Author: Sonya Dalton

Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille? by Mark Angelo

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

The cover image for Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille? by Mark Angelo“An uplifting true story of a determined young boy, his love of a game, and the belief that every child needs a nearby place to play ball.”

Set in 1958, a young boy and his friends want to be baseball players just like their Dodger idols. There’s just one problem: they don’t have a field to play in. Luckily, the kids know a secret. There’s a mansion around the corner with a yard big enough for an entire ball field and the hedge surrounding it has a gap just big enough to crawl through. Apparently, the owner is a big-time Hollywood mogul. He won’t mind a few ball games, right?

The new children’s book Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille? (FriesenPress, April 2023, ISBN: 9781039153844, Hardcover) by renowned writer Mark Angelo centers on one young boy’s devotion to baseball and the newly arrived LA team, the Dodgers. With its rich and colorful illustrations, children can join Mark as he and his friends try to find a place where they can play ball like their heroes. Just when it seems they’ve found the perfect spot, they run into more trouble—Will their unforgettable encounter with a Hollywood legend end in a foul? Or will Mr. DeMille tell the kids, “Play ball!”?

Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille? is an inspiring, true story that speaks to the nostalgia, joy, and importance of community when it comes to having a place for children to gather & play. There’s even a slice of classic Hollywood history! Dedicated to the memory of Angelo’s brother Chris and set just as “Dodger-mania” gripped the city of Los Angeles, this sensational true story is full of youthful determination and summer fun. Baseball fans of all ages will enjoy Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille?, whether they’re new to the game or just want to pass their life-long love down to younger enthusiasts. Angelo’s book is officially licensed through Major League Baseball.

About the Author

MARK ANGELO has been a baseball fan since he was a little boy! He is also a globally renowned river conservationist and the founder of World Rivers Day, now celebrated by millions of people in over one hundred countries. Among his many accolades, Mark is a recipient of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest honor. His acclaimed debut children’s book, The Little Creek that Could, is the true story of a stream that came back to life. Through his work with groups such as the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, Mark has been a long-time advocate for outdoor spaces for all to enjoy. Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille?, about a young boy’s search for a place to play ball, recounts an actual experience from his childhood. Mark lives in Burnaby, British Columbia, with his wife, Kathie.

Can We Play Baseball, Mr. DeMille?
By Mark Angelo
Illustrated by Patricia and Robin DeWitt
FriesenPress
Publication Date: April 2023
ISBN: 9781039153837 | 9781039153844 | 9781039153851
Format: Paperback | Hardcover | eBook
Page Count: 38

To learn more about Mark Angelo, please visit: https://www.canweplaybaseballmrdemille.com/

The Apprentice of Buchenwald by Oren Schneider

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

In 1943, when Alex Rosenberg was a teenager, he left his life of privilege and his identity behind when his family lost everything during the War. He was thrust into a reality of hiding and horrors, for which nothing could have prepared him.  However, his selfless acts and a determination to survive saved his father, and the lives of Allies on the battlefield.  Alex’s story is now immortalized in a new book The Apprentice of Buchenwald (Amsterdam Publishers; January 27, 2023; Hardcover; $23.95) by his grandson, Oren Schneider.

Using their last reserves of wealth and influence to escape extermination, the Rosenbergs fled their hometown and went underground to avoid the Gestapo. Eventually exposed, captured, and taken to Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany, Alex and his father collaborated to survive one day at a time.

A chaotic chain of events put Alex, an entrepreneurial trader’s son with the hands of a gifted mechanic, now a forced laborer, at the heart of a massive armament sabotage scheme. When his father is gravely injured and disappears after an air bombing, it is up to industrious Alex to create leverage and use wartime machinations and raw talent to save his father’s life.

Oren Schneider spent a lifetime documenting his grandfather’s story, and complemented it with genealogical information researched with the help of www.myhertiage.com to write The Apprentice of Buchenwald.  His photos, audio recordings, and transcripts made it possible to recreate Alex’s story; a young man who rose to the occasion to fight back and leave a footprint on the history of World War II and The Holocaust.

About the Author

Oren Schneider was born in Israel, a third generation to holocaust survivors and seventh generation to farmers from the Galilee.  He is an entrepreneur and business owner who enjoys music, cooking, travel, people and especially the combination of all four. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.

The Apprentice of Buchenwald:
The True Story of the Teenage Boy Who Sabotaged Hitler’s War Machine
By Oren Schneider
Amsterdam Publishers
Publication Date: January 27, 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-9493276536
Page Count: 232
Author Website: www.ApprenticeOfBuchenwald.com

The Girl Who Counted Numbers by Roslyn Bernstein

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

“‘I’ve found the perfect solution,’ he said, reading the headline aloud: ‘How American Jews Claim Their Jewish Heritage in Israel.’ Beneath the headline, there was a photo of a group of young people standing in front of the SS Jerusalem II, a ship that sailed from New York to Haifa for the Zim Lines. ‘That could be you,’ he said, pointing to the picture. For the first time in a week, he was actually smiling. Her father had come up with a new plan, one that he approved of. ‘I’ll send you to Israel.’”

Susan Reich has spent her whole childhood in a small neighborhood near New York City, living comfortably with her father. At seventeen, she decides to turn away from the neatly plotted out life ahead of her and confronts her father about taking a gap year. The two are at odds until he proposes a way for them to both get what they want: Susan can postpone college so long as she spends her gap year abroad in Israel searching for her long-lost uncle.

The Girl Who Counted Numbers (Amsterdam Publishers, October 12th 2022, 978-9493276360) is the story of an independent, Jewish-American girl who leaves for Israel to solve a family mystery. The hunt for any evidence of her uncle takes her to unexpected places where she must confront parts of the past she never knew. With the infamous Adolf Eichmann trial happening in the backdrop of The Girl Who Counted Numbers, Susan begins unraveling these complex layers of history and is drawn into the tense political climate of a post-Holocaust Israel. As she gets more and more involved in the struggles of her Israeli and Jewish-Moroccan friends, she explores awakening emotions and discovers her own interest in truth, justice, and activism.

“All families must deal with the past in order to move forward, but for some families that is harder than for others. Roslyn Bernstein’s beautiful new novel chronicles one family’s difficult quest for peace. Moving, nuanced and inspiring, this gripping book rings achingly true.” —Gish Jen, Author, Thank You, Mr. Nixon

In 1961, author Roslyn Bernstein spent 7 months in Jerusalem. She was present during part of the Adolf Eichmann Trial—often cited as the event that sparked public awareness of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust— and listened to the stories of immigrants and survivors and daydreamed about their meanings. Her trip was a source of inspiration for The Girl Who Counted Numbers. Susan’s story, while fictional, is heavily influenced by real issues of politics, history, and identity that permeated Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust and even today. The Girl Who Counted Numbers is a nuanced, thrilling tale about discovering a past and confronting one’s identity.

The Girl Who Counted Numbers
By Rosyln Bernstein
Amsterdam Publishers
ISBN: 978-9493276369
Publication Date: October 12, 2022
Original Trade Paperback
Price: $19.95
Pages: 284

ReInception by Sarena Straus

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

“[T]ranscranial magnetic stimulation beams targeted magnetic pulses deep inside patients’ brains — an approach that has been likened to rewiring a computer. “We are actually changing how the brain circuits are arranged, how they talk to each other…” ―UCLA Newsroom, June 12, 2017

Since at least 2017, technology has made it possible for scientists to “rewire” connectors in the brain. These techniques, originally developed for people suffering severe depression, are already being used in other therapies such as habit modification.

In REINCEPTION (Winding Road Publishing LLC; October 25th 2022; $14.99; 979-8986604336), the first in a new sci-fi trilogy, Sarena Straus, a former prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney’s office, imagines a time when using technology to eliminate unwanted behaviors is the norm. REINCEPTION takes place in 2126 in New York City; there is an extreme class divide, and parents are allowed to modify their kids’ brains until they are twenty years old. Now, a technology originally invented to help addicts— referred to as ReInception— is being used for everything from taming unruly children to reprogramming pedophiles.

Leandrea, an “unmodified” young college student, is not comfortable with the idea of ReInception.  She also feels empathy for the Proles—a working class forced to live at ground level where they are exposed to the harsh environment of the future.  There, the Proles work in service positions paid for by the privileged class.

Like many young people, Leandrea has not had the motivation to be proactive about her rebellious feelings. That is, until her boyfriend is illegally modified by his pro-ReInception family in order to separate him from Leandrea’s “bad influence” as a detractor.

In desperation, Leandrea turns to Ward, a Prole who is involved in a plot to undermine modification practices. Although Ward tries to push her away, Leandrea is determined to make a difference in the world and in the process captures Ward’s heart and renews his faith in mankind.

REINCEPTION is a sci-fi thriller that explores what happens when good-faith technology is taken too far and abused. The novel touches on many of the issues facing society today around privacy, reproductive rights, and class divide. The tension is palpable on the pages as Leandrea and Ward work to execute their plan to take down ReInception, while escaping capture by the Authority. Their mantra: “Trust no one and escape modification at all costs”.

ReInception
by Sarena Straus
Winding Road Publishing LLC
Publication Date: October 25, 2022
Paperback ISBN:  979-8986604336
Price: $14.99
Page count: 289

Find Me in the Time Before by Robin Stevens Payes

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

How does your normal, average teenager who has visited the Renaissance and met Leonardo da Vinci in person, go back to the humdrum of high school?

Charley Morton is still trying to figure that out, as she puts her recent unexpected time travel adventure and a narrow escape with her life behind her to focus on this year’s science fair.  She knows that working alongside her science fair partner and sometimes boyfriend Billy, a first prize is in her future. She might even allow her sometimes-bestie Beth to join the project. However, in Charley’s world, nothing is simple, and things are about to turn upside down, again, in a new adventure, Find Me in the Time Before (Book 4/Edge of Yesterday; Woodhall Press; October 2022; Price $18.95) by Robin Stevens Payes.

In Find Me in the Time Before, Charley and Billy’s old friend Kairos appears with an urgent problem – his sister Carolina is missing. In Paris. In the 18th century. To find her, Charley will have to search the streets—and cemeteries—of Paris. This is a dangerous place for a 21st-century girl to get lost in, alone and armed only with her smartphone. But Charley has another motive for daring the leap: she’s desperate to track down one of her science heroes, the Marquise Émilie du Châtelet. Among other Earth-shaking achievements, the Marquise formulated the scientific precursor to what would become, two centuries later, Einstein’s famous E=mc2. Charley’s dying to find out how this “daring woman of the Enlightenment ” dueled, gambled and advanced science and mathematics in a world where education was reserved for noblemen and kings. Like many hidden figures through the ages, Émilie’s contributions were neglected, overlooked or lost to the history recorded by men.

With time travel on her mind, Charley will need to enlist Beth’s fashion talents and Billy’s  engineering upgrades to smooth out what she knows to be a head-spinning ride through spacetime. Add Charley’s IT, physics, forensic and social innovations to the mix, and she’s on track to win the national Science Fair and collect a cash prize to boot. Just another average school year!

Author Robin Stevens Payes, after years of working as a science and education writer and coach, has a penchant for telling stories that focus on blending history, science, and fiction. Her Edge of Yesterday series is intended to entertain young adult readers and spark an interest in STEM/STEAM careers, especially for girls. Charley and Billy indulge their STEM curiosity and creativity to chase down their dreams. In the same spirit, Robin intends for her books to encourage readers to both dream and create. For teens, Find Me in the Time Before has it all—from romance to fashion, adventure to revolution, and gadgets to ghosts. In an era where kids are emerging into a world changed by a pandemic, the prospect of time travel in the Edge of Yesterday series is a leap into greater imagination and possibility.

About the Author

Robin Stevens Payes is the author of four novels for middle grade to Y/A readers. She offers workshops on storytelling and is in the process of launching a company that focuses on relationship solutions for mothers and their teen daughters. She was founding editor-in-chief of LearnNow, an online publication on the science of learning, and has written for The American Leader, Discovery Education, the National Girls Collaborative Project, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She lives around the DC beltway in Maryland.

FIND ME IN THE TIME BEFORE
Book 4 in the Edge of Yesterday Series
By Robin Payes
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Publication Date: October 4, 2022
ISBN:
Original Trade Paperback
Price: $18.95
Page count: 436 pages