Books published by publisher University of Papua New Guinea Press

The long pilgrimage of LeRoy Chatfield weaves its way through multiple collective projects designed to better the condition of the marginalized and forgotten. From the cloisters of the Christian Brothers and the halls of secondary education to the fields of Central California and the streets of Sacramento, Chatfield’s story reveals a fierce commitment to those who were denied the promises of the American dream. In this collection of what the author calls Easy Essays, Chatfield recounts his childhood, explains the social issues that have played a significant role in his life and work, and uncovers the lack of justice he saw all too frequently. His journey, alongside Cesar and Helen Chavez, Marshall Ganz, Bonnie Chatfield, Philip Vera Cruz, and countless others, displays an unwavering focus on organizing communities and expanding their agency. Follow and explore a life dedicated to equality of opportunity for all. May it inspire and guide you in your quest for a fairer and more just society.ABOUT THE AUTHORsLeRoy Chatfield is a former organizer who worked with Cesar Chavez to get union recognition for California farmworkers, created a Saturday school educational enrichment program for farmworker children in Bakersfield, managed the Northern California general election campaign for Jerry Brown, and built the largest volunteer charitable organization in Sacramento.Jorge Mariscal is a professor emeritus of Spanish and Chicano/a literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965–1975 (UNM Press).

Ji-Stu, the Cherokee trickster rabbit, wakes early one morning and decides to visit his old friend Otter, who lives up the river. Along the way, he sees a huge wood duck sitting on the water and instantly recognizes the Chief of All the Wood Ducks, who is surrounded by hundreds of smaller ducks. Ji-Stu hurries to tell Otter, but when they return the great Chief is gone. Otter, who did not believe Ji-Stu's story in the first place, slips into the water to catch a wood duck, his favorite feast. Ji-Stu decides to catch the Chief as he reappears.Ji-Stu, famous for tricking others, manages to outwit himself. When he catches the Chief of All the Wood Ducks, the Chief tries to drown Ji-Stu and then takes him for a flight the rabbit will never forget! Ji-Stu flies high above the People's village, hanging on to the Chief for dear life, while two little boys below barely miss him with an arrow. He will see those two boys again--and this time he will need all his skills to escape!This is the fifth of Deborah L. Duvall's collaborations with Murv Jacob on the Cherokee Grandmother Stories.

Rabbit Plants the Forest is an adventure story based on characters from Cherokee tradition, including Ji-Stu (Rabbit) and his friends Otter, Sa-lo-li (Squirrel), and the mysterious Wampus Cat. Ji-Stu, the Messenger for all the animals, is asked by Otter to tell Sa-lo-li it is a good day to plant. Much to his delight, Ji-Stu is invited to help Sa-lo-li plant the hickory nuts, walnuts, pecans, and acorns that will become new trees, keeping the forest thick and beautiful. Ji-Stu and Sa-lo-li only laugh when the elderly squirrel White Oak warns them to watch out for Wampus Cat. Before the planting is done, their laughter turns to fright as they narrowly escape with their lives! Based on the ancient Cherokee teaching that squirrels keep the woods alive and should not be hunted, Rabbit Plants the Forest combines Jacob's color paintings and a blending of Cherokee mythology with scientific facts about animals and their places in our world.

New Mexico gardeners have long needed this book--a careful guide to the trees, shrubs, ground covers, and smaller plants that thrive in the state's many life zones and climates. In a state where the altitude varies from 3,000 feet above sea level at Carlsbad, to 13,000 feet at Mount Wheeler near Taos, where the annual rainfall is anywhere from 7 inches at White Sands to 30 inches in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where the soil is loose and gravelly, or thick and hard, or dark and rich, this guide, organized by regions and specific cities, will be especially useful. It also includes information on adjacent areas in Colorado and Arizona and in El Paso. In addition to the top hundred-plus species for each location, the author provides suggestions for more adventurous gardeners and information on historic landscapes around the state. He also points out a favorite well-planned and well-maintained garden or landscape that is open to the public in each community.A landscape architect in Albuquerque for twenty-five years, Baker Morrow is intimately acquainted with how things grow in New Mexico. He is also generous in sharing his personal preferences. He mentions the species he likes "for their toughness, adaptability, and sturdy beauty in a difficult climate," and also the ones he admires for "their cheerfulness and their ability to grace our lives with shade, with helpful protection from the wind, and an endless series of wonderful colors." With many hundreds of native and exotic species readily available, no New Mexico gardener can afford to be without this book.

Ancient relics--stone tools, bones, footprints, and even DNA--offer many clues about our human ancestors and how they lived. At the same time, our kinship with our human ancestors lies as much in their sense of humor, their interactions with others, their curiosity and their moments of wonder, as it does in the shape of their bones and teeth. And the evolution of human behavior left no direct fossil traces.Children of Time brings this vanished aspect of the human past to life through Anne Weaver's scientifically- informed imagination. The stories move through time, following the lives of long-ago hominins through the eyes of their children. Each carefully researched chapter is based on an actual child fossil--a baby, a five-year- old, a young adolescent, and teenagers. The children and their families are brought to life through illustrator Matt Celeskey's vividly rendered paleoenvironments where they encounter saber-toothed cats, giraffids, wild dogs, fearsome crocodiles, and primitive horses. Their adventures invite readers to think about what it means to be human, and to speculate on the human drama as it unfolds in many dimensions, from social organization and technology to language, music, art, and religious consciousness.Visit the website at .

"[The Weighty Word Book] will appeal to kids who want to sound as smart as they are. It offers a clever, funny way to introduce new words into the vocabulary. . . . There's one word for every letter of the alphabet--wait until you see what they do with dogmatic, juxtapose and zealot."--The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado)"Each of these twenty-six short stories takes an elaborate, circuitous path that leads to a 'weighty' one-word punch line. . . . It's a creative and humorous approach to vocabulary building, and a natural lead in to having students create their own tall tales with multisyllabic conclusions."--School Library JournalABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORSElissa S. Guralnick is professor of English, College of Music, at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Douglas A. Burger is associate professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Janet Stevens has written, adapted, or illustrated numerous award-winning books for children, including And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (Child Magazine Best Children's Book List, 2001), Tops & Bottoms (Disney NAPPA Book from LA Parent), and The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Parents Choice Award).Paul M. Levitt teaches in the department of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also the author of Chin Music: A Novel of the Jazz Age and numerous books for younger readers and scholars.

The science of tree rings--dendroclimatology--had not been developed when John Wesley Powell made his epic voyages down the Colorado River in 1869, 1871, and 1872. Nevertheless he observed that the rising and falling of the river differed over the years and came to understand the important role these variations played in the lives of people trying to live in the West.While Powell was braving the Colorado River's rapids, a tree in southwestern Colorado was putting on rings. In 1869 it was a modest ring. In 1871, the year Powell returned to begin his second trip, the ring was remarkably thin. In 1872, as the river rose to levels that made it almost impassable, the tree's ring was fat. We know this because, over a century later, paleoclimatologist Connie Woodhouse has studied that tree and many others in the Four Corners region, using the fat and thin rings to estimate how much water has flowed down the Colorado River each year for the past millennium.The Tree Rings' Tale addresses one of the most important guiding principles for life in the arid West and one that scientists have long recognized: climate variability. Combining classic climatology with oceanography, meteorology, geology, archaeology, and even a touch of astronomy, this exploration offers young scientists a chance to unravel how, over the past 150 years, we have come to learn more about the natural world. Activities included after each chapter provide hands-on experience with some of the very processes scientists use to understand how our world works.Ages 13 and up

In this book Kyong Hwa Lee combines the art of origami and the science of flight to create unique paper airplane designs for aviation enthusiasts of all ages. Featuring thirty-two designs, Amazing Paper Airplanes showcases models resembling real-world aircraft, including the F-22 fighter jet, a P-51 World War II plane, the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger—the first supersonic delta-wing interceptor airplane of the US Air Force—and more. For these models, Lee provides information along with an image of the real plane to encourage interest in aerospace technology. Every design has been flight-tested and presents complete step-by-step folding instructions. In addition to showing basic and advanced folding techniques and providing templates for each plane, the author explains the theory behind flight and offers tips to fine-tune paper airplanes for optimal flying.ABOUT THE AUTHORKyong Hwa Lee holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and has worked for more than twenty-five years in the aerospace industry. Lee has designed over one hundred unique paper airplanes over the last thirty years. His coauthored Paper Airplane Fold-a-Day calendar has been popular worldwide since its first publication in 2006. Every day hundreds of paper airplane enthusiasts visit his website at www.amazingpaperairplanes.com.