New Releases by Val Ross

When the Grand Master recalls Albia''s best agent from active service and appoints her Vice Principal of the Academy, she''s convinced he has an ulterior motive. He does, but it''s not what she thinks. Someone''s trying to kill her, and the Grand Master wants her safe at home in Veridurum; she is his daughter, after all.Academy Principal Fergal O''Connor is a man with a mission. He''d rather not have it, being already fully occupied with undergraduate spies, an unbalanced colleague, unobtainable stationery and unsavoury drains. Now he has a secret to keep; he must protect someone, who mustn''t know he''s doing it, from something she mustn''t find out about. Fortunately (or perhaps not) the Grand Master has a plan.It could be worse. With five, very physical assignments to complete in less than three weeks, trainee "diplomat" Edwin Harrington has almost given up hope of passing his first term at the Academy. What he needs is a miracle. What he gets is Gothic Boris. And, unfortunately (or perhaps not) Gothic Boris has a plan.

Wherever people can read, there are stories about the magic, mystery, and power of what they read. Val Ross presents a history of reading that is, in fact, the story of the monumental, on-going struggle to read. From Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, the world’s oldest signed author to Empress Shotoku of Japan who in 764 ordered the printing of one million Buddhist prayers; from the story of Hulagu, Ghengis Khan’s nasty brother who destroyed the library of Baghdad to Bowdler and the censorship of Shakespeare, there have been barriers to reading ranging from the physical to the economical, social, and political. Written for children ages ten and up, You Can’t Read This explores the development of alphabets, the decoding of ancient languages, and censorship in Ancient Rome and modern America. It''s about secret writing, trashed libraries, writers on the run, writers in hiding, books that are thought to have magical powers and mistranslations that started wars. It''s about people: from the American slave Frederick Douglass to girls in Afghanistan in the year 2001 who defied laws that prevented them from learning to read. What do all these stories have in common? They’re all about how texts contain power – and how people everywhere throughout history have devoted their wills and their brains to reading and unleashing the power of the word. With lavish illustrations and an index, this is history at its finest.

Winner of the 2004 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian children’s non-fiction Honor Book for the Society of School Librarians International’s Best Book Award – Social Studies, Grades 7-12 Shortlisted for the Children''s Literature Roundtable Information Book of the Year 2003 winner of the Mr. Christie’s Book Award Seal Shortlisted for the 2004 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-fiction Included on VOYA’s ninth annual Nonfiction Honor List Selected for inclusion in CCBC Choices 2004: the best-of-the-year list published by the Cooperative Children’s Book center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Named Notable Book by the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award in the intermediate nonfiction category Road maps; sailor’s charts; quilts; songlines; gilded parchment covered with jewel-like colors; computer printouts – to guide us through the strange, vast, beautiful, and mysterious frontiers of the world of maps, Val Ross presents the men and women who made them. Here are some of the unexpected stories of history’s great mapmakers: the fraud artists who deliberately distorted maps for political gain, Captain Cook, the slaves on the run who found their way thanks to specially-pieced quilts, the woman who mapped London’s streets, princes, doctors, and warriors. These are the people who helped us chart our way in the world, under the sea, and on to the stars. With reproductions of some of the most important maps in history, this extraordinary book, packed with information, is as fascinating and suspenseful as a novel.

National bestseller and a Globe and Mail Best Book A fascinating, larger-than-life character, Davies left a treasure trove of stories about him when he died in 1995 — expertly arranged here into a revealing portrait. From his student days onward, Robertson Davies made a huge impression on those around him. He was so clearly bound for a glorious future that some young friends even carefully preserved his letters. And everyone remembered their encounters with him. Later in life, as a world-famous writer, perhaps Canada’s pre-eminent man of letters (who “looked like Jehovah”), he attracted people eager to meet him, who also vividly remembered their meetings. So when Val Ross set out in search of people’s memories, she was faced with a wonderful embarrassment of riches. The one hundred or so contributors here range very widely. There are family memories, of course, and memories from colleagues in the academic world who knew him as a professor and the founding master of Massey College at the University of Toronto. Predictably, there are other major writers like Margaret Atwood and John Irving. Less predictably, there are people from the world of Hollywood, such as Norman Jewison and David Cronenberg (who remembers Davies on-set, peering through a camera lens as he researched his newest novel). And we even hear from his barber, and from his gardener, Theo Henkenhaf. Some speakers contribute just a lively paragraph; others several pages. Yet all of them, through the magic of Val Ross’s art, help to create an intriguing, full-colour portrait of a complex man beloved by millions of readers around the world.

This is a true story about 100 day and night missions over North Vietnam from Ubon, Thailand, during March 6, to August 28, 1966. We were the main Air Force fighter squadron flying night missions over North Vietnam. I related my personal feelings about every mission with the exact dates and mission results from my daily notes. I explained how we operated from a small airfield and described the physical appearance of the base. I read the current magazines from the States and then compared those comments to our actual mission results. I also provided my personal background about growing up in Northern Idaho and attending the University of Idaho. I explained the training required to become a fighter pilot and selecting my first assignment to fly the F-102 fighter interceptor. Our fighter squadron was later ordered from Torrejon, AB, Spain, to become part of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at George, AFB, California. We received new F-4C Phantom II fighters in 1965 and became one of the first fighter units sent to the Vietnam war. I detailed all the training that we received and how I later discovered that it did not prepare us for war.

Los mapas nos han permitido conocer, imaginar y recrear lugares, imágenes y personas alrededor del mundo: valles, montañas, caminos, mares, ríos, pueblos, ciudades, continentes han sido plasmados por los humanos a través de la historia; el interés del hombre por indagar, explorar, detallar se ve reflejado en los mapas, allí se observa igualmente su imaginación y espíritu creativo y aventurero. El asombroso camino de los mapas es un texto que relata diversas aventuras protagonizadas por cartógrafos, religiosos, científicos, almirantes, exploradores quienes vieron posible dibujar lo que descubrían, conocían y recorrían, es un texto con gran contenido histórico y literario con reproducciones de los más importantes mapas elaborados y cargado de suspenso, viajes, gente y culturas. RECOMENDADO POR: Julián Pérez Quintero (Auxiliar de biblioteca, Bibliotecas COMFENALCO ANTIOQUIA.).