Making a Beeline Home describes a year in the lives of the two main characters, Bobbie and Allie, ten year-olds who live in a rural community in Arkansas in 1941. While this book is fictional, it is based on the lives of many real people, real places, and many actual events. The chapters alternate with one chapter focusing on Bobbie and the next on Allie, but the lives of these two characters intertwine since they both attend the same two-room school together and live in the same small community. Readers of this book will be moved to tears by the sorrows and hard times experienced by the characters and their family members and rejoice at the closeness of family and community. Actual photographs accompany the text creating a closeness of the reader to the characters. The author interviewed actual characters from the book and included some of these primary source quotes at the beginning of each chapter.
Making a Beeline Home describes a year in the lives of the two main characters, Bobbie and Allie, ten year-olds who live in a rural community in Arkansas in 1941. While this book is fictional, it is based on the lives of many real people, real places, and many actual events. The chapters alternate with one chapter focusing on Bobbie and the next on Allie, but the lives of these two characters intertwine since they both attend the same two-room school together and live in the same small community. Readers of this book will be moved to tears by the sorrows and hard times experienced by the characters and their family members and rejoice at the closeness of family and community. Actual photographs accompany the text creating a closeness of the reader to the characters. The author interviewed actual characters from the book and included some of these primary source quotes at the beginning of each chapter.
Folks in Moraine, Wisconsin, are buzzing about the latest swarm of trouble humming around Story Fischer… It’s a real buzz-kill when beekeeper Story Fischer gets a visit from her frantic sister. Now she has to help host a combative trio of professional food flavorists. Good thing the well-stocked shelves of Story’s grocery store, the Wild Clover, can provide the morning meal. During a pre-lunch tour of Story’s hives, however, one of the guests is found dead. Just what Story needs only days after hunky boyfriend, Hunter Wallace, finally decided to move in. As if a dead body isn’t enough to put a damper on romance, Story becomes a prime suspect when the carrot juice she brought with the breakfast fixings is found to contain poison. Now it’s up to Story to comb through the evidence and find the real perpetrator before she ends up getting stung herself...
An anthropologist uses spelling bees as a lens to examine the unique and diverse traits of Generation Z--and why they are destined for success At first glance, Generation Z (youth born after 1997) seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Tiger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. One would think that competitors in the National Spelling Bee -- the most popular brain sport in America -- would be the worst off. Counterintuitively, anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that, far from being simply overstressed and overscheduled, Gen Z spelling bee competitors are learning crucial twenty-first-century skills from their high-powered lives, displaying a sophisticated understanding of self-promotion, self-direction, and social mobility. Drawing on original ethnographic research, including interviews with participants, judges, and parents, Shankar examines the outsize impact of immigrant parents and explains why Gen Z kids are on a path to success.
When 15-year-old Ada Mason is invited with her friends to go to a supposedly enchanted island just off the California coast, what can she do but play along? She stopped believing in magic and miracles when her brother died of heart failure years before. Now, Ada starts having dreams and premonitions of haunting possibilities in a world she never thought was real, as one of her friends is plagued by seemingly nonexistent wraiths, and an evil villain seeks revenge in Ilthen, the last place where magic can be found. When Ada begins hearing voices in her head from a tired old man, she begins to rethink her ideas of what exists and what does not. Between the pages of Until We Meet Again are mysteries and memories, vows and scars, secrets and questions, sadness and laughter, and the rapid process of a maturing soul.
After serving two years on a life sentence, David Scott is given a new trial because of new evidence that has come out, and once he is set free, he thinks that his past is in the past. But little does he know, everyone has someone who loves them, and after he's home and trying to live his life trouble-free, there are things going on around him that he doesn't see or feel, until after one night of drinking and celebrating an employee's four-month party, plus thinking he was about to have sex with one of his many lady friends, he wakes up tied to a chair. And there standing in front of him are people he's given a job or just plain trusted since he's been home, but to have these people tell him this is his last day, his heart starts racing, and his head and stomach seem like they're fighting against each other. But his mind gets clear enough to know that because of his past actions, there would be a hit out on him once he was set free from prison. So now thinking about everything, damn, he never pays attention to his surroundings and never thinks anything like this would ever happen. To his knowledge, all has been forgotten once he was sentenced to life, but now for what he did or they thought he did, the time for payback is standing in his face and in the form of people he has been around and trusted.
In this hilarious and inspirational memoir, Ross Mathews -- best known as "Ross the Intern" from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno -- chronicles his life growing up as an atypical kid in a small Northwestern farm town to living as an atypical adult in Los Angeles, to eventually being his loud, proud, apologetically genuine self on national television. As a young kid growing up in a farm town, Ross Mathews might as well have wished for a pet unicorn or a calorie-free cookie tree to grow in his front yard. Either of those far-fetched fantasies would have been more likely to come true than his real dream: working in television in Hollywood, California. Seriously, that stuff just doesn't happen to people like Ross. But guess what? It totally did. Now, with his first book, Ross takes us inside his journey as a super-fan, revealing the most embarrassing and hilarious moments of his small-town life and big-city adventures. From learning to swear like a hardened trucker to that time in high school when had to face down the most frightening opponent of all (his girlfriend's lady bits), Ross holds nothing back. Oh, then there's his surprisingly shady past involving the cutest pair of plus-sized women's pajama bottoms, deliciously dangerous pot butter, and embezzled sandwiches. And, of course, how he's managed to turn an obsession with pop-culture into one-on-one interactions with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Tiffani-Amber Theissen, Madonna, Michelle Kwan, and countless more without ever having a single restraining order issued against him. Infused with Ross's trademark humor, unique voice, and total honesty, Man Up! is a mission statement for anyone who doesn't fit the mold. His hasn't been the most traditional way to build a career in Hollywood, but Ross has somehow managed to make his mark without ever compromising who he is. He is as serious about this as he is about Golden Girls trivia: You don't need to change who you are to achieve your dreams (although there's nothing wrong with a makeover every now and then). You just need to Man Up!
Moraine, Wisconsin's annual Harmony Festival is anything but harmonious for Story Fischer, as a dead body makes an uninvited appearance in the parade-and the person who may be responsible for putting it there starts dating Story's mother...
The Dublin Marilyn transports readers back to 1960-80s Dublin through one girl’s coming-of-age amongst struggling inner city families. Capturing the era of booming post-war ‘Baby Boomers,’ this nostalgic tale highlights the tight-knit community binding battling neighbourhoods together. Despite poverty and hardship, an unbreakable solidarity reigned - with helping hands extended whenever crises hit, and no pretensions of anyone being better than the next. Stitching tales steeped in humour and heart, the story unfolds in the lyrical lilt of working-class Dublin speech from a vanished time. Whether reconnecting older readers to bygone memories or shocking younger minds with harsher lives, The Dublin Marilyn pays tribute to the humour and resilience of cities past. With evocative images complementing the rich narrative, immerse yourself in yesteryear’s vibrant streets – where community meant family and family meant everything.
What happens when a young girl is marked by trauma and abuse? Can a life ever recover from horrific images of the past? Can God take a broken journey and not only bring healing, but use the past to impact the present... for good? These questions and others will be answered in the pages of this book.
