reflected in Samson's eyes is a very keen sense of understanding about the happenings in his life and the lives of everyone he knows. These are his stories, told by him in his very honest and adventuresome way . . . even when oftentimes, he isn't perfect.