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New England Natives
A Celebration of People and Trees
Sheila Connor
Harvard University Press, 1994
Taking us back to the birth of New England’s forests, Sheila Connor shows us these trees evolving amidst a succession of human cultures, from the archaic Indians who crafted canoes from white birch and snowshoes from ash, to the colonists who built ships of oak and pine, to the industrialists who laid railroad tracks on chestnut timber, to the tanners who used hemlock bark to treat the leather required to shoe the Union army. In this engaging narrative, cultural history affords insights into forestry, botany, horticulture, and ecology, which in turn illuminate the course of human conduct in a wooded land. Beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, this book will delight readers with a special interest in the trees of the region, as well as those who wonder what our American culture owes to nature.
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front cover of Where No Gods Came
Where No Gods Came
Sheila O'Connor
University of Michigan Press, 2004
Winner 2003 Michigan Literary Fiction Award for original novel

"Written with precision and perception, this is a highly recommended work from a writer to watch."
-Library Journal

"O'Connor . . . remains a consummate artist, true to her vision of a work that is bleak, truthful, and lacking any overt sentimental overtures. Her eye, a poet's eye, misses nothing."
-three candles

". . . a touching odyssey of a girl poised between the emotional abyss and the reader's heart."
-Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A sensitive, often disquieting book that rings true throughout. . . . It's the skill of an accomplished writer that we see Faina's extraordinary spirit, while simultaneously experiencing her pain and despair. The end result is an uplifting, even inspiring book without any of the sugarcoating often found in stories like this."
-California Literary Review

Where No Gods Came is author Sheila O'Connor's compelling story of Faina McCoy, a young girl caught in a perilous scheme of elaborate lies created for her own harrowing system of survival. Enmeshed in a tangled family web, Faina is abruptly uprooted against her will from her father and finds herself half a continent away on the doorstep of a mother who abandoned her years before-but who can't live without Faina now. Alone, persecuted,
and exploited, Faina must fend for herself as she searches for love and answers, navigating the streets of a strange city and forging bonds of feeling with liars and outlaws.

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