Ruthie loves tiny things and when she finds a tiny camera on the playground she is very happy, but after she lies and says the camera belongs to her, nothing seems to go right. 25,000 first printing.
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting. As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."
Brain on Fire meets Carry On, Warrior in this inspirational memoir and “testament to the things that break us, heal us, and make us who we are” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author) that explores one woman’s journey from chronic pain and hopelessness to finding joy, redemption, and healing. At seventeen years old, Ruthie Lindsey is hit by an ambulance near her home in rural Louisiana. She’s given a five percent chance of survival and one percent chance of walking again. One month later after a spinal fusion surgery, Ruthie defies the odds, leaving the hospital on her own two feet. Just a few years later, newly married and living in Nashville, Ruthie begins to experience debilitating pain. Her case confounds doctors and after numerous rounds of testing, imaging, and treatment, they prescribe narcotic painkillers—lots of them. Ruthie has become bedridden, dependent on painkillers, and hopeless, when an X-ray reveals that the wire used to fuse her spine is piercing her brain stem. Without another staggeringly expensive experimental surgery, she could well become paralyzed, but in many ways, she already is. Ruthie goes into the hospital in chronic pain, dependent on prescription painkillers, and leaves the same way. She can still walk but has no idea where she’s going. As her life unravels, Ruthie returns home to Louisiana and sets out on a journey to learn joy again. She trades fentanyl for sunsets and morphine for wildflowers, weaning herself off of the drugs and beginning the process of healing—of coming home to her body. Raw and redemptive, There I Am is not just about the magic of optimism, but the work of it. Ruthie’s extraordinary memoir “like going on a walk with a best friend and listening to a life-changing speech at the same time: it’s equal parts familiar and profound, warm and insightful, comforting and challenging, relatable and unlike anything you’ve read before” (Mari Andrew, New York Times bestselling author).
My Little Heart, Ruthie is the story of a wounded heart living alone in a cold, icy cell with only her harp for company. One day a warm breeze blows into her cell and so startles Ruthie that she gathers her courage and goes to see what this beautiful feeling is all about, nearly breaking free of her confinement. The breeze turns out to be a fellow heart warming up on his trumpet. This jazz guy named Clyde turns out to be a friend with whom Ruthie can share her darkest secrets. Their conversation told both musically and in rhyme leads Ruthie to discover that her suffering is self imposed and that she has the right to be free. Told as a children's rhyme, this story speaks to the child inside of every person who believes that past abuses happened because they did something wrong, and it tries to convince them that it was never their fault.
Late-night texts. Mixed signals. Dead-end relationships. This doesn’t have to be your love life. Welcome to dating in the digital world—where phone conversations followed by dinner and a movie have been replaced by last-minute texts, ambiguous relationships, and vague group hangouts. While technology makes it faster and easier to connect than ever before, it has also created confusion . . . And heartbreak. Ruthie and Michael Dean have heard the same story from thousands of women: the disappearing men, the cryptic messages, the disappointing relationships, and the false intimacy of on-screen connection. In a no-holds-barred narrative style, the husband-and-wife team chronicles their dating mishaps, hilarious attempts to find love, and many mistakes—helping women understand just what men are thinking and how to attract Mr. Right. Real Men Don’t Text offers game-changing perspectives, bringing a fresh approach to love, sex, and dating. You don’t need to spend one more night staring at a phone screen. It’s time to take back your love life!
Set in a small Indiana farming community at the start of World War I, this is the heartwarming and gently humorous story of Ruthie, an 8-year-old tomboy who develops a stronger sense of self and selflessness during a particularly dramatic year in her life: the year her sixth brother is born, the year she makes her first friends (twin girls), the year she almost dies of pneumonia, the year the war takes one of her brothers from her. Rich in setting and brimming with lovable characters, Ruthie's Gift is a thoroughly satisfying story of family and identity.
Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award! “A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative—based on the author’s childhood in the 1960s—a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie’s plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro’s Cuba to New York City. Just when she’s finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English—and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood’s hopscotch queen—a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie’s world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.
Piper Renee Knight was sole proprietor of two coffee shops located in Austin, Texas. Lights Out Coffee began two and a half years ago as a joint venture with her father, Macarthur "Lights Out" Knight, former boxing great turned business- man. Joe and Piper meet during Joe's second visit to her shop and exchange coffee and banter. They both agree to take their attraction further. But before they can start, Piper's father asks her to look after his two younger daughters, her half-sisters. His third wife has left him. Piper settles her sisters into her life, locating a school for them. She decided that Joe is not an option for her now that she has the girls, and he gets her message and stops com- ing by the shop. They meet again at the kids' school. Joe has been raising his nephew for the last two years, after his sis- ter's departure. During the school year they join forces and work together. Piper falls in love, and, while Joe likes her, he's not sure with his nephew and his prior life experiences that he's in for the long haul.
The famous painting, Mona Lisa, describes how she was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, taken to France, hung in the Louvre Museum, was stolen and then recovered. Suggested level: junior, primary.