Books in Edge Books series

Forbidden Love is a pathbreaking book that only a master historian could write. The first work for younger readers to describe the true history of racial mixing in America, it exposes how desperately some people have fought to guard our racial borderlines.Gary Nash, a past president of the Organization of American Historians, has been instrumental in rethinking how history should be taught in schools. Now, starting with John Rolfe and Pocahontas, pausing to compare the United States with Canada and Mexico, and ending with his own multiracial classrooms, he shows how racial mixing, and the fear of it, is at the heart of American history.

Growing up Latino in America means speaking two languages, living two lives, learning the rules of two cultures. Cool Salsa celebrates the tones, rhythms, sounds, and experiences of that double life. Here are poems about families and parties, insults and sad memories, hot dogs and mangos, the sweet syllables of Spanish and the snag-toothed traps of English. Here is the glory, and pain, of being Latino American.Latino Americans hail from Cuba and California, Mexico and Michigan, Nicaragua and New York, and editor Lori M. Carlson has made sure to capture all of those accents. With poets such as Sandra Cisneros, Martín Espada, Gary Soto, and Ed Vega, and a very personal introduction by Oscar Hijuelos, this collection encompasses the voices of Latino America. By selecting poems about the experiences of teenagers, Carlson has given a focus to that rich diversity; by presenting the poems both in their original language and in translation, she has made them available to us all.As you move from memories of red wagons, to dreams of orange trees, to fights with street gangs, you feel Cool Salsa's musical and emotional cross rhythms. Here is a world of exciting poetry for you, y tú también.

We are the bleeding clouds, and from the seas of blood have we come...We are witnesses...we were brought into being by an inferno of suffering; and we are a sign of peace to you. --Moshe Ze'ev Flinker, Age 17On the eve of Passover, 1944, shortly after he wrote these words, Moshe and his family were betrayed to the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. Like the other four diarists in this book, he did not survive the war. But their words did. Written in the midst of "an inferno of suffering," these fragile yet powerful records are a "sign of peace" to all of us.Each diary reveals one voice, one teenager coping with the impossible. We see David Rubinowicz struggling against fear and terror in Poland. Yitzhak Rudashevski in Lithuania shows us how Jews clung to culture, to learning, and to hope, until there was no hope at all. In Belgium, Moshe is the voice of religion, constantly seeking answers from God for relentless tragedy. Finally, in Hungary, Eva Heyman demonstrates the unquenchable hunger for life that sustained her until the very last moment. Yet We Are Witnesses is not just about any single victim in the Holocaust.Author Jacob Boas, who was born in the same camp to which Anne Frank was sent, ends by discussing her famous diary. Looking back at the other four through Anne, and at Anne with fresh eyes after the others, we see the largest truth they all left for us: Hitler could kill millions, but he could not destroy the human spirit. These stark accounts of how five young people faced the worst of human evil are a testament, and an inspiration, to the best in the human soul.

An anthology of poems that heal, offer hope, and inspire."She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes."--Lord ByronHere is a collection of beauty, inspiration and light. Liz Rosenberg has gathered poems of sunlight and starry skies, of light flickering in a dark and difficult world. Where light literally shines in one poem, in another it may be represented more figuratively: light in the deepest of loves, a smooth pebble found in a pocket, and even, in the greatest despair, as in Shelley's great line, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? " Whether about hope, beauty, comfort or healing, this collection is filled with poems of light.Like Rosenberg's award-winning Earth-Shattering Poems, this multicultural anthology features poems by authors from around the world and from ancient to contemporary times. Some of the poets included are Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Jane Kenyon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Christina Rossetti, Rumi, and Ruth Stone.

Nineteen-year-old Emily is new to pairs skating, but she and her partner Chris have a big dream-to be the first American team to win Olympic gold. Their young coach Sergei, who left Russia after a mysterious end to his skating career, believes they can break through and make history. Emily and Chris are on track to be top contenders at the Winter Games. But when forbidden feelings spark between Emily and Sergei, broken trust and an unexpected enemy threaten to derail Emily's dreams of gold.