New Releases by Susan Wheeler

Kindergarten decodable book

Kindergarten decodable book

In a world that has long lost its magic, dragons are considered nothing more than dead legends. But what would happen if one of them returned? Dragon''s Legacy: The Rider’s Destiny tells the journey of a young man named Eldric Ravengard, who lives in the shadow of a ruthless kingdom that forbids magic and hunts down anything related to dragons. However, by chance, he stumbles upon a long-hidden dragon egg. This story is not just about battles against darkness but also a journey of self-discovery, friendship, and the cost of change. Eldric must face challenges far greater than himself, understand the true meaning of sacrifice, and determine the fate of a world on the brink of destruction. The world of Eldoria awaits—prepare for an adventure that will change everything.

The early morning dawn peeks over the oceans waves awakening the sea life below its surface. Several of the town''s people still slumber. For one teenage girl, sleep has eluded her. Someone had viciously dragged her out of bed. Now she must fight for her life. She knew she had only one chance for survival against the five that encircle her. That was to make her way to the door. With the skill of a ninja and the training of an assassin, she scarcely escapes. As the blinding hot pain courses through her, she adjusts the gym bag she managed to grab. Precious seconds was all she had to find a safe haven from the monsters that hunt her.

Acclaimed poet Susan Wheeler, whose last individual collection predicted the spiritual losses of the economic collapse, turns her attention to the most intimate of subjects: the absence or loss of love. A meme is a unit of thought replicated by imitation; examples of memes, Richard Dawkins wrote, “are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” Occupy Wall Street is a meme, as are internet ideas and images that go viral. What could be more potent memes than those passed down by parents to their children? Wheeler reconstructs her mother’s voice—down to its cynicism and its mid twentieth-century midwestern vernacular—in “The Maud Poems,” a voice that takes a more aggressive, vituperative turn in “The Devil—or—The Introjects.” In the book’s third long sequence, a generational inheritance feeds cultural transmission in “The Split.” A set of variations on losses and break-ups—wildly, darkly funny throughout and, in places, devastatingly sad—“The Split” brings Wheeler’s lauded inventiveness, wit, and insight to the profound loss of love. One read, and the meme “Should I stay or should I go?” will be altered in your head forever.

Set in Chicago during the late 1970s, Record Palace is an eccentric debut novel about jazz, art, race, and identity. In hazed heat, mid-September, walking north from Chicago''s Loop, telling myself I was exploring the new life, I dogged as much for tonic, gin. A sign swung beside a basement door, in, out, mirage: Record Palace: J ZZ. Inside I found Acie. Cindy, a lean, lonely white girl, has come to Chicago to study art history, to be anywhere but where she came from—tract housing in Thousand Oaks, California; mock-stucco buildings; "incessant sun and incessant sunniness of every blonde girl." Record Palace, littered with cans of malt liquor and remnants of past meals, also has boxes upon boxes of records—all jazz. And it has Acie, "big on all sides, top included. A hairnet, the hair below the net long and limp with oil. Green stretch pants, flip-flops, a thin black U-tank taut across Sumo folds." Cindy knows she doesn''t belong, and this is why she stays. Cindy''s determination leads to a tentative friendship with Acie, and she becomes a familiar, if not fully understood, presence in the store. But it is through her chance meeting with Acie''s son that she becomes embroiled in an unusual crime. With prose that resembles the syncopated rhythms of jazz, Susan Wheeler offers a stunning portrait of a woman searching for an identity.

The many meanings of “economy” are the ground for the mediation and lament of Ledger, Susan Wheeler’s fourth book. In its Greek origins, economy referred to the stewardship of a household and, as it developed, the word also came to include aspects of government and of religious faith. Ledger places an individual’s crisis of spirituality and personal stewardship, or management of her resources, against a backdrop of a culture that has focused its “economy” on financial gain and has misspent its own tangible and intangible resources.