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The Paris showroom / by Blackwell, Juliet,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In Nazi-occupied Paris, a talented artisan must fight for her life by designing for her enemies. From New York Times bestselling author Juliet Blackwell comes an extraordinary story about holding on to hope when all seems lost. Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival-until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store. There, hundreds of prisoners work to sort through, repair, and put on display the massive quantities of art, furniture, and household goods looted from Jewish homes and businesses. Forced to wait on German officials and their wives and mistresses, Capucine struggles to hold her tongue in order to survive, remembering happier days spent in the art salons, ateliers, and jazz clubs of Montmartre in the 1920s. Capucine's estranged daughter, Mathilde, remains in the care of her conservative paternal grandparents, who are prospering under the Nazi occupation. But after her mother is arrested and then a childhood friend goes missing, the usually obedient Mathilde finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of Paris's Résistance fighters. As her mind opens to new ways of looking at the world, Mathilde also begins to see her unconventional mother in a different light. When an old acquaintance arrives to go "shopping" at the Lévitan department store on the arm of a Nazi officer and secretly offers to help Capucine get in touch with Mathilde, this seeming act of kindness could have dangerous consequences"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Mothers and daughters; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Ten birds that changed the world / by Moss, Stephen,1960-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For the whole of human history, we have shared our world with birds. We have hunted and domesticated them for food, fuel and feathers; placed them at the heart of our rituals, religions, myths and legends; poisoned, persecuted and often demonized them; and celebrated them in our music, art and poetry. Even today, despite a growing disconnect between humanity and the rest of nature, birds continue to play an integral role in our lives. Ten Birds that Changed the World tells the story of this long and intricate relationship, spanning the whole of human history, and featuring birds from all seven of the world's continents. It does so through those species whose lives, and their interactions with us, have - in one way or another - changed the course of human history. From when Noah sent out the Raven from the Ark, birds have been central to our superstitions, mythology and folklore. Once humans switched from hunter-gathering to settled societies they began to domesticate wild birds: first the Rock Dove - now the domestic or feral Pigeon - used to communicate over long distances; and then the Wild Turkey and other species for food - later, they became the centerpiece of the annual family festivals of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Dodo of the Indian Ocean is the icon of extinction, while Darwin's Finches changed the way we look at life on our planet, and the droppings of the Guanay Cormorant provided vast amounts of phosphates, kickstarting a global agricultural revolution. In North America, the Snowy Egret almost disappeared when its plumes were used for fashion; this led to the modern bird protection and conservation movement. The Bald Eagle is the proud symbol of the USA, but eagles have a checkered history, especially in Roman and Nazi propaganda. In China, Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' turned out to be the exact opposite. His call to kill millions of Tree Sparrows meant the insects they ate destroyed the grain harvest - leading to a famine in which thirty million people died. Finally, the Emperor Penguin of Antarctica stands as a potent symbol of how humanity's future is now in the balance, as it heads towards becoming the first global casualty of the Climate Emergency. It is an urgent sign, warning us about our own survival on the planet? Ten Birds that Changed the World is a 'big picture' view of global human history, seen through a unique and original viewpoint: our relationship with birds, as crucial to our lives today as is has ever been"--
Subjects: Birds; Human-animal relationships;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hurricane lizards and plastic squid : the fraught and fascinating biology of climate change / by Hanson, Thor,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In his three previous books-Feathers, The Triumph of Seeds, and Buzz-Thor Hanson has taken his readers on unforgettable journeys into nature, rendered with great storytelling, the soul of a poet, and the insight of a biologist. In this new book, he is doing it again, but exploring one of the most vital scientific and cultural issues of our time: climate change. As a young biologist, Hanson by his own admission watched with some detachment as our warming planet presented plants and animals with an ultimatum: change or face extinction. But his detachment turned to both concern and awe, as he observed the remarkable narratives of change playing out in each plant and animal he studied. In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, Hanson tells the story of how nature-both plants and animals, from beech trees to beetles-are meeting the challenges of rapid climate change head-on, adjusting, adapting, and sometimes noticeably evolving. Brown pelicans are fleeing uphill, seeking out new lives in the mountains. Gorillas in Uganda are turning to new food sources, such as eucalyptus trees (which humans only imported to Africa in the past several decades), as their old sources wain. Auklets, a little sea bird, aren't so lucky: changes in the lifecycles of their primary food source means they return at specific times of year to oceanic feeding grounds expecting plankton blooms that are no longer there. As global warming transforms and restructures the ecosystems in which these animals and others live, Hanson argues, we are forced to conclude that climate change will not have just one effect: Some transformations are beneficial. Others, and perhaps most, are devastating, wiping out entire species. One thing is constant: with each change an organism undergoes, the delicate balance of interdependent ecosystems is tipped, forcing the evolution of thousands more species, including us. To understand how, collectively, these changes are shaping the natural world and the future of life, Hanson looks back through deep time, examining fossil records, pollen, and even the tooth enamel of giant wombats and mummified owl pellets. Together, these records of our past tell the story of ancient climate change, shedding light on the challenges faced by today's species, the ways they will respond, and how these strategies will determine the fate of ecosystems around the globe. Ultimately, the story of nature's response to climate change is both fraught and fascinating, a story of both disaster and resilience, and, sometimes, hope. Lyrical and thought-provoking, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is poised to transform the conversation around climate change, shifting the focus from humans to the lattice of life, of which humans are just a single point"--
Subjects: Adaptation (Biology); Bioclimatology.; Biotic communities.; Climatic changes.; Global environmental change.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Prii͡ut Li͡ubimoe peryshko. by ROSMĖN-Press.;
Subjects: Board books.; Ponies; Friendship;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Chudo v perʹi͡akh / by Artemova, N. V.; Artemova, O. V.;
6+.
Subjects: Animal fiction.; Short stories.; Adaptations.; Picture books.; Bears;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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