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Down River
by John HartLies, greed, revenge ... The river holds its secrets close. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder, Adam Chase disappears for 5 years: not a clue, not a trace. Now he's back and more bodies surface...
A Pet for the Orphelines (Orphelines, Book #3)
by Natalie Savage CarlsonWhen the swan that was missing from the park is found in the orphelines' garden, the little girls realize that they desperately need a pet. Madame Flattot obtains official permission, and trouble begins. For how can twenty girls decide on one animal? They can't, of course. Josine stubbornly holds out for a swan. Brigitte insists that they have a kitten. Even Madame Flattot secretly desires a goldfish. How the orphelines settle their problem makes a charming, high-spirited story. Young readers will find the rich details of French life fascinating, but they will wish that the orphelines lived around the corner.
Reader's Digest Select Editions, Volume 126 (Reader's Digest #126)
by Reader's Digest Association Inc.This Reader's Digest volume consists of two condensed selections: Chesapeake Blue by Nora Roberts, and, Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray. The first selection, Chesapeake Blue is about "Seth Quinn, a gifted international artist, returns home to Maryland ready to settle down. But a daring new passion collides with a dark secret from his past, and his life becomes anything but settled." The second condensed book, Eat Cake is about how cake brings a family through crises: "Nothing brings a family together like a warm, delicious slice of cake! Or so believes Ruth Hopson, who bakes so much that her husband, mother, and teenage daughter beg her to stop. But little does Ruth know how important her baking will become to her family when life takes a turn for the worse--and Ruth discovers a strength she didn't even know she had."
Dog
by Prudence Andrew"Why can't I have a dog?" Andrew pleads. For the twentieth time his father explains that dogs aren't allowed in the project where they live. Then, one wonderful day, Andrew finds Scruffy--a hungry, shaggy, little dog that belongs to nobody. Andrew is determined to keep Scruffy--and, somehow, he's going to do it!
The Other Mother: A Lesbian's Fight for Her Daughter
by Nancy AbramsOn a spring day in 1993, Nancy Abrams helped her daughter dress for day care, packed her lunch, and said good-bye. Next she drove to court, where she learned that in the eyes of the law she was nothing more than "a biological stranger'" to the child she helped bring into the world and raise. That was the last time she would see her daughter or hear her voice for five years. The Other Mother begins as Abrams and her female lover decide to begin a family together. With giddy anticipation, they search for a sperm donor, shop for baby clothes and crib, and attend childbirth classes. But despite their high hopes, the relationship begins to fall apart, and they separate when their daughter is a toddler. Problems between the two intensify until, shortly before her daughter's fifth birthday, Abrams loses custody. In unprecedented depth, Abrams's compelling narrative examines the social, legal, and political implications of gay and lesbian parenting. Her haunting memoir asks the question, "What makes a mother?" It is a question that biological parents, co-parents, adoptive parents, step-parents, and divorced parents must each answer in their own way. In telling one woman's story, The Other Mother makes a solid case for legal protections, including marriage, for lesbian and gay families.
The Green Glass Sea
by Ellen Klages(back of book) It is 1943, and almost eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is on a train to New Mexico, where she will live with her father. She doesn't know where in New Mexico, exactly; the corporal who took her to the station can't tell her. It's wartime, and so many things are secret. Soon she arrives at a town that- officially- doesn't exist. It is called Los Alamos, and it is abuzz with activity, as famous scientists and mathematicians from all over America and Europe- Dewey's father among them- work on the biggest secret of all, something everyone calls only "the gadget." Over the next few years, Dewey gets to know those scientists, starts working on her own mechanical projects, and locks horns with Suze Gordon, a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is. None of them- not J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project; not the mathematicians and scientists; and least of all, Dewey and Suze- know how much "the gadget" is about to change their lives, and the world. Ellen Klages's voice is remarkable, fresh, and without pretense. You will be swept away by The Green Glass Sea.
Gentle Birth Choices: A Guide to Making Informed Decisions
by Barbara HarperBelieve it or not, birth resulting from a normal pregnancy needn't take place in a hospital. Harper explains why birthing centers and home births, along with other "gentle birth choices," are beneficial to both mother and baby. With a foreword by Robbie Davis Floyd, who wrote Birth as an American Rite of Passage (1992), Gentle Birth Choices also features a history of how childbirth came to be so technological and blasts myths such as why fetal monitors save babies (they don't, very often). Harper also discusses giving birth in water and explores the connection of mind and body during labor and birth. It also contains resources for finding midwives, questions to ask midwives or doctors and other resources in the appendices.
The Mulberry Bush
by Rand McnallyAs this book is read or sung to its traditional melody and with appropriate actions, parents, teachers or children--especially children--may easily extend the ideas suggested within the text.
Come Aboard and Bring Your Dory!
by Elisabeth OgilvieGeordie and Lucy Cameron were the new heads of the family--now that their mother and father were dead. It would be a big responsibility, for there were the ten-year-old twins Peter and Philip, fourteen-year-old Genie, and seventeen-year-old Penn to look after. But both Geordie and Lucy had agreed, no matter what, the family must stay together. From the very beginning, though, their carefully thought out plans for the family and their own personal ambitions began to fall apart. First Donna, Geordie's girl, found someone else. Then Penn, the brains of the family and a senior in high school, announced that he wanted to get married. But when the twins began to act strangely, becoming impossible for Lucy to control, the older brother and sister began to question how capable they were and if they had made the right decision.
The Memory of Water
by Karen WhiteOn the night their mother drowns trying to ride out a storm in a sailboat, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There are also the deaths of innocence, of love, and of hope. Both harbor secrets about what really happened that night-secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood. After ten years of silence between the sisters, Marnie is called back to the South Carolina Lowcountry by Diana's ex-husband, Quinn. His young son has returned from a sailing trip with his emotionally unstable mother, and he is deeply disturbed and refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of her past to the surface. And she must confront Diana...before they all go under.
The Founding (Morland Dynasty #1)
by Cynthia Harrod-EaglesIn the Morland Dynasty series, the majestic sweep of English history is richly and movingly portrayed through the fictional lives of the Morland family. It is 1434, and seeking power and prestige, ambitious Yorkshireman Edward Morland arranges a marriage between his meek son Robert and spirited Eleanor, young ward of the influential Beaufort family. Eleanor is appalled at being forced to marry a mere "sheep farmer;" she is, besides, secretly in love with Richard, Duke of York. Yet in time this apparently ill-matched union becomes both passionate and tender, the foundation of the Morland dynasty, and sustains them through bloody civil war which so often divides families, sets neighbor against neighbor, and brings tragedy close to home.
Good Luck, Ivy (American Girls Collection)
by Lisa YeeIvy Ling feels unlucky. Her best friend has moved away, and she's got a big report due in Chinese school. Worst of all, she learns that the Ling family reunion is happening on the same day as the all-city gymnastics tournament. Ivy's been practicing for months, and her gymnastics team is counting on her. When her parents tell her she has to choose which event to attend, Ivy despairs. How can she please both her gymnastics coach and her family? Gradually Ivy comes to see that she can make her own luck-and make a decision that's right for her.
Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters
by Wally LambAny book that can give voice to the voiceless should be celebrated. No one feels this more strongly than Wally Lamb, editor of Couldn't Keep It to Myself, a collection of stories by 11 women imprisoned in the York Correctional Institution in Connecticut. Teacher and novelist Lamb was invited to head a writing workshop at York Correctional Institution in 1999. His somewhat reluctant acceptance soon turned into steadfast advocacy once the women in his charge began to tell their stories. Lamb maintains that there are things we need to know about prison and prisoners: "There are misconceptions to be abandoned, biases to be dropped." However, as heartfelt as his appeal is, nothing speaks more convincingly in this book than the stories themselves. Those collected here are disturbing and horrific. They reveal, often in graphic detail, the worst kind of abuse: incest, drug addiction, spousal violence, parental neglect, or incompetence. They're also testimony to what social workers and health care professionals have confirmed for years--that those who populate our prisons are often victims first themselves. Thus, the telling of these stories serves as a form of therapy. They are also sad accounts of the brutalities many suffer, yet few discuss...
The Luckiest Girl in the World
by Steven LevenkronKatie is a promising figure skater whose divorced mother drives her relentlessly to perfect her skills, at almost any expense. What her mother and coach don't know, but her English teacher begins to figure out, is that when Katie gets to an emotional edge, she hides and cuts herself; the pain and blood help focus her mind. Not until she goes over that edge one day at school and begins slamming her locker door on her hand and then banging her head on the wall does she begin to get the professional help she needs. After a couple of false starts, she finds a psychiatrist experienced in working with teens in trouble who enables her to tell truths she hasn't for years been able to admit to herself or speak of to anyone else. Her mother resists other adults' help and almost succeeds in getting her out of therapy, especially group therapy with girls her mother labels "delinquents." But Katie finally manages to make some choices against her mother's wishes--an immense step out of the depths of years of co-dependence. As the story ends, she has come to realize the girls in the group are capable of being real friends--something she hasn't had for a long while--and she is capable of making choices toward her own healing, the first of which is to seek and accept real help and to distinguish it from pleasing adults who are using her to assuage their own pain.
Family Life: Merit Badge Series
by Boy Scouts of AmericaA guide for completing the family life merit badge for Boy Scouts.
Julie Tells Her Story (American Girls #2)
by Megan McdonaldJulie is enjoying working on her school project, "The Story of My Life," until she comes to the part about "The Worst Thing That Ever Happened." That would be her parents' divorce, and she doesn't want to tell her class about that. Julie tries to find a different "Worst Thing" to tell about-and after her big basketball game, she thinks maybe she's found the solution to her problem. But as her parents and sister rally around her, Julie finds herself thinking about her family in a new, and more hopeful, way.
Meet Julie (American Girls #1)
by Megan McdonaldMoving is no fun, even just a few miles away. Julie Albright, a nine-year-old girl growing up in 1974 learns that life can be unfair when she has to move across town and attend a new school - one different than her best friend Ivy. Julie has other dreams too - like playing basketball. She is excited when she learns that her new school has a real basketball team. But soon, Julie finds herself facing a change she never expected.
My Mother's Keeper: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up in the Shadow of Schizophrenia
by Tara Elgin Holley Joe HolleyDawn Elgin was destined to be a 1940s big-band star. From the time she was fourteen, she took her place at the microphone in Houston's elite Empire Room and sang with the voice of a jazz angel. Vibrant and glamorous, she boldly pursued her love of performing to New Orleans, Hollywood, and New York, where she gave birth to her daughter, Tara, when she was twenty-one. Then Dawn began to suffer persistent visions of a deathly specter at her bedside. She was diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia and began a lifetime spent in and out of institutions. My Mother's Keeper is Tara's deeply moving story of growing up in the shadow of her mother's tragic illness. As Dawn's state worsened, Tara lived in the care of her imperious great-great-aunt Elsa - the family's elderly matriarch, who drew her into a rich world of old-fashioned treasures and Houston history - while her mother drifted in and out of Tara's life like a fading fairy princess. Though Tara yearned for her mother during her childhood, Dawn's condition was usually kept from her, the subject of secretive family discussion and neighborhood gossip. By the time Tara was seventeen she had become Dawn's guardian, bent on rescuing the shambling street person her mother had become and transforming her back into the beautiful, lively woman she remembered. Above all, it is a deeply moving exploration of the mother-daughter bond - of how Tara learned to balance her mother's needs with her own, and how she finally came to terms with Dawn's legacy when she became a mother herself. Emotionally compelling and powerfully rendered, My Mother's Keeper offers indelible proof of love's power to transcend a devastating illness.
Kaya Shows the Way: A Sister Story (American Girls #5)
by Janet ShawSUMMERTIME MEANS salmon fishing at thundering Celilo Falls-and horse racing, games, parades, feasting, and dancing, too! Kaya loves to join in the fun, but she's also got something serious on her mind: searching for her lost sister, Speaking Rain. <P><P>Thousands of Indian families and friends gather at Celilo Falls each summer, and Kaya hopes that someone may have word of her sister. Kaya's older sister, Brown Deer, is on her mind, too. Brown Deer will soon marry Cut Cheek, a thought that makes Kaya both glad and sad. She lost one sister when she had to leave Speaking Rain with the enemies. Now will she lose Brown Deer?
Reader's Digest Condensed Books: Winter 1955 Selections (Reader's Digest Condenced Book #20)
by Cecil Woodham-Smith Pearl S. Buck Marcia Davenport Frances Gray Patton Dick PearceThis Reader's Digest volume consists of five condensed selections: The Reason Why, the China I Knew, My Brother's Keeper, Good Morning, Miss Dove, and The Darby Trial. The first selection, "The Reason Why is the extraordinary story of the events and personalities behind the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. It is a story reaching back into the private lives and vanities of two handsome and renowned British generals, and reflecting the social and military system that made possible their positions of command in the Crimean campaign. Their bitter rivalry was to lead finally to that gallant and futile charge 'into the valley of Death.'" The second selection, The China I Knew, chronicles Perl Bucks experiences living in China: "A DEVOTED missionary family, Pearl Buck's parents refused to bring her up in the protected compounds of the white people in China. Instead, she grew up in a purely Chinese world, speaking the language as her own, studying with a Confucian tutor, making intimate friends among every sort of Chinese, from the poorest peasant to the proudest aristocrat. It was, she writes, ‘a freedom which perhaps no white child had ever known in China,’ and which none were to know again. Out of this unique experience, Mrs. Buck has written a memorable autobiography, already hailed as her best book since her fabulous novel The Good Earth. My Several Worlds (here condensed as The China I Knew) is a remarkably candid personal story, full of delightful characters and anecdotes. Even more, it is the tumultuous story of the making of modern China, as Mrs. Buck saw it through her own and through Chinese eyes. The third selection, My Brother’s Keeper, tells the story of the Holt brothers: "The Holt brothers were handsome, wealthy, talented--and yet they ended their lives as recluses in a run-down mansion stacked to the eaves with old newspapers and mountains of trash, protected from imagined intruders by death-dealing booby traps. A decade ago, when a similar case was headlined in New York, newspaper readers could only guess at the motives which led the two brothers to construct their own tomb about them. In this fictional re-creation, however, the author pieces together every detail of a fascinating riddle: How could such a situation come about? Who was to blame for this retreat from the world? The beautiful opera singer loved by both brothers? Their domineering grandmother? Their terrified mother?" The Fourth Selection, Good Morning, Miss Dove, is about the life of a school teacher: "IT is safe to say that practically every American who ever went to school will recognize Miss Dove. The terrible Miss Dove, she was called by generations of the children of the small town of Liberty Hill. She was the teacher who was held in awe and dread for her rigid discipline and her standards of perfection. It was not until disaster threatened Miss Dove that the whole town realized how deeply she had affected everyone in it. The town's reaction and Miss Dove's own behavior in her personal crisis are here made into a little classic that will evoke recognition, laughter and, quite possibly, a lump in the throat." The final selection, The Darby Trial, is about out whether Mr. Darby was a communist, during the Cold War period in the USA: "WHO was Claude T. T. Darby? "To his thousands of followers he was a spellbinder with a voice "as thrilling as a battle hymn." But Tom Rogers, Assistant Attorney General, had an unshakable hunch that the real Darby was America's Number One Communist--and it was up to him to prove it. Evidence was elusive. Key witnesses disappeared or met with violence. And deep in the heart of Tom's young wife was locked a secret vitally bearing on the case. "As the trial moves from climax to climax, the reader is caught up in an atmosphere of mounting tension. Here are the ruthless and devious ways of Communist conspiracy, exposed to the light of democratic justice. A novel that has all the impact of front-page news, The Darby Trial combines the fascination of mystery with a message of warning and hope."
A Time for Watching
by Gunilla NorrisJoachim is a ten-year-old boy whose best friend is away for the summer leaving him with only girls in his neighborhood to play with. He likes figuring out how things work but though he takes them apart carefully, without the owner's permission, he is stumped on how to put them back together. The next thing he knows he's in big trouble again! What he'd like to do is go inside Mr. Hanson, the clockmaker's house where there are all kinds of interesting clocks and machines, but old Mr. Hanson doesn't like kids and goes after them with his cane if they dare to go any where near his home. It looks as if Joachim's going to spend his too long summer feeling misunderstood and becoming known as a troublemaker. Pictures are described. For intermediate readers.
Caterpillar Kisses: Lessons My Kindergarten Class Taught Me About Life
by Christine Pisera NamanA light, heart-warming and funny read