Books with author S. Daniel

Alabama endured warfare, slave trading, squatting, and speculating on its path to becoming America’s 22nd state, and Daniel S. Dupre brings its captivating frontier history to life in Alabama's Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South. Dupre’s vivid narrative begins when Hernando de Soto first led hundreds of armed Europeans into the region during the fall of 1540. Although this early invasion was defeated, Spain, France, and England would each vie for control over the area’s natural resources, struggling to conquer it with the same intensity and ferocity that the Native Americans showed in defending their homeland. Although early frontiersmen and Native Americans eventually established an uneasy truce, the region spiraled back into war in the nineteenth century, as the newly formed American nation demanded more and more land for settlers. Dupre captures the riveting saga of the forgotten struggles and savagery in Alabama’s―and America’s―frontier days.

A porcupine has more than one point to make about how climate reality impacts his new fish friends, a Rio Grande silvery minnow and a razorback sucker. Together they trek across the desert southwest meeting other animals endangered by human-caused changes. Those other animals have information to share, but some of them, like a grumpy Bald eagle, consider turning the fish into breakfast. Dodging hungry predators and figuring out that rising carbon dioxide levels both pose a threat to these animals is just part of their adventure. Yet their journey includes some stories of hope, like when they meet Elaine, a young community scientist who tracks environmental change and cares for land and water with kids from her school. It might be hard to be a fish in a desert, but it's not impossible.