california

A small band of emaciated strangers led by the sole survivor of an ill-fated starship are innocent victims of a "close encounter" with an alien life form.

Learn about the bloody history of America from her beginnings in the Revolutionary War to the Gold Rush.

"In 1851 twelve-year-old Sarah is a free Black, happy living with her parents, grandparents, and brother on their own farm in Iowa; but her father has been bitten by the gold bug and wants to take the trail west to California, and after some argument it is decided that the the grandparents will stay on the farm, but the rest of the family will go; the journey will be difficult and dangerous, but if they survive extreme weather, difficult terrain, illness, and the racism of others in the group there may be a better life waiting for them at the end of the trail. Includes nonfiction material on the Oregon Trail, a glossary, discussion questions, and writing prompts"--OCLC.

""Eight years ago an earthquake--the Big One--hit along the Cascadia fault line, toppling cities and changing landscapes all up and down the west coast of the United States. Life as we know it changed forever. But for Vietnamese American Virginia Crane, life changed shortly after the earthquake, when her mother left and never came back. Ginny has gotten used to a life without her mother, helping her father take care of her two younger brothers, Wes and Harry. But when a mysterious package arrives for her eighteenth birthday, her life is shaken up yet again. For the first time, Ginny wants something more than to survive. And it might be a selfish desire, but she's determined to find out what happened to her mother--even if it means leaving her family behind"--Provided by the publisher.

Ten-year-old Leo loves being a newsboy in San Francisco--but early one spring morning in 1906 Leo's world is shaken, when he finds himself stranded in the middle of San Francisco as it crumbles and burns to the ground.

"The story of California condors and the scientists who have fought against their extinction"--OCLC.

Deputy Coroner Clay Edison has his hands full. He's got a new baby who won't sleep. He's working the graveyard shift. And he's trying, for once, to mind his own business. Then comes the first call. Workers demolishing a local park have made a haunting discovery: the decades-old skeleton of a child. But whose? And how did it get there? No sooner has Clay begun to investigate than he receives a second call, this one from a local businessman, wondering if the body could belong to his sister. She went missing fifty years ago, the man says. Or at least I think she did. It's a little complicated. And things only get stranger from there. Clay's relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn't dead. It isn't even past. It's very much alive. And it can kill.

A novel about faith, science, religion, and family that tells the story of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief, narrated by a fifth year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford school of medicine studying the neural circuits of reward seeking behavior in mice.

Follows a secret through the lives of three different people, from high school into adulthood, tracing its impact far beyond their Southern California youth.

Set on a fictional island off the coast of Southern California, Creatures is a lyrical, inventive, and edgy literary debut in which a woman on the eve of her wedding must reckon with her chaotic but also free-spirited upbringing, her dysfunctional parents, and her attempts to love unconditionally as an adult despite never having been taught how.