Rocky meets I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in this YA novel about a young female boxer who learns to fight for what she wants. *"A riveting pugilistic must-read." --Kirkus Reviews, starred Gravity "Doomsday" Delgado is good at breaking things. Maybe she learned it from her broken home. But since she started boxing with a legendary coach at a gym in Brooklyn, Gravity is finding her talent for breaking things has an upside. Lately, she's been breaking records, breaking her competitors, and breaking down the walls inside her. Boxing is taking her places, and if she just stays focused, she knows she'll have a shot at the Olympics. Life outside the ring is heating up, too. Suddenly she's flirting (and more) with a cute boxer at her gym--much to her coach's disapproval. Meanwhile, things at home with Gravity's mom are reaching a tipping point, and Gravity has to look out for her little brother, Ty. With Olympic dreams, Gravity will have to decide what is worth fighting for.
Levi just wants to be treated like a typical kid. As a baby, he had a serious disease that caused him respiratory issues. He's fine now, but his mom and overprotective brother still think of him as damaged, and his schoolmates see him as the same class clown he's always been. He feels stuck. So when his dad—divorced from his mom—suggests he take up boxing, he falls in love with the sport. And when he finds out about a school with a killer boxing team and a free-study curriculum, it feels like he's found a ticket to a new Levi. But how can he tell his mom about boxing? And how can he convince his family to set him free?
From the opening essay, "The Bloomsbury Group Live at the Apollo (Liner Notes from the New Best-Selling Album)" to the title piece that discusses ways in which you might begin a romance with your mother ("In today's fast-moving, transient, rootless society, where people meet and make love and part without ever really touching, the relationship every guy already has with his own mother is too valuable to ignore...") to a parody that features Samuel Beckett as a pilot giving an existential in-flight speech to the passengers, the twenty-five comic essays in this delightful collection are nothing short of brilliant. Ian Frazier, long considered one of our most treasured humorists, proves that comedy can be just as smart as it is entertaining.
When you enlist in the United States military, you don't just sign up for duty; you also commit your loved ones to lives of service all their own. No one knows this better than Elaine Brye, an "Army brat" turned military wife and the mother of four officers—one each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. For more than a decade she's endured countless teary goodbyes, empty chairs at Thanksgiving dinners, and sleepless hours waiting for phone calls in the night. She's navigated the complicated tangle of emotions—pride, worry, fear, hope, and deep, enduring love—that are part and parcel of life as a military mother. In Be Safe, Love Mom Elaine braids together her own personal experiences with those of fellow parents she's met along the way. She offers gentle guidance and hard-earned wisdom on topics ranging from that first anxious goodbye to surrendering all control of your child, from finding comfort in the support of the military community and the healing power of faith to coping with the enormous sacrifices life as a military mother requires. Readers looking for encouragement and hard-to-come-by information as they travel the challenging road of having a child in uniform will find Elaine a wise and trusted friend, and Be Safe, Love Mom an essential handbook to membership in a strong and special sisterhood.
"I enjoyed Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel so much I could hardly put it down. It ought to be widely read as an excellent way of recalling World War II." -Hans L. Trefousse Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York "Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel paints an absorbing picture of the daily life of America's greatest generation. Vets will find themselves reliving their own experiences-the boredom, the loneliness, the fear, and the role of fate in life and death. For the rest of us, Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel is social history at its best." -Dr. Stanley J. Michalak Senior Associate, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia Professor Emeritus of Government, Franklin and Marshall College "A vivid story brought to realistic life." -Midwest Book Review "Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel delicately mixes fiction and history to tell the story of an American air corpsman during World War II. His precious letters enhance a grand book deserving warm appreciation. People from my hometown will be as moved and fascinated as many Americans who will, no doubt, eagerly read it." -Jacques Wynants, Belgian Historian Author of Verviers 1940 and Verviers Libéré PLOT SUMMARY On October 7, l942, Don Quix enlists in the Air Corps. He's slated to be an aerial gunner, but his flying dreams are shattered when he's caught AWOL with buddy Ken Jackson. Don manages to become a radio truck supervisor in a fighter control squadron while Ken goes to a demolition unit. As an army engineer, Ken barely survives D-Day on Normandy's "Bloody Omaha." During a baseball game in a French forest, Don moves his head slightly, saving himself from a sniper's bullet. Arriving in Verviers, Belgium in September 1944, Don and his fellow radio men endure frequent buzz bomb attacks. Due to a miscalculation in army strategy, they find themselves on the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Don's reunion with Ken, now a tech sergeant with a bomb disposal outfit, is marred by tragedy, dampening Don's torrid love affair with beautiful seamstress Denise Vervier. Denise's husband, sent to a forced labor camp in 1940, is presumed dead. When he unexpectedly returns, Don and Denise face a heartbreaking choice.
Given the daily challenges of raising a child with autism, it’s easy for parents to lose themselves and for their overall quality of life to plummet. Susan Senator interweaves the voices of autism parents, researchers, and professionals to offer guidance and encouragement on how to find happiness and fulfillment in the midst of the struggles of raising an autistic child. Topics include: how to handle feelings of despair and hopelessness; finding fun, even during turbulent times; caring for your marriage; and finding a balance between accepting your child as he or she is and seeking new treatments. To learn more about the author, visit her website at susansenator.com.
All of us fight. We fight for the things we believe in. We also fight for those we love, and at times, we need to fight against our toughest opponent—ourselves. In Life According to the Rules of Boxing, author Jolie Glassman offers a curriculum for life, discussing how to live your life like a boxer and be the champion fighter of your own life. You are the hero you have been waiting for; it is your future self. The guide presents 101 rules to live life like a boxer who trains to be a champion and becomes one. It offers tips and advice to help you become stronger, fitter, faster, better, and wiser in mind, body, and spirit. Each rule is paired with a famous boxer’s quote, and Glassman recommends “being with the rule,” reflecting on if you currently possess the skill or trait, and if not, how you will begin to incorporate it in your life and embody it. Life According to the Rules of Boxing is a catalyst to open your eyes to the choices champions make while inspiring you to do the same. This is a curriculum for living a powerful and successful life you love. “Inspired by her passion for boxing and love of service, Jolie Glassman has written a truly inspirational book, a blueprint for anyone that is ready to fight for a better life. She uses the words and disciplines of great fighters like myself, to train and motivate the mind into obtaining characteristics that boxers use for self-mastery, which include belief, discipline, repetition and desire. If you are ready to fight for a better life, than there’s no better coach than Jolie Glassman to have in your corner.” —Mike Tyson
Becoming Tonus 0 is a coming-of-age story of a boy growing up in the Baby Boom era. From a time of seemingly harmless fun to a poolhall life, that was anything but harmless, he navigates his way through the obstacles and challenges of growing up. This is a story of a young boy who as he grows into his teen years comes dangerously close to following the wrong paths. His adventures, although many times funny, are accompanied by some perilous and life-altering moments. How he chooses to deal with these moments will lead to choices that could affect the rest of his life. It is a humorous as well as dangerous tale.
In Lynn Wingert's second novel featuring Claire Maxwell, the writer flies down to Miami Beach to interview a survivor of a vicious shark attack for her next article. And, to be perfectly honest, to get the hell out of Iowa in the middle of March. In her typical, inimitable fashion, no sooner is Claire off the plane than she's caught up in a string of bizarre deaths. So what else is new? The only bright side to the sudden flood of bodies washing up on the white sandy beaches of Florida is Lieutenant Chris Merrett, an old buddy of her brother Jack's from the police academy. As the body count rises, Chris and Claire rush from beautiful beaches to the county morgue to one of the finest houses in the city in an attempt to stop the deaths before Miami Beach is nothing but a ghost town.
