new orleans (la.)

Now that Nick's accepted the demon that lives inside him, he must learn to control it and temper the very emotions that threaten the lives of everyone he cares for.

Twelve-year-old Tia lives in a white slum in New Orleans with her mother, and her whole world revolves around singing in the gospel choir with her best friend, Keisha, but when practice is interrupted by a shooting outside the church, and a baby is killed, Tia finds that she cannot sing, and she is forced to confront her feelings about her incarcerated father who killed a girl in a failed robbery years before.

Nick has finally accepted his fate, now he must learn to defy his destiny, and the dark, deadly forces that will stop at nothing to destroy everyone he loves so that they can again return to the world of man and own it.

When the gang enters a spooky New Orleans mansion in search of a phone, they encounter some strange sights and characters--and the reader must help them figure out just what is going on.

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana--on August 29, 2005--journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans's efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting affects not just on the city's geography and infrastructure, but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric.

"Chronicles slaves' duties each day, from chopping logs on Mondays to baking bread on Wednesdays to plucking hens on Saturday, and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square."--Provided by publisher.

In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.

When Ibby Bell's father dies in a tragic accident in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother, Fannie, and throws in her father's urn for good measure. Fannie's Victorian house is like no place Ibby has ever been--and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum every once in a while-- is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, her black cook, Queenie--who has run Fannie's household ever since it was Fannie's household--and Queenie's feisty daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secrets. For Fannie's own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Garden District mansion.

Having finally accepted the demon inside of him, Nick decides to trust the one person he should not, just as the dark gods that created his race close in on him.

Alfie and Emilia magically travel to New Orleans with their great-aunt Zia, where they help save a jazz performance venue and find a long-lost cookbook.