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The Phoenix Pencil Company : a novel / by King, Allison,author.;
"Monica Tsai spends her days analyzing data for a new computer program that seeks to connect strangers with the world around them. But one day the very program she's helping to build pings a result for her beloved grandmother Yun's long-estranged cousin: a photograph of two women in Shanghai. One of them, Louise Sun, is a digital archivist who holds keys to Yun's past, and whose gift of a single pencil upends Monica's day-to-day. Monica's discoveries of a hidden family history are exquisitely braided with her grandmother Yun's own memories, recounting her time growing up in the Phoenix Pencil Company in the 1940s. While Japan invades China, Yun's cousin Meng moves in with them-but when the government discovers their family can Reforge a pencil's words, magically reviving the memories they hold, the cousins are separated and forced into a life of betraying stories in order to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting magic of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, King's stunningly layered debut novel asks: who owns a story? The answers and secrets that surface on the page have the unerasable power to unite or threaten Monica, Yun, and their most valued relationships for good"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Chinese Americans; Espionage; Families; Family secrets; Intergenerational relations; Magic; Memory; World War, 1939-1945;

Armageddon time [videorecording] / by Gray, James,1969-film director.; Hathaway, Anne,1982-actor.; Hopkins, Anthony,1937-actor.; Repeta, Banks,actor.; Strong, Jeremy,1978-actor.; Focus Features,presenter.; Keep Your Head Productions,production company.; MadRiver Pictures,production company.; RT Features (Firm),presenter.; Universal Studios Home Entertainment (Firm),publisher.;
Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, Ryan Sell.From acclaimed filmmaker James Gray and featuring an all-star cast including Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong comes Armageddon Time. Set in 1980s Queens, New York, it is a deeply personal story about the strength of family, the complexity of friendship and the generational pursuit of the American Dream.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.MPAA rating: R; for language and some drug use involving minors.Described video for the blind and visually impaired.Subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH).DVD ; wide screen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0.
Subjects: Coming-of-age films.; Feature films.; Fiction films.; Video recordings for people with visual disabilities.; Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; American Dream; Families; Friendship; Intergenerational relations; Nineteen eighties;
For private home use only.

The Phoenix Pencil Company [text (large print)] : a novel / by King, Allison,author.;
"Monica Tsai spends her days analyzing data for a new computer program that seeks to connect strangers with the world around them. But one day the very program she's helping to build pings a result for her beloved grandmother Yun's long-estranged cousin: a photograph of two women in Shanghai. One of them, Louise Sun, is a digital archivist who holds keys to Yun's past, and whose gift of a single pencil upends Monica's day-to-day. Monica's discoveries of a hidden family history are exquisitely braided with her grandmother Yun's own memories, recounting her time growing up in the Phoenix Pencil Company in the 1940s. While Japan invades China, Yun's cousin Meng moves in with them-but when the government discovers their family can Reforge a pencil's words, magically reviving the memories they hold, the cousins are separated and forced into a life of betraying stories in order to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting magic of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, King's stunningly layered debut novel asks: who owns a story? The answers and secrets that surface on the page have the unerasable power to unite or threaten Monica, Yun, and their most valued relationships for good"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Large print books.; Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Chinese Americans; Espionage; Families; Family secrets; Intergenerational relations; Magic; Memory; World War, 1939-1945;

The island of missing trees / by Shafak, Elif,1971-author.;
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love. Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Family secrets; Fruit trees; Intergenerational relations; Love; Taverns (Inns);

Red pockets : a tale of inheritance, ghosts, and the future / by Mah, Alice,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A poignant personal narrative about family, cultural history, and ecology, and a quest to understand what we owe our ancestors and our descendants from an unforgettable new voice. "Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations." Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors. They make offerings of food and incense to prevent their ancestors from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune, illnesses and crop failures. Yet for the past century, the tombs of many overseas Chinese have been left unattended because of the ruptures of war and revolution. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family's rice village in South China, ninety years after her grandfather's last visit and fifty years after her last relative died in the village. While she finds clan members who still remember her family, there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid. In Red Pockets, Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors' neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief. A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Mah, Alice.; Mah, Alice; Mah, Alice; Chinese diaspora.; Chinese; Chinese; Intergenerational relations.; Chinese Canadians; Chinese Canadians;

We rip the world apart / by Carr, Charlene,author.;
"A sweeping multi-generational story about motherhood, race and secrets in the lives of three women, perfect for readers of Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half and David Chariandy's Brother. When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she's pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, it amplifies her struggle to understand her place in the world as a woman who is half-Black and half-white, yet feels neither. Her mother, Evelyn, fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child, Antony, during the politically charged Jamaican Exodus of the 1980s, only to realize they'd come to a place where Black men are viewed with suspicion--a constant and pernicious reality Evelyn watches her husband and son navigate daily. Years later, in the aftermath of Antony's murder by the police, Evelyn's mother-in-law, Violet, moves in, offering young Kareela a link to the Jamaican heritage she has never fully known. Despite Violet's efforts to help them through their grief, the traumas they carry grow into a web of secrets that threatens the very family they all hold so dear. Back in the present, Kareela, prompted by fear and uncertainty about the new life she carries, must come to terms with the mysteries surrounding her family's past and the need to make sense of both her identity and her future. Weaving the women's stories across multiple timelines, We Rip the World Apart reveals the ways that simple choices, made in the heat of the moment and with the best of intentions, can have deeper repercussions than could ever have been imagined, especially when people remain silent."--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; African American women; Families; Family secrets; Identity (Psychology); Intergenerational relations; Pregnant women; Racially mixed people; Secrecy; Women;

Too soon : a novel / by Shamieh, Betty,author.;
"A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Families; Intergenerational relations; Man-woman relationships; Mothers and daughters; Palestinian American women; Secrecy; Theatrical producers and directors; Women;

The age of misadventure / by Leigh, Judy,author.;
All Georgie Turner wants is to keep her family together. But with her daughter growing up fast, her sister married to a man Georgie hates, and their aging aunt getting more and more outrageous, nothing's simple. So when her brother -in-law makes his biggest mistake yet, Georgie sees the chance to reunite the ladies in her life. And after a little persuasion, three generations of Turner women head off on a very unusual road trip. Georgie's confident that some sun, sea and a bottle or two of prosecco will make this an adventure they'll never forget. What could possibly go wrong?
Subjects: Humorous fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Older women; Intergenerational relations; Man-woman relationships; Seashore; Vacations; Automobile travel; Middle-aged mothers; Families;

How the penguins saved Veronica / by Prior, Hazel,author.; revision of:Prior, Hazel.Away with the penguins.;
A heartwarming story about a curmudgeonly but charming old woman, her estranged grandson, and a colony of penguins that proves it's never too late to be the person you want to be and that family is what you make it.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Humorous fiction.; Older women; Life change events; Self-realization in women; Grandparent and child; Intergenerational relations; Inheritance and succession; Penguins; Wildlife conservation;

Tiny lights for travellers / by Lewis, Naomi K.,1976-author.;
Includes bibliographical references (page 281)."When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved grandfather's escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Naomi K. Lewis decides to retrace his journey to learn about her family history. Despite suffering from extreme disorientation and a lifetime of anxiety, she travels alone for the first time. Moving from Amsterdam to Lyon--relying on the marvels of GPS--she discovers family secrets and her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian. With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Lewis's memoir asks tough questions about her identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations. How do immigrants weave their sense of identity into their chosen countries? Must we be able to locate ourselves within family and cultural geography to belong?"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Lewis, Naomi K., 1976-; Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors; Identity (Psychology); Intergenerational relations.; Jews; Jews, Canadian; Judaism and secularism.; Jews, Canadian;