The scene was paralyzing. We stood there, numb. No one spoke. There were 69 bodies spread about the 24x50 foot area. They all could have been sleeping. In the small hours of the annual Punta Carnivale celebrations held by Central American communities of the West Bronx, residents witness flames and smoke coming from a popular nightspot known as Happy Land. Fire and rescue personnel arrive at the scene within three minutes, only to find all 87 party-goers trapped inside already dead. The victims have died at an unfathomable speed, succumbing to suffocation and the effects of lethal gases before the flames could even reach them. Detectives soon realize that the disaster, epic and tragic in proportions, is no accident. The fire has been deliberately lit by an arsonist, the man responsible for what is to be the worst mass murder in American history. Happy Land - A Lover's Revenge untangles the shocking story behind one of the worst fires in New York history. Exploring in detail a tragedy little remembered today, but rich with contemporary meaning, the story provides an unnerving snapshot of the possible consequences of societal indifference to violence against women and the plight of the most vulnerable in our communities.

This novel tells of the events of a few weeks in the life of a small boy on a north county council estate and the rhubarb fields, quarries and Clerk of Works yard that are his playground. Unlike most boys portrayed in fiction he is not an ultrasensitive soul but an ordinary boy, occasionally cowardly, sometimes a liar, tough in his own eyes and often insecure in his dealings with others.

Includes information on places of origin, marriages, children, and deaths. Examines the roles that women played in business, the causes of mortality, the antebellum Jewish family, the common aspects of life, and relations between Jews and African-Americans.

Do you people get that way from living here, or were you all peculiar to start with? someone once asked Louise Dickinson Rich. In her early thirties, she took to the woods with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote Maine backcountry. Louise made time after morning chores to write about their lives, and these magnificent books are the result. They are still captivating readers a half-century later.

Based on close reading of historical documents--poetry as much as statistics--and focused on the conceptualization of technology, this book is an unconventional evocation of late colonial Netherlands East Indies (today Indonesia). In considering technology and the ways that people use and think about things, Rudolf Mrázek invents an original way to talk about freedom, colonialism, nationalism, literature, revolution, and human nature. The central chapters comprise vignettes and take up, in turn, transportation (from shoes to road-building to motorcycle clubs), architecture (from prison construction to home air-conditioning), optical technologies (from photography to fingerprinting), clothing and fashion, and the introduction of radio and radio stations. The text clusters around a group of fascinating recurring characters representing colonialism, nationalism, and the awkward, inevitable presence of the European cultural, intellectual, and political avant-garde: Tillema, the pharmacist-author of Kromoblanda; the explorer/engineer IJzerman; the "Javanese princess" Kartina; the Indonesia nationalist journalist Mas Marco; the Dutch novelist Couperus; the Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer; and Dutch left-wing liberal Wim Wertheim and his wife. In colonial Indies, as elsewhere, people employed what Proust called "remembering" and what Heidegger called "thinging" to sense and make sense of the world. In using this observation to approach Indonesian society, Mrázek captures that society off balance, allowing us to see it in unfamiliar positions. The result is a singular work with surprises for readers throughout the social sciences, not least those interested in Southeast Asia or colonialism more broadly.

In Big Berry, the subject is one that every child can relate to, the gimmes—and why the hero Bink should be happy with what she has. HAPPYLAND introduces three friends—Bink, Clyde, and Glub-Glub—in a series of delightful adventures that illustrate issues including sharing, gratitude, and worry. There’s nothing more important for little kids entering preschool than to be emotionally ready—ready to separate from their parents, to mix and play with new children, to broaden their sense of the world. HAPPYLAND, from award-winning children’s author Dan Yaccarino, is the board book series that gives kids, and their parents, the language they need to take these emotional steps.