Oh no! There's a global pandemic going around. Will COVID-19 ruin her birthday? Read to find out how she handles being quarantined with her family. Will she be sad, or will she learn what matters most?
In the story, Spencer and the Quarantine Birthday, children learn that even when life brings strange and unusual circumstances such as a worldwide pandemic, we can adapt by working together to solve life's problems. Miss Hunnybun encourages her students to use their own special voice to help each other to make our world a better place.
A colossal cheat sheet for your post-college years, answering all the needs of the modern woman—from mastering money to placating overly anxious parents, from social media etiquette to the pleasure and pain of dating (and why it’s not a cliché to love yourself first). A perfect combination of tried-and-true advice and been-there tips, it’s a one-stop resource that includes how to clean up your digital reputation, info on finding an apartment you can afford and actually want to live in, and why you should exercise the delicate art of defriending. Plus the fundamentals, from health (mental and physical) to spirituality to ethics to fashion, all delivered in Melissa Kirsch’s fresh, personal, funny voice—as if your best friend were giving you the best and smartest advice in the world.
An award-winning, multi-genre writer grapples with the pandemic, death of George Floyd, and other crises of our times in gnomic poems written from inside the purgatory (and sudden revelations) of quarantine. Writing from and toward “the endless desire / to be at home in the world,” Sarah Ruhl wrote Love Poems in Quarantine to mark the passage of time when all familiar landmarks disappeared. From the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the murder of George Floyd, to months of simultaneous quarantine and protest, this is—in free verse and form, lamentation and meditation—a book of days, a survival kit for spiritual malady. These poems find small solace in domestic absurdities. Even in global crisis, there is the laundry. The dog rolls in something putrid, the child interrupts a Zoom meeting, and dinner must get made, again and again. Using language to travel and touch when bodies could not, Ruhl has drawn with great care a portrait of a year unlike any other in history.
THE YEAR OF THE METAL RAT, 2020, was a time of panic, uncertainty, and great division. CHINA, VIETNAM, CANADA, SAUDI ARABIA, ITALY, ARGENTINA, AMERICA, JAPAN, AUSTRALIA, PHILIPPINES, NETHERLANDS, GUATEMALA, UGANDA, THE U.K., SINGAPORE, RUSSIA… As the pandemic spread, some wore masks and socially distanced to protect the vulnerable, while others protested all public health measures as a form of tyranny and caused loud and obnoxious mass disruptions to critical infrastructure in a jarring display of 'personal freedom.' Fake news and echo chambers enabled 'alternative facts,' while unhinged narratives and cartoonish conspiracies ran rampant, often trumping coverage of legitimate and existential converging catastrophes. In YEAR OF THE RAT, the sequel to the international best-seller 'The Invisible War' (Kai's Diary), Jorah Kai documents the world’s largest ‘Zero Covid bubble’ while the outside world handles the pandemic uniquely. Reaching out to friends across the globe, he weaves their stories together. Thirty-six writers from 33 cities in 16 countries share their daily struggles, hopes, and fears for the YEAR OF THE RAT as the SARSCOV2 virus spreads catastrophe to every corner of the globe. "It’s ... the metaphor of the yin and the yang. I’d say right now; we are in the yin. It’s a kind of disaster. It’s sad. And on the yang side... it looks like some sort of a mathematical balance that I cannot explain." - JCVD “I would have done the whole thing for a donut and a tuna fish sandwich. The money meant nothing. It was the opportunity to at least prove to myself that I wasn’t a liar, that I wasn’t living a life of disillusionment. When you think of yourself as being a very creative person, and turn around and realize you’ve been leading a lie.” - Sylvester Stallone (Rocky). "At the beginning of the pandemic, Jorah Kai led a plucky band of frontline workers and activists to fight the pandemic with science. Some called him a harbinger, others a ‘pandemic guru’ as they navigated an increasingly bizarre world of book deals, TV appearances, speaking engagements, and a recovery event with his childhood hero, martial arts movie star Jeanne Claude Van Damme. But nothing could prepare him for what came next..." - The Narrator
A joyful picture book that celebrates every kid's favorite day of the year, full of adorable art from the illustrator of Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site and I Wish You More. The most important rule is #1: It must be your birthday. After that's been established, a crew of hilarious animals help picture book pros Tom Lichtenheld and Beth Ferry take readers through a joyous romp that covers the most important elements of every year's most essential holiday, including singing; closing your eyes and making a wish; blowing out candles on a cake, then settling into bed and dreaming of your wish coming true.
This view of a life-altering moment in our history—captured from one photographer’s Brooklyn rooftop—is a testament to human hope and resilience, and what we’ve learned about living in community. The roof of a New York apartment building, like some New York neighbors, can be elusive—you could live there for years and never see it. The unique constraints of 2020’s quarantine drove photographer and Brooklyn transplant Josh Katz up to his Bushwick rooftop and introduced him to both. What he discovered there astonished him. Families, lovers, dogs, meditators, artists, exercise fanatics, daredevils, drinkers, dancers—in this strange time the world below had found a way to continue ticking on up above, subject to new patterns and distances. And then, there were the pigeon fanciers, who had been up there for decades, watching the neighborhood change around them. Josh reached for his camera. The project grew from a man’s attempt to cope with his own isolation to a tender portrait of his community—captured entirely from his own roof—and a resonant chronicle of how some of us found new hope and space in a life-altering year. Characters as heartfelt as any in the now-classic Humans of New York accompany Josh’s keen observations on urban space, human interaction, and new ways of city living we can bring down from the roof to apply in a post-quarantine world.
A comprehensive, upbeat guide to help you survive the moving process from start to finish, filled with fresh strategies and checklists for timing and supplies, choosing which items to toss and which to keep, determining the best place to live, saying farewell and looking forward to hello. Moving is a major life change—time consuming, expensive, often overwhelming, and sometimes scary. But it doesn’t have to be! Instead of looking at it as a burdensome chore, consider it a new adventure. Ali Wenzke and her husband moved ten times in eleven years, living in seven states across the U.S. She created her popular blog, The Art of Happy Moving, to help others build a happier life before, during, and after a move. Infused with her infectious optimistic spirit, The Art of Happy Moving builds on her blog, offering step-by-step guidance, much-needed comfort, practical information, and welcome advice on every step of the process, including: How to stage your home for prospective buyers How to choose your next neighborhood How to discard your belongings and organize your packing How to say goodbye to your friends How to make the transition easier for your kids How to decorate your new home How to build a new community And so much more. Ali shares invaluable personal anecdotes from her many moves, and packs each chapter with a wealth of information and ingenious tips (Did you know that if you have an extra-large welcome mat at the entrance of your home, it’s more likely to sell?). Ali also includes checklists for packing and staging, and agendas for the big moving day. Whether you’re a relocating professional, newly married, a family with kids and pets, or a retiree looking to downsize, The Art of Happy Moving will help you discover ways to help make your transition an easier one—and be even happier than you were before.
Amanda Kloots bravely reflects on love, loss, and life with her husband, Broadway star, and Tony Award nominee Nick Cordero, whose public battle with COVID-19 and tragic death made headlines around the world. In March 2020, Broadway star and Tony Award nominee Nick Cordero was hospitalized for what he and his wife, Amanda Kloots, believed to be a severe case of pneumonia. Entering the hospital, they had every reason to believe that Nick—a young father and otherwise healthy man—would return home. After an eventual diagnosis of COVID-19 that led to Nick’s being placed on a ventilator, Amanda took to documenting their journey on social media, showing the dangers COVID-19 posed to everyone, regardless of age. Her updates quickly captivated millions, inspiring people around the globe to dance each day to Nick’s song “Live Your Life” and offer positive thoughts and prayer. When he passed away after ninety-five grueling days in the ICU, the world grieved for Amanda, her infant son, Elvis, and the future COVID-19 had snatched away from them. Live Your Life is the story of Nick and Amanda’s life together—of their beautiful relationship, of Nick’s dramatic fight for survival, of those sudden tragic months that permanently changed her world and ours—and of their interrupted future as a family. From the confusing early days of his illness to searching for signs of hope in every update from the doctors to the healing sound of Elvis’s laughter, Amanda details how she approached even the most devastating moments with the personal optimism and faith that have shaped her life. Written with her sister Anna Kloots, who was with her every step of this journey, Live Your Life explores how Amanda’s willingness to accept help from an entire community of people—friends, family, and even total strangers—played a vital role in enduring this hardship. In the process, she offers a touching meditation on how even the worst times have silver linings that deepen our connections to the world around us and to the people who matter most. What emerges is an inspiring and unexpectedly uplifting message for life in the time of COVID, a vision of courage for anyone coping with overwhelming loss or the collective trauma of what the pandemic has taken from us. A poignant reflection on love, hope, motherhood, and the transformational power of music, Live Your Life is a love letter to Nick and a reminder that, sometimes, celebrating life today is the only path through tomorrow’s darkness. Live Your Life includes 16 pages of color photos exclusive to the book.
Chronicling a Crisis is a powerful primary source collection compiled during the peak of the COVID pandemic between spring 2020 and spring 2021. This upstate New York college was the only school in the state that had to send home all its students twice due to COVID, which attracted international media attention. This book was inspired by the UK’s Mass Observation Project from the 1930s, which drew on the war-time diaries of ordinary British citizens to track the impact of World War II on their lives. With over two hundred blog entries from students, faculty, and staff—including diary reflections, poems, pictures, and thought pieces—this volume lays bare the grief, frustration, fear, resilience, and upheavals of this tumultuous period. This book will be of interest for students of New York history, American history and the digital humanities as well as general readers interested in understanding the impact of the COVID pandemic on universities and their students.