Bøger af Michael Cooney

For the millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith was an inspired prophet of God. For many other millions, he was a consummate con man, the founder of an authoritarian cult that was discredited even in his own time. This new historical novel gives voice to Joseph Smith's long-forgotten sister, Sophronia, who tells the story of their shared lives from early childhood to his violent death. She was there when he saw God and uncovered the golden plates that became the Book of Mormon. She was a witness to his first experiments with polygamy, and to the persecutions that followed. When Joseph was taken to his death in the Carthage jail, it was Sophronia and two of his wives who rode to his rescue. The book is also a story of family and friendship. Sophronia's reliance on her strong-willed mother Lucy lasted well into adulthood, and her affection for her young brother Don Carlos lasted until his tragically early death. The happiness that she found with two husbands was brief, and often troubled, but her one surviving daughter was the joy of her life. Her circle of female friends was always of vital importance to her. Sophronia Smith was a woman of uncommon independence for her time and did not hesitate to speak the truth to the men around her. Although her brother was idolized by his followers, she loved him without blindness to his faults. In an age dominated by religious controversy, her own faith in the Mormon prophet was contradictory and deeply emotional.

These eleven linked stories trace the life of a boy growing to adulthood in a small Mohawk Valley factory town in the mid twentieth century. The central character tells of a special cemetery kept by the undertaker

Hanyost Schuyler does not understand the stories of fighting in faraway Boston or New York. He is much more interested in learning the old ways of his Mohawk neighbors and spending time with the young warrior Onatah and his sister Ataentsic. But in 1777 the Revolution is coming to the Mohawk Valley and everyone must choose a side. Will he follow his uncle Nicholas Herkimer, the newly appointed general of the rebel militia? What of Joseph Brant, war chief of the Mohawks, and his intriguing sister Molly? They have been good friends to Hanyost yet their loyalty to King George is known to all. And then there is the powerful memory of the old wanderer from the Carolinas who wiped away the darkness form Hanyost's eyes and brought him back to the daylight world. What would Black Jacob want him to do now?

This novel tells the story of the Little Falls textile strike of 1912 from the perspective of one of its leading participants, M. Helen Schloss. She was a public health nurse and an active socialist before she came to Little Falls, New York at the invitation of a group of wealthy women. When workers at the Phoenix and Gilbert textile mills struck against wage cuts in October, she was ready to support them in every way she could. Over the next three months, Little Falls was the national focus for the growing labor movement as Socialist Party and IWW activists from around the country joined the battle. But it was not the radical celebrities of the era who won the strike. It was the largely female, immigrant workers and the two women who led them: Helen Schloss and Matilda Rabinowitz.Also included is an excerpt from Matilda's unpublished memoir, courtesy of her granddaughter Robbin Legere Henderson. Matilda went on from Little Falls to lead strikes across the country and was an active writer until very late in life. Helen, who organized medical care at the great Paterson and Ludlow strikes, vanishes from history after she went to Russia in 1921.

The Great Monroe High School Fire is based upon events surrounding the unsolved arson fire that did major damage to James Monroe High School in the South Bronx over thirty years ago. The characters are inspired by the young people who survived that era of gangs, drugs, and a failing educational system. The narrator, Joey Sanchez, lives astride the worlds of his Italian mother and his absent Puerto Rican father and is influenced by the very different people in his life. His impoverished mother is the one person whom he cannot bear to disappoint. His closest friend Sapo joins him in a frenzy of graffiti writing while they are still at Junior High 22, and later nearly gets both of them killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Joey differs from his peers not only in his mixed ancestry but in his inability to accept the limitations of life in the Bronx. Beginning with a box of old books brought home by his mother, he seeks to understand a larger world through reading and through people he sees as possessing the knowledge that he lacks. There is Siobhan, the Fordham student who uses him for her own purposes, and the eccentric English teacher, Miss Bonsecour, whose friendship with the boy brings unwanted attention to them both. The events of the story unfold as much of the South Bronx was being consumed by fires whose origin has never been fully explained, a time just before the crack and AIDS epidemics swept away so many lives. It was, in Joey Sanchez' words, a time when books were burned and the Dark Ages returned.

This novel is based upon actual events of the 1640s in and near the Dutch village of Rensselaerswijck in the upper Hudson River Valley. Now known as Albany NY, the settlement was the center of the lucrative Dutch fur trade with the neighboring Mohican and Mohawk tribes, even as they warred with each other for control of that trade. Among the historical figures encountered are Harmen and Jelisje van den Bogaert, Isaac Jogues, Arent van Corlear, Johannes Megapolensis, and Adriaen van der Donck.The story is told by a young Mohican boy in a time when European diseases and war are creating chaos in the ancient cultures of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. Using his intelligence and imagination, he finds acceptance among the Mohawks and a new home with the family of the adventurous and bisexual Harmen van den Bogaert. When Harmen faces execution for a crime the Dutch term unspeakable, Matouac and a young slave girl named Catharina set out to save their friend.

These new tales from Michael Cooney range far across space and time. In the title story, an archaeologist 30,000 years in the future journeys from Mexico to the ruined city of New York in pursuit of a world that vanished beneath the ice. In "Sole Surviving Victim" a present day drive-by shooting leads to a journey back into a time of slavery and arbitrary execution. And only a few years from now, a retired couple adjusts to an overheated world where climate denial is official policy, but cannot stop worrying about their rebellious grandson. A fugitive from a new Christian dictatorship only stops running when he learns to speak in tongues. In a brutal post-apocalyptic world a war chief tells the tale of his conquests to his own assassin. An ancient Hopi myth unlocks the only door to an escape from a dying world. An anthropologist addicted to old-fashioned methods visits the planet Drimmold, eager to prove that a band of monkeys is fully human despite the lack of fire, tools and violence. A space traveler named Jack Murphy arrives at another planet and is worshiped as a god but then he disappears. And a brave young woman tries desperately to save a doomed human colony in which all technology is based on the control of giant sea creatures.

"In the Forest of Tombolo" is inspired by the true experiences of an American soldier during the closing days of World War II. By the time John Squillace fell in love with Michelina Colonna, he had deserted from the American army and ended up with a group of renegades and deserters inhabiting a tract of wasteland near Pisa, the forest of Tombolo. The band consisted of Black GI's who had deserted in the face of the overwhelming prejudice they faced in their own army. A number of Italian women, including Michelina, had joined them in the marshes and woods along the coast between Pisa and Livorno, and there was also a small camp of German soldiers left behind when their forces retreated northward. Together, this collection of outcasts survived as thieves and middle men in the thriving black market. When American MP's finally break up the outlaw camp, the story was front page news throughout Italy. At the same time, the American poet Ezra Pound was arrested for treason, having spent the war making broadcasts for Fascist Italy, and imprisoned at a detention center near Pisa. John meets the fellow poet as a fellow prisoner. His first impression is that the old man is simply crazy, but then a line of poetry emerges from Pound's endless, anti-Semitic monologues, a line that brings to John's mind the woman he thought he had lost forever: "What thou lovest well remains, all the rest is dross." Before he can be reunited with his love, John is sent to the Pacific. When he finds her again after many years, Michelina reveals the great sorrow of her life. Desperate to save her infant son from an abusive father, she had abandoned the baby years earlier in New York. John vows to find the boy and convinces Michelina to return with him to New York. They search in vain for the boy, again encountering Pound at the mental hospital where he has been consigned. A common interest in poetry leads them to a friendship with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and only then do they meet her son, a protege of Allen's and a poet himself. Terrified that the young Gregory Corso will hate for her what she has done, she will not tell him that she is his mother.

In the winter of 1885 William Druse disappeared from his run-down farm near the tiny village of Jordanville, New York. It took a month for the suspicions of his neighbors to lead the local sheriff to arrest Druse

This small book provides a personal glimpse of the renaissance in the New York City public schools as reflected in one of the most successful of the new small high schools. The individualized portfolio assessment methods developed at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School have made the school a model for those seeking alternatives to standardized testing. The author served as literacy coach at the school from 2003 to 2009 on behalf of the National Academy for Excellent Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. This book is not an official publication of the school nor of Teachers College and describes only a small portion of the work done by NafET in the New York City public schools.

This novel is based on the true story of Hanyost Schuyler, whose role in saving the lives of hundreds of Americans besieged at Fort Stanwix in 1777 has long been forgotten. Hanyost does not care about nor understand the stories of fighting in faraway Boston or New York City. He is much more interested in learning the old ways of his Mohawk neighbors and spending time with the young warrior Onatah and his sister Ataentsic. But now that the Revolution is coming closer to the Mohawk Valley, everyone must choose a side. Will he follow his uncle Nicholas Herkimer, the newly appointed general of the rebel militia ? What of his neighbors, Joseph Brant, the war chief of the Mohawks, and his intriguing sister Molly? They have always been good friends to Hanyost, yet their loyalty to King George III is known to all.

Eric has pocketed thousands of pounds through fraudulent DSS claims. When Norman (the lodger) opens the door to a DSS Inspector, deceptive mayhem follows. Meanwhile Linda (his wife) consults Dr Chapman regarding the discovery of her husband's lingerie (all part of his swindling activities)!

When Tom Kerwood and his wife Linda nervously await Mrs Potter from the adoption agency, who's to assess them at home, it's not surprising that events get out of hand. Dick has returned from a French smuggling trip with brandy and cigarettes - and two Kosovan refugees. Meanwhile, hospital porter Harry has embarked on an ambitious plan.