Embarking on your first solo road trip. Receiving a special surprise that arrives out of the blue. Finding a sudden flash of inspiration that sets you on a wondrous new path. When we think about the moments that stand out in our memory, it’s clear that our minds hold onto the unusual or unexpected. By tapping into students’ innate curiosity, you can design memorable, meaningful learning experiences that captivate their interest and ignite their imaginations. Structured around four key elements that fuel engagement—surprise, curiosity, freedom, and inspiration—Keeping the Wonder offers practical strategies and abundant inspiration for K-12 educators to create lessons that are fun and compelling. Combining enchanting anecdotes, real-world experience, and a wealth of research, the authors share their collective expertise as educators and founders of the innovative Keeping the Wonder workshop. In this dynamic handbook, Jenna, Ashley, Abby, and Staci offer a fresh approach to learning through the lens of wonder. By providing creative ideas for switching up standard lesson plans in ways both subtle and profound, they show us how to recapture our fascination with the world by employing all of our senses, and enhance engagement and critical thinking for students and teachers alike. Before reading Keeping the Wonder, I saw my social studies classroom for what it brick walls, desks, and a few colorful posters. Today, I see magic seeping through the cracks of every space. Keeping the Wonder reignited my assion for student engagement and learning with every turn of the page. —Dr. Jacob Bauer Zebley, high school social studies teacher and 2015 Cecil County Teacher of the Year From personal stories, practical advice, and research-based strategies, Keeping the Wonder is a book you will reach for time and again. After reading, you’ll start looking not just at your own classroom and curriculum through the lens of wonder, but the world around you. A must read for any teacher who is looking to bring that sense of curiosity and love of learning back into their classroom. —Caitlin Mitchell and Jessica Cannata, cofounders of EB Academics and bestselling authors of The Empowered ELA Teacher Abby, Ashley, Jenna, and Staci have written the book that all educators have been waiting inspiration to (re)invigorate their classroom instruction while providing rigor, depth, and synthesis with their approach to specific lessons. From the awesome workshops they have conducted for years, drawing educators from around the nation in droves, these amazing educators have proven they are rock stars. Reimagining how we teach and engage our students is a priority, and Keeping the Wonder gives practitioners permission to create wonder, curiosity, and, yes, fun, in the classroom! —Dr. Angelyne Collins, library media specialist, Brookwood High School, 2021 Gwinnett Media Specialist of the Year, and 2020 Georgia Library Media Association Exemplary Media Program If there ever were “perfect timing,” it might be right now for this practical yet truly inspirational book! Whether you are beginning a career in teaching, or just returning after long periods of “virtual” practice, this book has a spark for everyone. From ideas for catchy repurposed furniture to provide an engaging atmosphere to instructional strategies grounded in research-based practices, consider “the wonder” of this new book! Become a Wonder Maker and bring curiosity, surprise, freedom, and inspiration to your teaching practice! —Nate Ridgway and Dr. Angelia Ridgway, coauthors, Don’t Ditch that Differentiation in a Digital World

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women's Prize-nominated Detransition, Baby Deep in the forest, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal logging outfit plan a winter dance that some will volunteer to attend as women; the broadest, strongest axeman finds himself caught in a rivalry with a pretty, young jack that culminates in jealousy, betrayal and an astonishing spectacle of transition. Meanwhile, in other times and places, the gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; an illicit boarding-school romance surfaces intrigue and cruelty; and a Las Vegas party weekend turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between a thrilling mystery man or a veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood. In this quartet of tales, Torrey Peters' keen eye for the rough edges of desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny, boldly inventive and breathtaking in scope, Stag Dance provokes and unsettles, inspires and delights.

In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, "State of Wonder" presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional resonance and moral complexity. As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness. Stirring and luminous, "State of Wonder" is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest's jeweled canopy.

Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her, almost unrecognizable. Will it last? Love and Missed is a whip-smart, incisive, and mordantly witty novel about love's gains and missteps. British writer Susie Boyt's seventh novel, and the first to be published in the United States, is a triumph.

A powerful antidote to deadline dread, time guilt, and chronic rushing—from the New York Times bestselling author of The $100 StartupIn a world obsessed with squeezing the most out of every moment, the fear of falling behind can trap us in a paralyzing stress cycle. Incomplete to-do lists, unanswered emails, and unmet life goals haunt our thoughts, leaving us overstimulated and exhausted. In Time Anxiety, Chris Guillebeau, author of the popular newsletter A Year of Mental Health, reveals that this pervasive sense of time scarcity stems not from a lack of hours in the day but from unrealistic expectations and misaligned priorities. Weaving together eye-opening research on time perception, executive functioning challenges, and the psychological roots of avoidance, he offers a bold path for redefining our relationship with the clock. The first step is to build a tolerance for incomplete to-do lists and the inevitability of disappointing people, abandoning the goal of "catching up.” We have to set our own limits because no one else will. From there, Guillebeau guides readers through a process Identifying cognitive distortions that make routine tasks feel high-stakes, regulating the nervous system through grounding techniques and breathwork, and embracing the goal of “good enough”Uncovering the unwritten "time rules" that govern our days (“I return phone calls within an hour” or “I reply to every email the same day, without exception”) and creating new rules that better serve us Weighing the tradeoffs between competing values and priorities so we can invest our finite energy wisely, operating out of an empowered rather than a fear-based stateUltimately, Time Anxiety is a call to wake up from the trance of busyness and reclaim our most precious resource. By breaking the habits of overstressing, overdoing, and underliving, we can start savoring our limited time on earth.

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan. One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures. Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma – who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods – the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire. You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women's Prize-nominated Detransition, Baby Deep in the forest, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal logging outfit plan a winter dance that some will volunteer to attend as women; the broadest, strongest axeman finds himself caught in a rivalry with a pretty, young jack that culminates in jealousy, betrayal and an astonishing spectacle of transition. Meanwhile, in other times and places, the gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; an illicit boarding-school romance surfaces intrigue and cruelty; and a Las Vegas party weekend turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between a thrilling mystery man or a veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood. In this quartet of tales, Torrey Peters' keen eye for the rough edges of desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny, boldly inventive and breathtaking in scope, Stag Dance provokes and unsettles, inspires and delights.