Books published by publisher Milkweed Editions, 2012

Eleven-year-old Sebby has found the perfect escape from his crummy house and bickering family: The Hole in the Wall. It’s a pristine, beautiful glen in the midst of a devastated mining area behind Sebby’s home. But not long after he finds it his world starts falling apart: his family’s chickens disappear, colors start jumping off the wall and coming to life, and after sneaking a taste of raw cookie dough he finds himself with the mother of all stomachaches. When Sebby sets out to solve these mysteries, he and his twin sister, Barbie, get caught in a wild chase through the tunnels and caverns around The Hole in the Wall — all leading them to the mining activities of one Stanley Odum, the hometown astrophysicist who’s buying up all the land behind Sebby’s home. Exactly what is Mr. Odum mining in his secret facility, and does it have anything to do with the mystery of the lost chickens and Sebby’s stomachache? The answers to these questions go much further than the twins expect.

As An American Brat opens in Pakistan, the extended family of sixteen-year-old Feroza Ginwalla, a lively and temperamental young girl, agonize over the decision to send Feroza to America for a three-month holiday? This act of apparent audacity arises from concern over Feroza's conservative attitudes which stem from Pakistan's rising tide of fundamentalism.Feroza's chaperone in America, an uncle only six years her senior, is her guide, friend, and the bane of her existence. Her relationships and adventures shape her alternately hilarious and terrifying perceptions of America. Feroza's family in Pakistan, meanwhile, are in delicious turmoil over the possibility that American ways will ruin her.In the tradition of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Gish Jen's Typical American, An American Brat brings insight while entertaining readers with an enormously satisfying story and characters. Sidhwa allows us to see Americans from the point of view of newcomers - an occasionally unsettling perspective - while gently illuminating the potentially destructive influence of fundamentalism on a culture and individuals.

Every day, eight-year-old Christine’s walk to school takes her past a talking alley cat. Christine stops and feels its warm head beneath her hand, and the cat’s insights invariably give her something to ponder. One day her teacher asks her why she’s always late for school. Frightened, she reveals her secret. Her punishment: she must write 200 lines stating repeatedly, “There are no talking cats, and from now on I will arrive at school on time.” However, the cat is real, no matter how many lines Christine writes.. . .and she might just as well leave out the “no” — the headmaster won’t even notice, says the clever cat. That’s what the cat always says — that life is all about being clever and looking out for yourself, first and foremost. Christine isn’t so sure, and she is a little scared of the cat, too. There must be more to life than self-interest, surely? Beautiful illustrations by Rotraut Susanne Berner and thoughtful, vivid prose by Jutta Richter, winner of the German Youth Literature Award and the Hermann Hesse Prize, bring Christine and the talking cat to life in this award-winning book.

Gathering the stories of people whose lives have adapted to the unique features of the North Atlantic coast, the book moves from Wampanoag Indians to eighteenth-century seafarers to contemporary teens. Readers are invited to feel the throb and pulse of the surf as Helen Keller felt it, track an otter through a southern New Hampshire winter, harvest blueberries as the Micmac Indians once did, and join a young boy as he tries to save a lobster from the cooking pot. The lives of fishermen and women, of sailors lost in the fog, of a whale trapped in a pond in Newfoundland—all become richer and more memorable when woven into the fabric of literature. The book is divided, as are all books in the series, into four sections: Adventures, Great Places, Reapers and Sowers, and Wild Lives. The treasure trove of stories, poems, journal entries, and essays about the region is followed by a brief natural history, including a list of areas to visit to experience the wilder side of the North Atlantic Coast region.

Winner of the 2013 ASLE Book AwardWinner of the Reed Award for the Best Book on the Southern Environment 2011Named a Top Book from the South 2011 by The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionA San Francisco Chronicle Gift Book Recommendation for 2011A Southern Independent Booksellers Bestseller“For those interested in putting the Gulf crisis in perspective, there can be no better guide than this funny, often uncertain, frank, opinionated, always curious, informed and awestruck, accounting of how we’ve gone wrong and could go right, a full-strength antidote to the Kryptonite of corporate greed and human ignorance.” —Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionTraveling the shores of the Gulf from east to west with oceanographers, subsistence fisherman, seafood distributors, and other long-time Gulf residents, acclaimed author and environmental advocate David Gessner offers a lively, arresting account of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. With The Tarball Chronicles Gessner tells a story that extends beyond the archetypal oil-soaked pelican, beyond politics, beyond BP, and beyond other oil spill books in the market. Instead, heart on his sleeve and beer in hand, he explores the ecosystem of the Gulf as a complicated whole and focuses on the people whose lives and livelihoods have been jeopardized by the spill. With his

In the 1960s in graduate school, Joseph Bruchac studied with Grace Paley and met Allen Ginsberg. He went on to earn his PhD and work in Africa, an experience that confirmed his belief that native peoples all over the world possess hard-won knowledge—of humanity's capacity for self-destruction—wisdom set down in their stories and traditions. Now in his sixties, Bruchac is known for keeping these stories alive, through traditional Native American storytelling, original children’s books, fiction, and poetry. Books in his "Keepers of the Earth" series, co-authored with Michael Caduto, have sold millions of copies.At the End of Ridge Road, a philosophical memoir, brings together the threads of Bruchac's life and reveals the linkage between his interest in native cultures—he is Abenaki—and his views about human dignity and social justice. He begins by asking readers to "take off your watch" and "live time" rather than being ruled by it. He then tells about his childhood in the Adirondacks, the Abenaki heritage of the region, his path from "nature nut" to jock to writer, and his house on Ridge Road. Through these stories, property, and "the circle as a way of seeing."

The second book in the Stories from Where We Live series focuses on the North American Prairie, which stretches from Alberta south to Texas, east to Illinois. Literature of this region introduces young readers to its natural heritage. This book includes songs and narratives of Plains Indians, tales of 19th-century settlers, and contemporary stories and poems.

A surprising friendship develops between Eugenie, an escapee from the French Revolution, and Hannah, a Quaker girl, when they unite in the cause against slavery in this adventuresome tale of true nobility set amidst the rugged, eighteenth-century, Pennsylvania wilderness.Fifteen-year-old Eugenie de La Roque and her family barely escape the French Revolution with their lives. Along with several other noble families, they sail to America, where French Azilium, as the area came to be known, is being carved out of the rugged wilderness of Pennsylvania. Hannah Kimbrell is a young Quaker who has been chosen to help prepare French Azilum for the arrival of the aristocrats. In this wild place away from home and the memories they hold dear, Eugenie and Hannah find more in common than they first realize. With much to learn from each other, the girls unite to help free several slaves from their tyrannical French owner, a dangerous scheme that requires personal sacrifice in exchange for the slaves' freedom.A story of friendship against all odds, Waiting for the Queen is a loving portrait of the values of a young America, and a reminder that true nobility is more than a royal title.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history: over the course of three months, nearly five million barrels of crude oil gushed into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and washed up along our coast. Yet it was an avoidable environmental catastrophe preceded by myriad others, from Three-Mile Island to the Exxon Valdez.Traveling the shores of the Gulf from east to west with oceanographers, subsistence fisherman, seafood distributors, and other long-time Gulf residents, acclaimed author and environmental advocate David Gessner offers an affecting account of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. With The Tarball Chronicles Gessner tells a story that extends beyond the archetypal oil-soaked pelican, beyond politics, beyond BP. Instead he explores the ecosystem of the Gulf as a complicated whole and focuses on the people whose lives and livelihoods have been jeopardized by the spill. He reintroduces this oil spill as a template for so many man-made disasters and the long-term consequences they pose for ecosystems and communities.From the compelling people and places Gessner encounters on his journey we learn not only the extensive consequences of our actions but also how to break a destructive cycle. Throughout, The Tarball Chronicles suggests we can make a change in the way we live and prevent future disasters if we are willing to fundamentally rethink our connections to the natural world. "This is a book about connections," Gessner writes, "and never have we needed to make connections like we do right now."

Spanning one year of the author's life, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless is the intimate memoir of a boy's coming to consciousness in small-town Missouri, from a writer who "is known for beautifully expressive and strikingly lucid prose" (Thisbe Nissen). 1984 is the year that greets Jackson with first loves, first losses, and a break from the innocence of boyhood that will never be fully repaired. The seeming security of family is at once and forever shaken by the life-altering events of that pivotal year. Through tenderhearted, steadfast prose—redolent of the glories of outdoor life on the family farm—Jackson recalls the deeply sensual wonders of his rural Midwestern childhood—bicycle rides in September sunlight; the horizon vanishing behind tall grasses. Reanimating stories both heart wrenching and humorous, tragic and triumphant, Jackson weaves past, present, and future into the rich Missouri landscape. With storytelling informed by profound sense of place and an emotional memory remarkably sound, Jackson stands poised to join the ranks of renowned memoirists.