When Ryan and Brandon's Aunt Carrie comes to live with them, a world of fun opens up. Days are filled with laughing, playing superheroes, and having dance parties. Although Aunt Carrie is the most fun aunt in the world, she is also very sick, and wants to spend the precious time she has surrounded by those who love her. Based on true people and events, this book is about love, loss, and remembering a loved one who dies. This book covers the topic of grief in an honest, sensitive way. It also highlights the various emotions involved in the hospice care experience. The story and characters help children and adults see how to stay authentic while facing sadness, hopeful when facing loss, and joyful when facing longing.
Wish You Happy Forever chronicles Half the Sky founder Jenny Bowen's personal and professional journey to transform Chinese orphanages—and the lives of the neglected girls who live in them—from a state of quiet despair to one of vibrant promise. After reading an article about the thousands of baby girls languishing in Chinese orphanages, Bowen and her husband adopted a little girl from China and brought her home to Los Angeles, not out of a need to build a family but rather a commitment to save one child. A year later, as she watched her new daughter play in the grass with her friends, thriving in an environment where she knew she was loved, Bowen was overcome with a desire to help the children that she could not bring home. That very day she created Half the Sky Foundation, an organization conceived to bring love into the life of every orphan in China and one that has actually managed to fulfill its promise. In Wish You Happy Forever, a fish out of water tale like no other, Bowen relates her struggle to bring the concept of "child nurture and responsive care" to bemused Chinese bureaucrats and how she's actually succeeding. Five years after Half the Sky's first orphanage program opened, government officials began to mention child welfare and nurturing care in public speeches. And, in 2011, at China's Great Hall of the People, Half the Sky and its government partners celebrated the launch of The Rainbow Program, a groundbreaking initiative to change the face of orphan care by training every child welfare worker in the country. Thanks to Bowen's relentless perseverance through heartbreak and a dose of humor, Half the Sky's goal to bring love the lives of forgotten children comes ever closer.
In this “ingenious, funny, and chilling” novel (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from the author of Spaceman of Bohemia, two long-lost siblings risk everything to save their mother from oblivion in an authoritarian near-future America obsessed with digital consciousness and eternal life—a story that “packs a walloping punch” (Esquire). When Adéla discovers she has a terminal illness, she leaves behind her native Czech village for a chance at reuniting in America with Tereza, the daughter she gave up at birth, decades earlier. But the country Adéla experienced as a young woman, when she eloped with a filmmaker and starred in his cult sci-fi movie, has changed entirely. In 2030, America is ruled by an authoritarian government increasingly closed off to the rest of the world. Tereza, the star researcher for VITA, a biotech company hellbent on discovering the key to immortality, is overjoyed to meet her mother, with whom she forms an instant, profound connection. But when their time together is cut short by shocking events, Tereza must uncover VITA’s alarming activity in the wastelands of what was once Florida, and persuade the Czech brother she’s never met to join her in this odds-defying adventure. Narrated from the beyond by Adéla’s restless spirit, A Brief History of Living Forever is a high-wire act of storytelling from a writer “booming with vitality and originality,” whose “voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks” (New York Times). By turns insightful, moving, and funny, the novel not only confirms Jaroslav Kalfař’s boundless powers of invention but also exults in the love between a mother and her daughter, which neither space nor time can sever. “Kalfař is a wise, rapturous, and original writer . . . Eloquent, heart-stunning, and rich in awe-inspiring prose.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Relentlessly inventive . . . His writing has the same hyperactivity and fidgety contempt for generic boundaries as that of the young Safran Foer.” —The Guardian
From award-winning author Sally Nicholls, her debut novel about a boy's last months with leukemia.1. My name is Sam.2. I am eleven years old.3. I collect stories and fantastic facts.4. I have leukemia.5. By the time you read this, I will probably be dead.Living through the final stages of leukemia, Sam collects stories, questions, lists, and pictures that create a profoundly moving portrait of how a boy lives when he knows his time is almost up.
"A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands."—Kirkus Reviews In the tradition of Wendell Berry, a young writer wrestles with what we owe the places we’ve left behind. In the tiny farm town of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead, now a journalist in Washington, DC, is one who left, and in Uprooted, she examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting—for Emmett, and for the greater heartland America. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Uprooted wrestles with the questions of what we owe the places we come from and what we are willing to sacrifice for profit and progress. As part of her own quest to decide whether or not to return to her roots, Olmstead revisits the stories of those who, like her great-grandparents and grandparents, made Emmett a strong community and her childhood idyllic. She looks at the stark realities of farming life today, identifying the government policies and big agriculture practices that make it almost impossible for such towns to survive. And she explores the ranks of Emmett’s newcomers and what growth means for the area’s farming tradition. Avoiding both sentimental devotion to the past and blind faith in progress, Olmstead uncovers ways modern life attacks all of our roots, both metaphorical and literal. She brings readers face to face with the damage and brain drain left in the wake of our pursuit of self-improvement, economic opportunity, and so-called growth. Ultimately, she comes to an uneasy conclusion for herself: one can cultivate habits and practices that promote rootedness wherever one may be, but: some things, once lost, cannot be recovered.
A profoundly moving nonfiction picture book about tragedy, hope, and healing from award-winning author Chris Barton. Sometimes bad things happen, and you have to tell everyone. Sometimes terrible things happen, and everybody knows. On April 19, 1995, something terrible happened in Oklahoma City: a bomb exploded, and people were hurt and killed. But that was not the end of the story. Those who survived—and those who were forever changed—shared their stories and began to heal. Near the site of the bomb blast, an American elm tree began to heal as well. People took care of the tree just as they took care of each other. The tree and its seedlings now offer solace to people around the world grappling with tragedy and loss. Released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, this book commemorates what was lost and offers hope for the future.
Loosely based on real-life events, this suspenseful story, by a debut novelist, is also funny and touching and will have readers riveted from start to finish. Lucy's mother is the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, so Lucy's life must be one big adventure, right? Wrong. Lucy's worrywart mother keeps her locked up inside the ambassador's residence. All Lucy can do is read about the exotic and exciting world that lies beyond the compound walls and imagine what it would be like to be a part of it. That is, until one day Lucy decides she has had enough and she and a friend sneak off for some fun. But to their horror, Lucy gets kidnapped! With only herself to rely upon, Lucy must use her knowledge of African animals, inventiveness, will, and courage to escape, and in the process embarks on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination. Includes bonus material! - Book Club Discussion Guide
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.
Recounts the personal story of how two Naval academy roommates--US Marine Travis Manion and US Navy SEAL Brendan Looney--defined a generation's sacrifice after 9/11, and how their loved ones carry on in their memory Four weeks after Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden, the President of the United States stood in Arlington National Cemetery. In his Memorial Day address, he extolled the courage and sacrifice of the two young men buried side by side in the graves before him: Travis Manion, a fallen US Marine, and Brendan Looney, a fallen US Navy SEAL. Although they were killed three years apart, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, these two best friends and former roommates were now buried together--"brothers forever." Award-winning journalist Tom Sileo and Travis's father, former Marine colonel Tom Manion, come together to tell thisd intimate story, from Travis's incredible heroism on the streets of Fallujah to Brendan's anguished Navy SEAL training in the wake of his friend's death and his own heroism in the mountains of Afghanistan. Brothers Forever is a remarkable story of friendship, family, and war.
