As team captain, Kai is always in control on the field. He's like the glue that keeps the team together, and the team relies on him to be a solid, talented player. But at home, as hard as he tries, Kai can't keep his parents together. Their fighting intensifies so much that Kai's frustrations spill over into school and soccer. Will he be able to provide what the team needs without the home support that he used to take for granted? Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Claw is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.
Seth Morgan’s frenzied, addictive walk on the wild side of 1980s San Francisco When strip-joint barker Joe Speaker unwittingly steals a sixty-nine-carat blue diamond, he becomes enmeshed in a blackmail-and-murder conspiracy that begins with the savage slaying of high-priced call girl Gloria Monday. Suddenly Joe’s a wanted man. Hunted by a murderous pimp known as Baby Jewels Moses and a relentless homicide cop named Tarzon, Joe ends up taking the rap and getting sentenced to three years. But it’s in prison that the real trouble begins. An adrenaline-pumped, hallucinogenic descent into the lower depths, Homeboy is a tough, eye-opening look at San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. Part memoir and part richly conceived work of imagination, this gritty, rambunctious novel reads like pure poetry and celebrates an uncommon talent at the height of his storytelling powers.
When strip-joint barker Joe Speaker unwittingly steals a sixty-nine-carat blue diamond, he becomes enmeshed in a blackmail-and-murder conspiracy that begins with the savage slaying of high-priced call girl Gloria Monday. Suddenly Joe's a wanted man. Hunted by a murderous pimp known as Baby Jewels Moses and a relentless homicide cop named Tarzon, Joe ends up taking the rap and getting sentenced to three years. But it's in prison that the real trouble begins.
Marcus walked into Langston High School that morning determined to turn his life around. He'd stay in school all day, go to his classes and he had no pot to sell. Finally, he understood the warnings from his grandmother, his mother and his girlfriend. He'd learned his lesson, but was it too late? Ever since Marcus had moved to the Bronx from his home on the beautiful island of St. Cruz, and entered high school, he faced challenges. His biggest challenge that fateful morning was Eddie, his enemy, who nearly caused Marcus to destroy his plans to start anew. www.joycehansen.com
“Naqvi’s fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) They are renaissance men. They are bons vivants. They are three young Pakistani men in New York City at the turn of the millennium: AC, a gangsta-rap-spouting academic; Jimbo, a hulking Pushtun DJ from the streets of Jersey City; and Chuck, a wideeyed kid, fresh off the boat from the homeland, just trying to get by. Things start coming together for Chuck when he unexpectedly secures a Wall Street gig and begins rolling with socialites and scenesters flanked by his pals, who routinely bring down the house at hush-hush downtown haunts. In a city where origins matter less than the talent for self-invention, the three Metrostanis have the guts to claim the place as their own. But when they embark on a road trip to the hinterland weeks after 9/11 in search of the Shaman, a Gatsbyesque compatriot who seemingly disappears into thin air, things go horribly wrong. Suddenly, they find themselves in a changed, charged America. Rollicking, bittersweet, and sharply observed, Home Boy is at once an immigrant’s tale, a mystery, and a story of love and loss, as well as a unique meditation on Americana and notions of collective identity. It announces the debut of an original, electrifying voice in contemporary fiction.
Beloved Jesuit priest and author of the inspirational bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir returns with a call to witness the transformative power of tenderness, rooted in his lifetime of experience counseling gang members in Los Angeles. Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest and most successful gang-intervention program in the world. Now, following his acclaimed bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart, “destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality” (Los Angeles Times), and Barking to the Choir, deemed “a beautiful and important and soul-transporting book” by Elizabeth Gilbert comes The Whole Language, a book that “filled my cup with hope” (The Jesuit Review). In a community struggling to overcome systemic poverty and violence, The Whole Language shows how those at Homeboy Industries fight despair and remain generous, hopeful, and tender. When Saul was thirteen years old, he killed his abusive stepfather in self-defense; after spending twenty-three years in juvenile and adult jail, he enters the Homeboy Industries training and healing programs and embraces their mission. Declaring, “I’ve decided to grow up to be somebody I always needed as a child,” Saul shows tenderness toward the young men in his former shoes, treating them all like his sons and helping them to find their way. Before coming to Homeboy Industries, a young man named Abel was shot thirty-three times, landing him in a coma for six months followed by a year and a half recuperating in the hospital. He now travels on speaking tours with Boyle and gives guided tours around the Homeboy offices. One day a new trainee joins Abel as a shadow, and Abel recognizes him as the young man who had put him in a coma. “You give good tours,” the trainee tells Abel. They both have embarked on a path to wholeness. Boyle’s moving stories challenge our ideas about God and about people, providing a window into a world filled with fellowship, compassion, and fewer barriers. Bursting with encouragement, humor, and hope, The Whole Language invites us to treat others—and ourselves—with acceptance and tenderness.
2023 Illumination Book Awards Gold Medalist, Inspirational 2023 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite, Business - Motivational 2023 Catholic Media Association Book Awards, Honorable Mention, Catholc Social Teaching Leading with heart, authenticity and purpose, Thomas Vozzo provides a clear path to a new bottom line—including 55 rules to break—bringing the Homeboy Way to life as the perfect anecdote to the massive tidal currents of social injustice and inequities. By every traditional measurement of success, Vozzo was a clear winner. In his world of billion-dollar revenues and million-dollar profits, he knew exactly what shareholders wanted and how to get it for them. Then, through a series of fateful events, Vozzo landed as CEO of Homeboy Industries, the most successful gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the country, founded by Jesuit priest Greg Boyle. “I arrived at Homeboy at a time when I needed to learn more about myself and my life’s journey,” Vozzo writes. “And after 8 years of working with the poor, forgotten, and demonized people of our society, I’ve come to learn that I didn’t really know as much about life as I thought.” Vozzo’s enlightening journey leads to his recognition that a radical approach is needed in business and in life: “What Homeboy has taught me is that we need to do business differently . . . . We need to bust up the system, swim upstream, avoid herd mentality.” Blending personal stories of his day-to-day with Fr. Greg and the Homies along with counterintuitive business ideas that are changing lives for the better, Vozzo shows you how you can live, lead, and shake things up with toughness, determination, compassion, and grit. That’s the Homeboy Way. 100% of author royalties go to support the mission of Homeboy Industries.
