Bøger af Keith Robinson

Eleven-year-old Melinda Strickland is setting out on her first mission as a shapeshifter-to save a town from unruly gargoyles. The ugly stone creatures have been perched on the rooftops of Garlen's Well for decades, warding off evil spirits, but lately they've grown mischievous and downright destructive. Somebody needs to talk to them, find out what's going on, and persuade them to be more respectful of private property. That somebody is Melinda, daughter of famous shapeshifters Robbie the ogre and Lauren the harpy. But what kind of creature will she get to be? Travis Franklin accompanies her on the trip west, though Melinda is keen to point out she's in charge, not him. He's only a dragon, after all. Nothing ever goes as planned. What promises to be a fairly routine mission turns into something quite deadly . . . GARGOYLE SCOURGE is the third installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series.

Ant's premonition of his friend's house being annihilated comes true when Liam's house is destroyed one Saturday evening - but not by a dreaded laser bolt from space. Instead, a massive sinkhole opens up and plunges the house deep underground with Liam and Madison inside. Could this be the work of eight-year-old Caleb, the mysterious, all-powerful, long-lost son of Ant's chauffeur? If so, he's created an incredible and frightening underground world...This is the third book in the Sleep Writer sci-fi adventure series.

Liam is kidnapped by a small robot and taken into space. There he meets the Ark Lord, a creepy cyborg bent on recruiting a team of so-called invincible soldiers for a very specific mission. There's nothing special about Liam except that he's seen his own future, which means his chances of survival are pretty much guaranteed, making him ideal for a potentially deadly task. To help him along, the Ark Lord injects Liam with cyborg-creating nanobots...This is the second book in the Sleep Writer sci-fi adventure series.

Giant bugs. A powerful phantom energy. And zombie aliens! Liam and Ant are intrigued by Madison's latest cryptic message hinting at an invasion of Earth. Shortly after, they're caught up in a terrifying attack by giant bugs, which leads to a planet where eerie statues come alive, and a trip through a wormhole to a cloudstation floating above a battleground. And of course there's the briefcase containing an alien entity... The fifth book in the sci-fi adventure series contains three interconnected novellas full of excitement, terror, and downright weirdness.

A sleeping king, several ghosts, multiple droids, and a hundred reasons never to go into space again. Liam and Madison are on a mission to find their friend Ant, last seen crumbling to dust and thought to be in a place known as the Ghost Realm. But their wormhole wand has been tampered with, and they end up in the throne room of an alien king in deep stasis. Their intrusion wakes up dusty droids and starts a manhunt in the corridors of a palace. Not by chance, this leads to the mysterious Ghost Realm, a confrontation with the dreaded Ark Lord, and on to a huge spaceship under threat from a legion of droids. It may be possible to save Ant from the afterlife thanks to a pact with the evil supervillain... as long as he doesn't betray them along the way. This is the sixth and final book of the Sleep Writer series.

"...one of the best novels I've read regardless of genre; it haunted me for several days after I read it. Read this novel regardless of your age; I doubt you'll be disappointed, and your mind may be stretched a bit. The final ten percent blew me away." -Piers Anthony, New York Times bestselling author of the Magic of Xanth (full review at HiPiers.com, July 2015 newsletter)Everything changes for twelve-year-old Liam when a girl moves in next door. Madison is fifteen, pretty, and much weirder than she seems.Sometimes when she's sound asleep, she scrawls a message on a notepad by her pillow. She finds these cryptic words when she wakes the next morning - a time and a place. But for what? Liam and best friend Ant join her when she goes hunting around a cemetery late one night, and life is never the same again...So begins one freaky adventure after another involving all manner of aliens, monsters, and ghouls. SLEEP WRITER is the first in a wild sci-fi series by the author of ISLAND OF FOG.

A mysterious storm cloud is sweeping across the landscape like a wall of dust. With villages being engulfed, Miss Simone orders the evacuation of Carter and gathers an army of shapeshifters to investigate the crisis. But nobody returns from the Death Storm to file a report. It seems New Earth's fate is to be smothered by an unstoppable force of nature.But the real nightmare begins after the storm has passed by. Everything is different. People are changed. And only a very small handful of residents can see it...DEATH STORM is the fifth installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series. Good, clean, sometimes scary fun for young readers that adults can enjoy as well.

Alien abduction. An out-of-body experience. And sky-whales! "...Robinson's teenage characters talk like real kids and his dialogue is crisp. He handles all the science fiction concepts with knowledgeable confidence..." Liam, Ant, and Madison have a busy weekend when the sleep writer predicts three separate events-a flying saucer landing in the woods, a frightening mind-swapping experience, and a trip to a distant planet to save the last of a mysterious species known as the warp giants... The fourth book in the sci-fi adventure series contains three interconnected novellas full of excitement, terror, and downright weirdness.

Shapeshifter Travis Franklin has a new mission: to deliver a mysterious package to the Grim Reaper. Traveling with his best friend Rez, the boys set off on an overnight journey to a blank spot on the map where Death is thought to reside. This time Travis is going as a three-headed fireball-shooting chimera, and he's fairly sure nothing will stand in his way. Not even the annoying trolls who demand payment at every turn. Yet something else lurks in the woods. Something far more sinister even than the Grim Reaper... This the second installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series. It can be read as a standalone book but is best enjoyed in sequence.

Young shapeshifters Travis and Melinda are tasked with visiting the infamous Haunted Fortress to uncover its dark secrets. The residents of Hemlock, a small seaside village, have been seeing a phantom figure on and off for the past two hundred years. The phantom has many names - Screeching Witch, Fiery Goddess, Ghoulish Ghost, and Mechanical Lady for starters - but she's mostly known as the Snake Lady, a naga who appears out of thin air and then vanishes again. The fortress is something to behold, floating above the sea just off the coast. And what's with the block of ice in the main chamber? Not only does it refuse to melt despite repeated attempts at thawing, the naga folk in the nearby woods suggest it contains a perfectly preserved corpse and should be left well alone. Miss Simone disagrees. With Travis as a super-heated cherufe and Melinda as a naga girl, their two-pronged mission is to melt the ice and debunk the phantom... HAUNTED FORTRESS is the fourth installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor, and analyze data so that they have a better understanding of our problems. The USGS is dedicated to provide reliable, investigated information to enhance and protect our quality of life. This is one of their reports.

The history of early 20th Century Dance Bands has generally focused on the personalities of the Band Leaders, famous soloists, or the recordings they made, but the arrangers have been neglected. This book will attempt to show what made popular dance music in the 20th Century so different from dance music in the 19th Century and also show how these pioneer arrangers melded the many disparate elements together into a coherent art form.Dance styles come and go but their significance I think doesn't lie in the dances themselves but with what composers achieved through working with those styles. Few want to actually dance the Courante or Minuet today but who would want to lose these works by Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven? Similarly, the achievements of arrangers such as Arthur Lange, George Evans, and Lew Stone need to be evaluated and studied, to better understand how we have arrived at the situation we are in today, especially because modern score writing programmes and digital audio have completely changed how we can approach composition and arranging.Critics have often disparaged dance band arrangements as commercial and lacking in artistic merit, but in fact, these early arrangers were innovative and creative.

A mysterious ailment rips through young Keith's guts, while his relations with family and the world are fraying. His only hope for healing lies in the least expected, most vulnerable place. Yoshiko grows up determined to work for peace beyond her remote mountainside village and move past her family trauma of Stalin's forced labour camps and post-war starvation.A third character enters these tales, paralleling and reflecting Keith and Yoshiko's stories. Twenty-five centuries ago, Siddhartha wandered the highways and forests of north-east India. He became the Buddha and his experience reverberates today. The Buddha in Our Bellies speculates on his childhood, his suffering, departure from home, fall, salvation, and awakening. His relationship with three remarkable women is told - his wife whom he abandoned, the milk-maid who saved him, and a grief torn widow who became his friend.The Buddha in Our Bellies spans continents and centuries in stories of identity and belonging - where do we fit? Yoshiko's memoirs of struggle, hope, and self-reliance intertwine with Keith's journeys from pain to purpose, Buddhist tales, and poetry."To read Keith Robinson is to go on a journey. He sets you down on a river of in-between spaces, of knowing and not knowing, belonging and not belonging, of illness and health, and keeps you flowing along a current of evocative prose. Sometimes contemplative, sometimes turbulent and harrowing, this memoir is rich and full, and will carry you all the way to a great wide sea." - Traci Skuce, writing coach, The Writer's Journey; author of Hunger Moon"The Buddha in Our Bellies is a candid observation of what it means to be human. With endearing sensitivity and wit it describes falling prey to a destructive ailment and honing the spiritual resilience to tame the beast." - Garry Hoffart, educator"I feel this story. The Buddha in Our Bellies touches places in me that I recognize but haven't explored. This is the story I want to walk with for mys

If you could transform into a creature of myth and legend . . . what would you choose?This is the dilemma facing 12-year-old Travis on his first day as a shapeshifter. He's ready to use his new ability to go on missions like his famous parents, to save people from menace and danger, to be a hero just like them. And since it's against the rules to be a dragon, his next best option is a wyvern.When hunters cross into his world and snatch a harmless unicorn, Travis is quick to transform and fly into action. Perhaps too quick. Who could have known he'd stumble across an illegal private zoo filled with exotic creatures, run by a man with a witch at his side?So begins the first in a series set in the ISLAND OF FOG universe but with a new generation of characters. Each book is a self-contained story following the adventures of Travis and his friends--a magical fantasy with shapeshifters and creatures from myth and legend. Good, clean, sometimes scary fun for young readers and suitable for adults too.

In 1872 George Carter Stent published five Chinese folk tunes with the melody and lyrics in an article called " Chinese Lyrics" . I think they are quite significant examples of a genre of Chinese folk song that is now less popular. With the help of Wang lingli ¿¿¿ we have translated the traditional Chinese into Simplified Chinese and provided fresh English translations. I have created new original piano accompaniments for each song. My aim is to try and make the melodies more accessible to western audiences and singers. The songs are published in Chinese with the pinyin above. In addition there is a complete version of the Chinese lyrics with tones and pinyin and an English translation to explain what each song is about.My dream is that one day I will go to a song recital and hear Chinese songs sung in Chinese, just as we listen to Schubert's lieder sung in German, or Faure songs sung in French, and it will seem completely normal.

Willard Straight was famous as a reporter and diplomat, but he was also a good artist and musician. His musical achievements are less well known, but he often performed these "Four Kipling Songs" at parties and gatherings with his friends. They are sensitive and musical settings of great poetry. He was a graduate of Cornell University and also one of its benefactors.

The usual approach to expanding vocabulary is to use a topic /situation based technique. This works well if the topics/situations are ones that the student may use, or is interested in them. However it is by its nature random in the choice of words it introduces and furthermore the problem of how the student can quickly learn how to write all these different characters is never seriously addressed. There are however, other approaches that could be used, that could offer the student a better investment on the time they spend, but up to now they have not been explored by Teachers, This book introduces one such approach, by looking at and understanding repetition in Mandarin Chinese. This book will not be looking at repetition as in ¿¿ ¿¿ or in phrases such as ¿¿¿¿ etc What we will be focusing on is repetition of meaning in a word that uses two different characters in Chinese. We think this could open up new ways of thinking about the language for students studying Chinese.

2016 is the 150th Anniversary of the first Chinese Government approved visit to England, by the learned Manchu BinChun. The book draws on the diaries of those involved, the Government papers and also newspaper reports from the time to follow his route and bring into sharper focus some of the famous people that he met. The British Government's aims were broadly to try and support the Qing Government as it tried to modernise and thus help it preserve its independence and also to create a future market for British trade. Politically it was a failure, but perhaps BinChun's importance is that he was a pioneer of public diplomacy, and it is these lessons that are most relevant to us today as we once again seek to engage with China.

This book offers a completely new sequence for learning Chinese writing. If foreign students start learning to write Chinese by first inputting Radicals on the computer, they will make faster progress in being able to remember the vocabulary, and their transition to writing Chinese by hand will be more successful. At every stage in this carefully thought out sequence, the student should be encouraged to also practice what they have learnt on computer by writing the characters out by hand. The biggest problem that students have with learning Mandarin Chinese is being able to write Chinese. It is a daunting task because of the sheer number of different characters involved and also because until now each character has been treated as a unique and separate entity. The time needed to commit all this vocabulary to memory and gain fluency and facility in writing Chinese is immense, but using this method it will make learning faster.

In English it is possible to suggest subtle changes in meaning by altering the tone of your voice. However in Chinese this is not an option, because altering the tone of your voice could completely change the meaning of the word. To achieve the same affect, the Chinese use Modal Particles. Modal Particles frequently appear in written Chinese and especially in "on line" Blogs or e mails and can be confusing to the foreign students, because they are rarely mentioned in text books. This study will fully explain their use, and including judicially chosen Modal Particles will enable the students' work to sound more idiomatic.

It seems like common sense that children do better when parents are actively involved in their schooling. But how well does the evidence stack up? The Broken Compass puts this question to the test in the most thorough scientific investigation to date of how parents across socioeconomic and ethnic groups contribute to the academic performance of K-12 children. The surprising discovery is that no clear connection exists between parental involvement and student performance. Keith Robinson and Angel Harris assessed over sixty measures of parental participation, at home and in school. While some of the associations they found were consistent with past studies, others ran contrary to previous research and popular perceptions. It is not the case that Hispanic and African American parents are less concerned about education--or that "e;Tiger parenting"e; among Asian Americans gets the desired results. Many low-income parents want to be involved in their children's school lives but often receive little support from school systems. For immigrant families, language barriers only worsen the problem. In this provocative work, Robinson and Harris believe that the time has come to reconsider whether parental involvement can make much of a dent in the basic problems facing American schools today.

The laws of physics themselves enable us to journey to the very center of a star and to understand its inner structure and source of energy!Starlight provides an in-depth study of stellar astrophysics that requires only basic high school mathematics and physics, making it accessible to all amateur astronomers.

This is the first non-technical book on spectroscopy written specifically for practical amateur astronomers.