"Carol McLeod partners with the Word of God and the lives of victorious believers to show you how to obtain and maintain the full and wonderful life that God wants you to have. Your life can be extraordinary!"--Cover.
Shortlisted for the SYRCA 2013 Diamond Willow Award, selected as an American Library Association 2012 Notable Children's Book, a Booklist Editors' Choice, nominated for the OLA Golden Oak Tree Award, and a finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Awards: Young Adult/Middle Reader Award, the Governor General's Literary Awards: Children's Text and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award There's not much that upsets young Valli. Even though her days are spent picking coal and fighting with her cousins, life in the coal town of Jharia, India, is the only life she knows. The only sight that fills her with terror are the monsters who live on the other side of the train tracks -- the lepers. Valli and the other children throw stones at them. No matter how hard her life is, she tells herself, at least she will never be one of them. Then she discovers that she is not living with family after all, that her "aunt" was a stranger who was paid money to take Valli off her own family's hands. She decides to leave Jharia ... and so begins a series of adventures that takes her to Kolkata, the city of the gods. It's not so bad. Valli finds that she really doesn't need much to live. She can "borrow" the things she needs and then pass them on to people who need them more than she does. It helps that though her bare feet become raw wounds as she makes her way around the city, she somehow feels no pain. But when she happens to meet a doctor on the ghats by the river, Valli learns that she has leprosy. Despite being given a chance to receive medical care, she cannot bear the thought that she is one of those monsters she has always feared, and she flees, to an uncertain life on the street. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.
An imaginative time travel mystery about a boy whose life is upeneded with the arrival of a stranger and a magical promise. Twelve-year-old Adam doesn't mind living at his uncle's bakery, the Biscuit Basket, on the Lower East Side in New York City. The warm, delicious smells of freshly baked breads and chocolate croissants make every day feel cozy, even if Adam doesn't have many friends and he misses his long dead parents very much. When a mysterious but cheerful customer tells Adam that adventures await him, it's too strange to be true. But days later, an unbelievable, incredible thing happens. Adam travels back in time, first to Times Square in 1935, then a candle factory fire in 1967. But how are these moments related? What do they have to do with his parents' death? And why is a tall man with long eyebrows and a thin mustache following Adam's every move? In her debut novel G. Z. Schmidt has crafted a world filled with serendipity, mystery, and adventure for readers of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket.
Our intuition on how the world works could well be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors burst on the scene, or businesses protected by large and deep moats find their defenses easily breached, or vast new markets are conjured from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges. The world not only feels different. The data tell us it is different. Based on years of research by the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Forces Breaking all the Trends is a timely and important analysis of how we need to reset our intuition as a result of four forces colliding and transforming the global economy: the rise of emerging markets, the accelerating impact of technology on the natural forces of market competition, an aging world population, and accelerating flows of trade, capital and people. Our intuitions formed during a uniquely benign period for the world economy -- often termed the Great Moderation. Asset prices were rising, cost of capital was falling, labour and resources were abundant, and generation after generation was growing up more prosperous than their parents. But the Great Moderation has gone. The cost of capital may rise. The price of everything from grain to steel may become more volatile. The world's labor force could shrink. Individuals, particularly those with low job skills, are at risk of growing up poorer than their parents. What sets No Ordinary Disruption apart is depth of analysis combined with lively writing informed by surprising, memorable insights that enable us to quickly grasp the disruptive forces at work. For evidence of the shift to emerging markets, consider the startling fact that, by 2025, a single regional city in China -- Tianjin -- will have a GDP equal to that of the Sweden, of that, in the decades ahead, half of the world's economic growth will come from 440 cities including Kumasi in Ghana or Santa Carina in Brazil that most executives today would be hard-pressed to locate on a map. What we are now seeing is no ordinary disruption but the new facts of business life -- facts that require executives and leaders at all levels to reset their operating assumptions and management intuition.
Mistletoe, Maine, is buzzing and not just because Christmas is around the corner! Dante West, local cutie-turned-Hollywood hunk, is returning home to make his next movie. Everyone in town is excited . . . except librarian Lucy Marshall. When Dante took off for LA without warning—or even a goodbye—he broke Lucy’s heart. She swore not to spend one more minute thinking about her ex, but Dante makes an offer Lucy’s struggling library can’t refuse: a major donation to film on-site. Dante is thrilled to help boost his hometown’s economy and finally begin making amends to the people he hurt years ago when he left, starting with Lucy. But seeing his former best friend on set every day feels a lot less like closure and more like a fresh start. It’s one thing for Dante to fall for Lucy all over again, quite another for a famous movie star and a small-town librarian to find lasting romance. Can the magic of the holiday season give Lucy and Dante’s first love a second chance?
Cal would rather avoid reality. He hates school, his teachers are badgering him to decide on a career and his sister Jess has moved away from the Scottish island where they live. Then he meets Kerry, an Australian girl new to the island, and over the course of a long summer they begin to fall in love.
"Within the next two decades, tens of millions of Americans will reach the age where they will need either significant support to stay in their own homes or a cost-effective residential alternative. The current state of elder care in America is appalling, expensive, and unsustainable. It underserves the majority of elderly Americans and bankrupts all but the richest few while virtually ignoring this population's complex physical and mental needs. At a time when we should be celebrating the achievements and wisdom of the oldest citizens, we instead find ways to overmedicate and isolate them in dehumanizing nursing-home facilities. And space for more residents within this system is running out. There must be a better way! In Alone and Invisible No More, physician Dr. Allan S. Teel, MD, describes a philosophy and a course of action that have turned aging in place into a viable alternative for dozens of elderly residents in Damariscotta, Maine. Teel lays out a course of action to expand his approach to the millions of Americans approaching retirement age and how these techniques can be used to avert the financial and personal disaster approaching nationwide. He discusses the resources--both technological and professional--needed to guide this transition and the community support that will be critical to its success. Taking this "Maine Approach" to the rest of the country could create a climate where Americans welcome rather than fear the approach of their golden years"--Provided by publisher.
How do the dark moments of suffering which we all encounter at some point in our lives connect with the divine? The words of Paul the Apostle offer an answer to this universal question in the vibrant figure and pattern of Jesus Christ, so eloquently expressed in the Philippians Christ Hymn. It is in moments of loss, moments of experience of creation and community, and moments of transformative unity with God that we discover our deep connectedness to God and one another. Laura Hogan weaves the truth of these three facets of divine-human relationship together with Paul's undivided trust in divine effectiveness; that is, that the paradox of the cross reveals that God, no matter how dire the circumstance, is supremely effective to accomplish his will. Paul's words encourage us to express the pattern of Jesus Christ in our words, actions, and very lives, a singular articulation of Christ in our time, place, identity, and circumstances. This daily living of the Christ pattern, which this book explores in lives past and present, gives rise to a true joy in God as we become increasingly aware of our relationship with the divine in all moments, from the darkest to the brightest.