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The story of Mai Ya Xiong and her family and their journey from the Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand to a new life in Madison, Wisconsin, is extraordinary. Yet it is typical of the stories of the 200,000 Hmong people who now live in the United States and who struggle to adjust to American society while maintaining their own culture as a free people.

Mai Ya's Long Journey follows Mai Ya Xiong, a young Hmong woman, from her childhood in Thailand's Ban Vinai Refugee Camp to her current home in Wisconsin. Mai Ya's parents fled Laos during the Vietnam War and were refugees in Thailand for several years before reaching the United States. But the story does not end there. Students will read the challenges Mai Ya faces in balancing her Hmong heritage and her adopted American culture as she grows into adulthood.

Mary McLeod Bethune was a significant figure in American political history. She devoted her life to advancing equal social, economic, and political rights for blacks. She distinguished herself by creating lasting institutions that trained black women for visible and expanding public leadership roles. Few have been as effective in the development of women’s leadership for group advancement. Despite her accomplishments, the means, techniques, and actions Bethune employed in fighting for equality have been widely misinterpreted.

LOOK INSIDE THE LIFE — AND HOME — OF LEGENDARY 'OUTSIDER' ARTIST MARY NOHL

"Mary Nohl: A Lifetime in Art" by Barbara Manger and Janine Smith, tells the story of Milwaukee-born artist, Mary Nohl. A prolific and fanciful maker who worked in a variety of media, Nohl was both a mysterious figure and an iconic "outsider" artist. This new addition to the Badger Biographies series captures her life and will capture the imagination of readers, and artists, of all ages.

Nohl didn't just make art — she lived it. From the time she was young, Mary enjoyed making things, from the model airplane that won her a citywide prize to assignments in shop class, where she learned to work with tools.

Her interests in art blossomed during the years she spent training at the Art Institute of Chicago, leading to a lifetime of curiosity and ventures into new artistic media. From pottery to silver jewelry and oil painting to concrete sculpture, Mary explored new ways of making art. Many of her pieces were made from found objects that other people might think of as junk — like chicken bones, bedsprings and sand that she made into concrete.

Nohl, who made her home on the shores of Lake Michigan, decorated the interior of her cottage with bright colors and eye-catching figures in driftwood and glass. During her later years, her home became known as the "Witch's House" — a place of local legend known far beyond Fox Point. Though she died in 2001, Mary's legacy continues. Her art is held at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, and her home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The popular Badger Biographies series for young readers explores the lives of famous and not-so-famous figures in Wisconsin history. The Wisconsin Historical Society Press is proud to celebrate the release of this, the 21st book in the series.

On her first day of middle school Spanish class, Marcela thought she’d excel—after all, she’d grown up speaking Spanish at home and on visits to family in Colombia. Instead, she quickly felt like a confused imposter, unsure how a language that was part of her heritage and identity could so elude her. And so, at age thirteen, with the help of her Spanish teacher Doña Maribel, Marcela began her formal journey studying Spanish. She never anticipated how much she’d discover about learning a language and what it means to be a heritage speaker—someone who grows up using a language at home but often lacks more formal knowledge of it. In this charming graphic memoir that captures a little-discussed aspect of growing up multicultural, Marcela recounts her earliest Spanish teachers: Colombian street vendors, family members who shouted or whispered words, and her beloved Doña Maribel, who helped her connect the Spanish of her youth with what she was learning in the classroom. Childhood memories from trips to Colombia intertwine with her adolescence, when Marcela resolves to study the language for herself, not because people correct her or expect her to speak it well but because she wants to learn. This comic, drawn by Marcela’s brother Andrés, shows the complicated path of language and identity that Marcela travels as a heritage speaker.

Growing up in Ladora, Iowa, Mildred “Millie” Benson had ample time to develop her imagination and sense of adventure. While still a journalism graduate student at the University of Iowa, Millie began writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which published the phenomenally popular Hardy Boys series, among others. Soon, Millie was tapped for a new series starring amateur sleuth Nancy Drew, a young, independent woman not unlike Millie herself. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, Millie wrote the first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, and twenty-two other Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. In all, Millie wrote more than a hundred novels for young people.

Millie was also a journalist for the Toledo Times and the Toledo Blade. At sixty-two, she obtained her pilot’s license. Follow the clues throughout Missing Millie to discover the story of this ghostwriter, journalist, and adventurer.

With the seasons of the year as a backdrop, author Diane Holliday describes what life was like for a Ho-Chunk girl who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Central to the story is the movement of Mountain Wolf Woman and her family in and around Wisconsin. Like many Ho-Chunk people in the mid-1800s, Mountain Wolf Woman's family was displaced to Nebraska by the U.S. government. They later returned to Wisconsin but continued to relocate throughout the state as the seasons changed to gather and hunt food.

Based on her own autobiography as told to anthropologist Nancy Lurie, Mountain Wolf Woman's words are used throughout the book to capture her feelings and memories during childhood. Author Holliday draws young readers into this Badger Biographies series book by asking them to think about how the lives of their ancestors and how their lives today compare to the way Mountain Wolf Woman lived over a hundred years ago.

This full-color picture book helps children learn their numbers in sign language. Each two-page spread of this delightfully illustrated book has the appropriate number of things or creatures for the numbers 0 through 20. The signs for the numbers 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 are also included. Each sign/number appears in the corner of the page. Written explanations of how to form each sign are provided in the back of the book.