Books by James Rumford
Don't Touch My Hat
Out west, a lonesome prairie or two from anywhere, was a town called Sunshine. Sunshine was smaller'n most, bigger'n some, but cleaner and more civ'lized than 'em all. Sheriff John saw to that—him and his 10-gallon hat. . . .Sheriff John is a lawman in the wild, wild West. It's not just his badge and his gun that send robbers and rustlers galloping out of town, it's also his 10- gallon hat. Or so he thinks. . . .This new picture book by critically acclaimed author-illustrator James Rumford is a delightful addition to the bookshelves of young cowboys and cowgirls everywhere!
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Rain School
It is the first day of school in Chad, Africa. Children are filling the road.
"Will they give us a notebook?" Thomas asks. "Will they give us a pencil? Will I learn to read?"
But when he and the other children arrive at the schoolyard, they find no classroom, no desks. Just a teacher. "We will build our school," she says. "This is our first lesson."
James Rumford, who lived in Chad as a Peace Corps volunteer, fills these pages with vibrant ink-and-pastel colors of Africa and the spare words of a poet to show how important learning is in a country where only a few children are able to go to school.
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Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Rise and Shine)
In 1802, Jean-Francois Champollion was eleven years old. That year, he vowed to be the first person to read Egypt’s ancient hieroglyphs. Champollion’s dream was to sail up the Nile in Egypt and uncover the secrets of the past, and he dedicated the next twenty years to the challenge.
James Rumford introduces the remarkable man who deciphered the ancient Egyptian script and fulfilled a lifelong dream in the process. Stunning watercolors bring Champollion’s adventure to life in a story that challenges the mind and touches the heart.
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Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta, 1325-1354
Tells of the true adventures of Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth-century traveler who, like Marco Polo, set forth on a seventy-five thousand mile journey of discovery through many lands, including Tanzania, China, Russia, and Morocco. 12,500 first printing.
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Chee-Lin: A Giraffe's Journey
Eighty years before Columbus, China sent ships to explore the world.
The Chinese discovered many marvelous things, but one discovery stood out above the others: the chee-lin.
This chee-lin was just a giraffe, but to the Chinese it was an omen of good fortune so rare that it had appeared only once before—at the birth of Confucius.
In a storybook in which each page evokes the richness of faraway places and long-ago days, James Rumford traces the chee-lin’s journey from Africa to Bengal to China, weaving a tale not just of a giraffe but of the people he meets along the way. Chee-lin is a story for all time: of captivity and struggle, friendship and respect.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
A New York Times Bestseller and Whitbread Book of the Year.Heaney's performance reminds us that Beowulf, written near the turn of another millennium, was intended to be heard not read.Composed toward the end of the first millennium of our era, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and lives to old age before dying in a vivid fight against a dragon.The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In the contours of this story, at once remote and uncannily familiar at the end of the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney finds a resonance that summons power to the poetry from deep beneath its surface.While an abridgment of Heaney's full translation of Beowulf, Heaney prepared this abridgment himself to read for the BBC program from which this recording is taken.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
A New York Times Bestseller and Whitbread Book of the Year.
Heaney’s performance reminds us that Beowulf, written near the turn of another millennium, was intended to be heard not read.
Composed toward the end of the first millennium of our era, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel’s mother. He then returns to his own country and lives to old age before dying in a vivid fight against a dragon.
The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In the contours of this story, at once remote and uncannily familiar at the end of the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney finds a resonance that summons power to the poetry from deep beneath its surface.
While an abridgment of Heaney’s full translation of Beowulf, Heaney prepared this abridgment himself to read for the BBC program from which this recording is taken.
Copies
No copies available.
Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
A widely celebrated translator’s vivid, accessible, and elegantly concise rendering of an ancient English masterpiece
Beowulf tells the story of a Scandinavian hero who defeats three evil creatures—a huge, cannibalistic ogre named Grendel, Grendel’s monstrous mother, and a dragon—and then dies, mortally wounded during his last encounter. If the definition of a superhero is “someone who uses his special powers to fight evil,” then Beowulf is our first English superhero story, and arguably our best. It is also a deeply pious poem, so bold in its reverence for a virtuous pagan past that it teeters on the edge of heresy. From beginning to end, we feel we are in the hands of a master storyteller.
Stephen Mitchell’s marvelously clear and vivid rendering re-creates the robust masculine music of the original. It both hews closely to the meaning of the Old English and captures its wild energy and vitality, not just as a deep “work of literature” but also as a rousing entertainment that can still stir our feelings and rivet our attention today, after more than a thousand years. This new translation—spare, sinuous, vigorous in its narration, and translucent in its poetry—makes a masterpiece accessible to everyone.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
The acclaimed author and illustrator of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT return with an exhilarating edition of Britain's oldest epic.
Long ago there was a Scandinavian warrior who fought three evils so powerful they could destroy whole kingdoms. Standing head and shoulders above his comrades, Beowulf single-handedly saves the land of the Danes from a merciless ogre named Grendel and then from his sea-hag mother. But it is his third terrible battle, with the death-dragon of the deep, in which he truly meets his match. Lovers of heroes, monsters, and the drama of battle will find this retelling as enthralling as it is tragic.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
This exhilarating graphic-novel edition of an ancient classic honors the spirit of the original as it attracts modern readers.
The epic tale of the great warrior Beowulf has thrilled readers through the ages — and has been reinvented for a new generation with Gareth Hinds’s masterful illustrations. Grendel’s black blood runs thick as Beowulf defeats the monster and his hideous mother, while somber hues overcast the hero’s final, fatal battle against a raging dragon. Speeches filled with courage and sadness, lightning-paced contests of muscle and will, and funeral boats burning on the fjords are all rendered in glorious and gruesome detail. Told for more than a thousand years, Beowulf’s heroic saga finds a true home in this graphic-novel edition.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
When sleep was at its deepest, night at its blackest, up from the mist-filled marsh came Grendel stalking . . .
Thus begins the battle between good and evil, for lying in wait and anxious to challenge the ogre Grendel is a young man, strong-willed and fire-hearted. This man is Beowulf, whose heroic dragon-slaying deeds were sung in the courts of Anglo-Saxon England more than a thousand years ago.
Award-winning author and illustrator James Rumford forges his own account of Beowulf with the few Anglo-Saxon words still present in our language. These ironstrong ancient words recall the boldness of the original poem and, together with Rumford’s pen-and-ink illustrations, they fashion an unforgettable story of a hero who never gave up—no matter how difficult the struggle—no matter how deep and dark the night.
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Beowulf
by Michael Morpurgo, Seamus Heaney, unknown author, James Rumford, Gareth Hinds
“Will fire imaginations and elicit the heart-pumping, wide-eyed response that has kept this tale alive and vigorous through the ages.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Long ago a Scandinavian warrior fought three evils so powerful they threatened whole kingdoms. Standing head and shoulders above his comrades, Beowulf single-handedly saved the land of the Danes from a merciless ogre named Grendel and from his sea-hag mother. But it is his third terrible battle, with the death-dragon of the deep, in which he truly meets his match. Lovers of heroes, monsters, and the drama of battle will find this retelling as enthralling as it is tragic. Now in a handy black-and-white digest edition perfect for classroom use.
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Silent Music: A Story of Baghdad
WHEN BOMBS BEGIN TO FALL, Ali drowns out the sould of war with a pen.
Like other children living in Baghdad, Ali loves soccer, music and dancing, but most of all, he loves the ancient art of calligraphy. When bombs begin to fall on his city, Ali turns to his pen, writing sweeping and gliding words to the silent music that drowns out the war all around him. Gorgeously illustrated with collage, pencil and charcoal drawings and, of course, exquisite calligraphy, this timely and yet universal story celebrates art and history but also offers young children a way to understand all they see and hear on the news.
Silent Music is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
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