Swan Dive

Swan Dive
Author: Georgina Pazcoguin
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2021-07-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250244293

"Don't expect just tulle and toe shoes. In this fascinating insider's tale, NYCB dancer Pazcoguin reveals her world. . . . A striking debut." —People Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet—the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don’t see from the orchestra circle. In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB’s first Asian American female soloist Georgina Pazcoguin lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She pitches us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humor about the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions. Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn’t shy away from ballet’s dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course—all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand. Tying together Pazcoguin’s fight for equality in the ballet with her infectious and deeply moving passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind account that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.


Swan Dive

Swan Dive
Author: Brenda Hasiuk
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2019-05-01
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 177306147X

A teenage refugee adapts to a new country, a new language, new school and even finds a wonderful best friend, until the pressures of past and present collide and lead to a lie that changes everything. Refugees from the Bosnian War, Lazar’s family flees the Siege of Sarajevo and arrives in Winnipeg in the early 1990s. Despite various mini dramas unfolding at home, as his parents and older sisters navigate a new language, the bitter cold and a strange city and country, Lazar manages to find a place for himself at school, largely by making friends with Elle, a sassy, outspoken girl who divides her time between living with her hoarder mother (who stuffs their tiny apartment with bargains she finds at Liquidation World) and her hippie father, Jimmy, who lives in British Columbia. But as two geeky loners, Elle and Lazar are happy in their own bubble of friendship, especially after they form a pop duo and dream of making it big on Star Search. Soon Lazar’s desperate escape out of Sarajevo seems far away, even as the trauma of his broken homeland looms large with his family at home. Then Elle comes back from Vancouver after a summer at Jimmy’s, and things are different. They’re in high school, Elle has lost weight and blossomed into popularity, while Lazar remains small, skinny and forgettable. She seems to have forgotten all about their singing plans and starts spending time with a new kid, Ivan. Lazar is unmoored and filled with new longings — for Elle, for Ivan, for a sense that he belongs somewhere. His mother and older sisters worry about his health, that he’s so thin, that he’s not interested in sports, even though the doctors can’t find anything wrong. And then, in an impulsive moment, Lazar tells Ivan that he’s seriously ill. And with this one reckless lie he suddenly gets — and loses — everything he thought he wanted. Key Text Features author’s note historical context Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.


Answered Prayers

Answered Prayers
Author: Truman Capote
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345803043

Although Truman Capote's last novel was unfinished at the time of his death, its surviving portions offer a devastating group portrait of the high and low society of his time. • Includes the story La Cote Basque featured in the major FX series Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans. "Prose that makes the heart sing and the narrative fly." —The New York Times Book Review Tracing the career of a writer of uncertain parentage and omnivorous erotic tastes, Answered Prayers careens from a louche bar in Tangiers to a banquette at La Côte Basque, from literary salons to high-priced whorehouses. It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently finny book displays Capote at his most relentlessly observant and murderously witty.


Pirate's Perfect Pet

Pirate's Perfect Pet
Author: Beth Ferry
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2016-08-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0763672882

Pirates, pets and puns run amok as a swaggering but softhearted captain swashbuckler embarks on a daring quest to find a perfect animal sidekick.


The Boy Next Door

The Boy Next Door
Author: R.L. Stine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 163
Release: 1996-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0671894323

Lauren and Crystal would do anything to get to go out with Scott. But neither of them realize that Scott's last girlfriend is dead.


A Widow's Awakening

A Widow's Awakening
Author: Maryanne Pope
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2019-10-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781643970516

A WIDOW'S AWAKENING is engaging, powerful, heart-wrenching, and at times humorous. This honest look at the first year of a widow's grief after the death of her husband captures the immense difficulty of learning how to accept the unacceptable while transforming loss into positive change-and is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.


The Magician's Secret

The Magician's Secret
Author: Zachary Hyman
Publisher: Tundra Books
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2018-04-03
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1770498966

This action-adventure picture book featuring a grandfather and grandson duo celebrates the power of imagination and the magic of make believe. Charlie loves when Grandpa comes to babysit because he always brings his magical imagination. Grandpa was a magician who knows the most amazing tricks; he can pull a rabbit from a hat and make a coin disappear. But what Charlie loves most are his wonderful adventure stories, and they all begin with something his grandfather has saved in his Magic Story Chest. An hourglass is a reminder of how he defended the treasure in King Tut's tomb from raiders. A long white scarf inspires the story about Grandpa's dogfight with the notorious Red Baron, the great First World War fighter pilot. A coconut shell heralds the story about his encounter with a nasty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Charlie's parents, though, aren't too sure they like Grandpa's stories and warn Charlie that they're just "tall tales." What is Charlie to believe? How can his grandpa convince him that all you need to do is believe and a dream can be turned into something real?


Apsara Engine

Apsara Engine
Author: Bishakh Som
Publisher: Feminist Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2020
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 9781936932818

"In trans illustrator Bishakh Som's debut work of fiction, questions of gender, the body, and existential conformity are explored over the course of eight speculative and graphic short stories"--