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Everest: The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
by Alexandra Stewart (Author) and Joe Todd-Stanton (Illustrator)

Booktalk: In the late morning of May 29th 1953, the sun was shining brightly on the roof of the world, a gentle breeze was blowing and two men were there to witness it for the first time ever . Their names were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and the roof of the world was Everest. This is the story of how two very different yet equally determined men battled frost-biting temperatures, tumbling ice rocks, powerful winds and death-defying ridges to climb the world’s highest mountain.

Snippet: What made Hillary and Tenzing’s achievement all the more remarkable was that they had triumphed where so many others had failed before. Climbers had been trying to reach the top of Everest for more than thirty years.

A huge amount of time, effort, and money –not to mention national pride– had been invested in these attempts. Despite this, each one had ended in disappointment, and some even in death.

See the book trailer.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Blue Skies
by Anne Bustard (Author)

Booktalk: Glory Bea Bennett knows that miracles happen in Gladiola, Texas, population 3,421. After all, her grandmother–the best matchmaker in the whole county–is responsible for thirty-nine of them.

Now, Glory Bea needs a miracle of her own.

The war ended three years ago, but Glory Bea’s father never returned home from the front in France. Glory Bea understands what Mama and Grams and Grandpa say–that Daddy died a hero on Omaha Beach–yet deep down in her heart, she believes Daddy is still out there.

When the Gladiola Gazette reports that one of the boxcars from the Merci Train (the “thank you” train)–a train filled with gifts of gratitude from the people of France–will be stopping in Gladiola, she just knows daddy will be its surprise cargo.

But miracles, like people, are always changing, until at last they find their way home.

Snippet: I stop halfway up the red carpet and clutch the charm bracelet Daddy handed me at the train station before he left.

I rub its shamrock for luck, close my eyes, and picture Daddy’s big smile.

I refuse to believe what they say about him.

When you love someone, you never give up hope.

Not ever.