Gifford Pinchot is regarded as the father of the conservation movement. Pinchot and President Teddy Roosevelt set aside large areas and designated them public lands; these are today's National Forests.

I was born to the name of Rachel Weatere in the year 1684, more than three hundred years ago. The one who changed me named me Risika, and Risika I became, though I never asked what it meant. I continue to call myself Risika, even though I was transformed into what I am against my will. By day, Risika sleeps in a shaded room in Concord, Massachusetts. By night, she hunts the streets of New York City. She is used to being alone. But now someone is following Risika. Someone has left her a black rose, the same sort of rose that sealed her fate three hundred years ago. Three hundred years ago Risika had a family -- a brother and a sister who loved her. Three hundred years ago she was human. Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her. This atmospheric, haunting tale marks the stunning debut of a promising fourteen-year-old novelist. From the Hardcover edition.

Long before people were “going green” and toting reusable bags, the Progressive generation of the early 1900s was calling for the conservation of resources, sustainable foresting practices, and restrictions on hunting. Industrial commodities such as wood, water, soil, coal, and oil, as well as improvements in human health and the protection of “nature” in an aesthetic sense, were collectively seen for the first time as central to the country’s economic well-being, moral integrity, and international power. One of the key drivers in the rise of the conservation movement was Theodore Roosevelt, who, even as he slaughtered animals as a hunter, fought to protect the country’s natural resources. In Crisis of the Wasteful Nation, Ian Tyrrell gives us a cohesive picture of Roosevelt’s engagement with the natural world along with a compelling portrait of how Americans used, wasted, and worried about natural resources in a time of burgeoning empire. Countering traditional narratives that cast conservation as a purely domestic issue, Tyrrell shows that the movement had global significance, playing a key role in domestic security and in defining American interests around the world. Tyrrell goes beyond Roosevelt to encompass other conservation advocates and policy makers, particularly those engaged with shaping the nation’s economic and social policies—policies built on an understanding of the importance of crucial natural resources. Crisis of the Wasteful Nation is a sweeping transnational work that blends environmental, economic, and imperial history into a cohesive tale of America’s fraught relationships with raw materials, other countries, and the animal kingdom.

Make storytelling a part of your daily curriculum! This practical guide from Nile Stanley and Brett Dillingham shows busy K8 teachers how to use storytelling to motivate and engage all readers and writers while supporting the standards. Mini-lessons at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels help teachers weave storytelling into the fabric of today's standards-based classroom and construct their own skillful literacy lessons. Reluctant and striving readers and writers, English language learners, and even more advanced storytellers will love the confidence they gain as they move from developing to delivering a variety of stories for a variety of audiences. Teachers will love the many benefits of "performance literacy," or teaching children how to write and perform stories: [[ Develop literacy skillslanguage, vocabulary, comprehension, writing process, speaking, and listeningalong with performance skills and self-expression; [[ Easily integrate learning across the content areas; [[ Deepen the connection between home, school, and community; [[ Promote students' creativity and activate their prior knowledge; [[ Encourage respect and self-improvement as students learn to critique each other's stories and performances in a non-threatening manner. Developing Literacy Through Storytelling comes complete with a story index, curriculum tie-ins, digital storytelling tips, and information for using the companion website with supplemental multimedia. An audio CD includes more than 70 minutes of stories and songs from the authors themselves, in addition to other well-known storytellers, performers, and educators: Karen Alexander, John Archambault, David Plummer, HeatherForest, Brenda Hollingsworth-Marley, Gene Tagaban, and Allan Wolf. Don't just teach literacyperform it!