Primer introduces a brand-new superhero with a colorful array of superpowers. Ashley Rayburn is an upbeat girl with a decidedly downbeat past. Her father is a known criminal who now sits in federal prison, but still casts a shadow over Ashley's life. Ashley has bounced from foster home to foster home and represents a real challenge to the social workers who try to help her-not because she's inherently bad, but because trouble always seems to find her. Ashley's latest set of (presumably short-term) foster parents are Kitch and Yuka Nolan. Like Ashley, Kitch is an artist, while Yuka is a geneticist working for a very high-level tech company that's contracted out to work for the government and the military. And it's Yuka's latest top-secret project that has her concerned. Developed for the military, it's a set of body paints that, when applied to the wearer, grant them a wide range of special powers. Fearful that this invention will be misused, Yuka sneaks the set of paints home. Ashley comes home from school one day with her new friend Luke and, thinking that the Nolans have purchased a surprise gift for her upcoming birthday, finds the set of paints. It isn't long before she realizes that she's stumbled upon something much bigger...and a lot more dangerous. Although she uses her newly discovered powers for good, it's not long before the military becomes wise to what happened to their secret weapon. And this spells big trouble not only for Ashley, but for her newfound family and friends, as well.

A comprehensive but concise overview of Iran's politics, economy, military, foreign policy, and nuclear program. The volume chronicles U.S.-Iran relations under six American presidents and probes five options for dealing with Iran. Organized thematically, this book provides top-level briefings by 50 top experts on Iran (both Iranian and Western authors) and is a practical and accessible "go-to" resource for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and students, as well as a fascinating wealth of information for anyone interested in understanding Iran's pivotal role in world politics.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). This inventive sightreading course uses sets of exercises based on melodic and rhythmic patterns from the 2nd Edition Primer Lesson Book. Students play one exercise a day, completing one set per week. Entertaining musical art helps guide the sightreading process and each page presents a new learning vignette in a spirit of fun.

In his third poetry collection, Primer, Aaron Smith grapples with the ugly realities of the private self, in which desire feels more like a trap than fulfillment. What is the face we prepare in our public lives to distract others from our private grief? Smith's poetry explores that inexplicable tension between what we say and how we actually feel, exposing the complications of intimacy and the limitations of language to bridge those distances between friends, family members, and lovers. What we deny, in the end, may be just what we actually survive. Mortality in Smith's work remains the uncomfortable foundation at the center of our relationship with others, to faith, to art, to love as we grow older, and ultimately, to our own sense of who we are in our bodies in the world. The struggle of this book, finally, is in naming whether just what we say we want is enough to satisfy our primal needs, or are the choices we make to stay alive the same choices we make to help us, in so many small ways, to die.

A phonics bestseller for over 30 years, Explode the code has helped millions of students nationwide build the essential literacy skills needed for reading success: phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and spelling.

Featuring nearly 400 clear, sharp photomicrographs, the Third Edition of this primer is a user-friendly guide to interpreting skin biopsies. Abnormalities are grouped according to location in the skin and morphologic characteristics. Each abnormality is discussed in an easy-to-follow three-column format. The first column lists the disease entities. The second column lists histologic criteria for diagnosis, with key features in boldface. The third column presents the differential diagnosis, helpful hints, and clinical information. Adjacent to the text are representative photomicrographs, accompanied where necessary by drawings to clarify cellular structures. New to this edition is a bound-in CD-ROM that contains over 2,000 full-color photomicrographs with more than 300 multiple-choice questions and answers for review and self-assessment.