Books with author Elizabeth Kiem

A timely YA thriller—part John Le Carré and part The Americans—about a Bolshoi ballerina trapped by family secrets and a legacy of espionage.The Bolshoi Saga: MarinaMarina is born into privilege. A talented young dancer with Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet at the height of the Cold War, she seems destined to follow in the footsteps of her mother Svetlana, a Soviet Artist of the People. But when Svetlana disappears without explanation, Marina and her father have to get out. Fast. They defect to America, hoping they’ve escaped Russia’s secret police, hoping they can make a fresh start in New York. Instead they discover the web of intrigue around Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach is as tangled as the one they left behind.

Moscow, 1958: sixteen-year-old ballerina Svetlana’s dreams come true when she is invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet, but not is all as it seems. Now Svetlana is caught between the sinister worlds of very powerful people in the regime and the KGB, and the other world—one she was trying to escape through dance, the gift she’s been afraid of her entire life. The Bolshoi Saga: Svetlana is the third and final book in the series that is described as a feminist take on The Godfather, set in the world of Russian ballet.The year is 1958, and sixteen-year-old Svetlana is stuck in a Moscow orphanage designated for the unwanted children of Stalin’s enemies. Ballet is her obsession and salvation, her only hope at shedding a tainted family past. When she is invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet—the crown jewel of Russian culture and the pride of the Soviet Union—her dreams appear to have been realized. But she quickly learns that nobody’s past or secrets are safe.The dreaded KGB knows about the mysterious trances Sveta has suffered, inexplicable episodes that seem to offer glimpses of the past. Some very powerful people believe Sveta is capable of serving the regime as more than a ballerina, and they wish to recruit her to spy on the West as part of the nascent Soviet psychic warfare program. If she is to erase the sins of her family, if she is to dance on the world stage for the Motherland—if she is to survive—she has no choice but to explore her other gift.The story of teenage Svetlana, matriarch of three generations of ballerinas, is both the end and the beginning of the Bolshoi Saga. This title, and the debut, Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy and its follow up, Hider, Seeker, Secret, Keeper can all be read as stand-alone novels, although reading all three will provide a deeper understanding of the often thrilling—and surprisingly dangerous—world of the Dukovskaya ballerinas.

The Bolshoi Saga: LanaLana Dukovskaya is an up and coming talent at the Bolshoi Ballet, where her mother, Marina, also danced until her career came to a mysterious end. On the eve of an international tour, Lana’s best friend and chief rival is brutally attacked, making Lana both the substitute soloist and the prime suspect.Once in New York, Lana meets Georgi Levshik, a powerful Russian émigré who claims to know the truth about her mother’s past. Lana is wary, torn between curiosity and distrust. But when another young dancer is struck down just hours before her debut, Lana knows she is in danger. On the run, Lana puts her trust in Levshik’s alluring bodyguard, Roma. Together they must uncover the truth about a blood feud involving three generations of Dukovskaya dancers.

This richly illustrated and engagingly written book tells the story of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal from its origins in George Washington's decision to link the nation's new capital with the western frontier; through the beginning of construction in 1828 (fatefully, on the same day that the cornerstone of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was set); to the "completion" of the project. Planned to go as far as Ohio and to take twelve years in construction, the Canal company's ambitions were scaled back after 22 years of toil, $14 million in expense, and the bankruptcy of several contractors took them only as far as Cumberland, at the eastern shed of the Alleghenies. Describing in detail how the C&O operated in its heyday, Elizabeth Kytle takes the story through the shut-down of operations in 1924, after the Canal was purchased by its competitor, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the efforts that resulted in its preservation as a National Historical Park in 1971. Enriching this narrative, the book also provides oral history accounts of eleven men and women who worked on or grew up along the banks of the Canal.

A timely YA thriller—part John Le Carré and part The Americans—about a Bolshoi ballerina trapped by family secrets and a legacy of espionage.The Bolshoi Saga: MarinaMarina is born into privilege. A talented young dancer with Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet at the height of the Cold War, she seems destined to follow in the footsteps of her mother Svetlana, a Soviet Artist of the People. But when Svetlana disappears without explanation, Marina and her father have to get out. Fast. They defect to America, hoping they’ve escaped Russia’s secret police, hoping they can make a fresh start in New York. Instead they discover the web of intrigue around Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach is as tangled as the one they left behind.

Felix has a heart condition that threatens his life. His parents take him on holiday to Costa Rica, where they visit the Divide, a place where the waters that run down to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans separate. But at this exact, magical spot Felix passes out, and when he opens his eyes, he discovers he's arrived in a back-to-front world where mythical creatures and magic are real, and humans and science are just rumour and legend. Luckily, Ironclaw - a griffin - takes him under his wing, and together with Betony, a tangle-girl, they set out to find a cure for Felix's condition and the way back home. Fast-paced and funny, The Divide is a quirky and immensely enjoyable adventure whichweaves in strands of ecology and mathematics, and the emergence of a multinational enterprise in an innocent world. This is the first volume of a trilogy, and the Kindle edition has new illustrations by the author.

An exciting, junior high curriculum from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources which covers reading and composition at the seventh-grade level. Each of the eight chapters includes reading classical material as well as applying a literary lesson. The author had graded thousands of home-school written papers before writing this series. The workbook breaks down the literary concepts to provide bit by bit comprehension. Students read four full novels plus four shorter pieces taken from the book, Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children by Harold Bloom. This Student Guide consists of the lessons which include plot line, increasing your creativity, autobiography, the character sketch, dialogue, basic terms and rhyme in poetry, sound in poetry, nonce words, brainstorming, outlining, choosing a topic, writing a good opening, and instruction on four poetic forms (limerick, haiku, cinquain, and list poem). Each lesson consists of a brief biographical introduction, vocabulary, comprehension questions, the literary lesson and mini-lesson, and writing exercises. Book-length works are sold separately. The Workbook and The Teacher's Guide are also needed. Although this is listed as a seventh grade text, students cannot be easily boxed into grades. A sixth grader who is a strong reader and likes writing would be able to do well with this course. This course can also work for the eighth grader who is behind in language arts, or who struggles with reading and/or writing for other reasons. Besides Stories and Poems, you will need to have The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Story of My Life (by Helen Keller), and All Creatures Great and Small. New Second Edition, Paperback. 154 pages.

Please see the Lightning Lit 7th Grade Student's Guide to find a complete description of this program. The workpages give students the chance to practice the skills and concepts learned in the lessons along with composition skills (writing from note cards, rewriting in your own words, etc.), thinking skills (e.g., differentiating fact from opinion, identifying bias), and grammar review (e.g., capitalization, pronouns and antecedents). There are also optional puzzle and extra challenge workbook pages. Perfect bound pages lay flat to make it easy for students to write in it.

The Teacher's Guide includes the explanation of the course's philosophy, weekly lesson planner, answers to the comprehension questions and the workbook pages, additional teaching suggestions for the lessons, and additional information on the writing exercises. Please see the Student's Guide for a complete description of the course. Student's Workbook also required along with the Student's Guide. This perfect-bound book will lay flat making it easier to use. New Second Edition, Perfect Bound.

A new breed of spy novel combines classic thrills (The Americans, John Le Carre, and Alan Furst), Bolshoi intrigue, and elements of the paranormal.Marina is born of privilege. Her mother, Sveta, is the Soviet Union's prima ballerina: an international star handpicked by the regime. But Sveta is afflicted with a mysterious second sight and becomes obsessed with exposing a horrific state secret. Then she disappears. Fearing for their lives, Marina and her father defect to Brooklyn. Marina struggles to reestablish herself as a dancer at Juilliard. But her enigmatic partner, Sergei, makes concentration almost impossible, as does the fact that Marina shares her mother's “gift,” and has a vision of her father’s murder at the hands of the Russian crooks and con artists she thought they'd left behind. Now Marina must navigate the web of intrigue surrounding her mother's disappearance, her ability, and exactly whom she can—and can't—trust.

The Bolshoi Saga: LanaLana Dukovskaya is an up and coming talent at the Bolshoi Ballet, where her mother, Marina, also danced until her career came to a mysterious end. On the eve of an international tour, Lana’s best friend and chief rival is brutally attacked, making Lana both the substitute soloist and the prime suspect.Once in New York, Lana meets Georgi Levshik, a powerful Russian émigré who claims to know the truth about her mother’s past. Lana is wary, torn between curiosity and distrust. But when another young dancer is struck down just hours before her debut, Lana knows she is in danger. On the run, Lana puts her trust in Levshik’s alluring bodyguard, Roma. Together they must uncover the truth about a blood feud involving three generations of Dukovskaya dancers.

Moscow, 1958: sixteen-year-old ballerina Svetlana’s dreams come true when she is invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet, but not is all as it seems. Now Svetlana is caught between the sinister worlds of very powerful people in the regime and the KGB, and the other world—one she was trying to escape through dance, the gift she’s been afraid of her entire life. The Bolshoi Saga: Svetlana is the third and final book in the series that is described as a feminist take on The Godfather, set in the world of Russian ballet.The year is 1958, and sixteen-year-old Svetlana is stuck in a Moscow orphanage designated for the unwanted children of Stalin’s enemies. Ballet is her obsession and salvation, her only hope at shedding a tainted family past. When she is invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet—the crown jewel of Russian culture and the pride of the Soviet Union—her dreams appear to have been realized. But she quickly learns that nobody’s past or secrets are safe.The dreaded KGB knows about the mysterious trances Sveta has suffered, inexplicable episodes that seem to offer glimpses of the past. Some very powerful people believe Sveta is capable of serving the regime as more than a ballerina, and they wish to recruit her to spy on the West as part of the nascent Soviet psychic warfare program. If she is to erase the sins of her family, if she is to dance on the world stage for the Motherland—if she is to survive—she has no choice but to explore her other gift.The story of teenage Svetlana, matriarch of three generations of ballerinas, is both the end and the beginning of the Bolshoi Saga. This title, and the debut, Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy and its follow up, Hider, Seeker, Secret, Keeper can all be read as stand-alone novels, although reading all three will provide a deeper understanding of the often thrilling—and surprisingly dangerous—world of the Dukovskaya ballerinas.