There’s no place like hope, where possible lives, where people are helpful and everyone gives. If you’re feeling scared or sad, happy or helpful—hope will guide you. It’s not always easy. And sometimes having hope means being brave, or determined, or kind. At the end of the day, hope is where better will be. This sweet, rhythmic picture book is a gentle yet powerful exploration of how hope makes us loving, courageous, and connected to one another.
Sometimes it takes losing everything to truly find yourself... Since Sandy Shortt's childhood classmate disappeared twenty years ago, Sandy has been obsessed with missing things. Finding what is lost becomes her single-minded goal--from the lone sock that vanishes in the washing machine to the car keys she misplaced. It's no surprise, then, that Sandy's life's work becomes finding people who have vanished from their loved ones. Sandy's family is baffled and concerned by her increasing preoccupation. Her parents can't understand her compulsion, and she pushes them away further by losing herself in the work of tracking down these missing people. She gives up her life in order to offer a flicker of hope to devastated families...and escape the disappointments of her own. Jack Ruttle is one of those devastated people. It's been a year since his brother Donal vanished into thin air, and he has enlisted Sandy Shortt to find him. But before she is able to offer Jack the information he so desperately needs, Sandy goes missing too...and Jack now finds himself searching for his brother and the one woman who understood his pain. One minute Sandy is jogging through the park, the next, she can't figure out where she is. The path is obscured. Nothing is familiar. A clearing up ahead reveals a camp site, and it's there that Sandy discovers the impossible: she has inadvertently stumbled upon the place -- and people -- she's been looking for all her life, a land where all the missing people go. A world away from her loved ones and the home she ran from for so long, Sandy soon resorts to her old habit again, searching. Though this time, she is desperately trying to find her way home . . .
After a year spent at a boarding school for her past mistakes, Ashlyn is ready to reconnect with her friends, restart her life, and enter senior year. But when family trouble hits home and she is forced to help out at her estranged cousin’s wilderness retreat center, Ashlyn struggles between returning to the girl she was or growing into someone new. Ashlyn Zanotti has big plans for the summer. She's just spent a year at boarding school and can't wait to get home. But when Ashlyn's father is arrested for tax evasion and her mother enters a rehab facility for "exhaustion," a.k.a. depression, her life is turned upside down again. Things go from bad to worse when Ashlyn's father sends her to work with a cousin she doesn't even know at a rustic team-building retreat center in the middle of nowhere. A self-proclaimed "indoor girl," not even Ash's habit of leaving breadcrumb quotes--inspirational sayings she scribbles everywhere--can help her cope. With a dangerously careless camp manager doling out grunt work, an overbearing father trying to control her even from prison, and more than a little boy drama to struggle with, the summer is full of challenges. And Ashlyn must make the toughest decision of her life: keep quiet and follow her dad's marching orders or find the courage to finally stand up to her father to have any hope of finding her way back home. A modern twist on Hansel and Gretel, No Place like Here features: A strong female lead who doesn’t shy away from difficult parent-teen relationships A clean and wholesome love triangle, romcom vibes, and feel-good fuzzy emotions Returning cast of characters from Christina June’s It Started With Goodbye Perfect for fans of Elise Bryant, Morgan Matson, and Sarah Dessen
Stanley Leone Jr.'s family was full of criminals, substance abusers, and philanderers. Beginning with a grandfather who was murdered by his lover's jealous husband-Stanley's father continued the cycle of abuse, crime, and addiction. He terrorized his own family, giving Stanley an image of masculinity that prized violence and control and left no room for love or tenderness. Enduring both verbal and physical abuse from his father, Stanley knew the destruction that a grown man could cause, and he resolved to be nothing like his tormentor. By adolescence, however, Stanley had joined a gang and begun using drugs, and he discovered that he harbored the same anger his father so often exhibited. Sometimes that anger won out; sometimes Stanley's determination to be different held strong. Choosing to become something different, something outside the cycle of violence, was not easy. But immersing himself in education helped, and so did examining who his father really was, with all his negative traits and redeeming qualities. Eventually Stanley found hope and began to forge a path to a better tomorrow.
Humorous, poignant, and honest, No Place Like Home is the story of one woman’s journey to feel settled without settling, and her realization that home is much more than an address. Brooke Berman moved to New York as a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old eager to call the big city home. Candid, funny, and thoughtful, in No Place Like Home, we follow Brooke’s adventures as she crisscrosses town trying to make ends meet and make her dreams of a life in the theater come true. With each apartment, from the heavenly to the horrible, she learns more about how to heal the past, let go of excess, and keep a sense of humor while trying to stay flexible in the search for stability. No Place Like Home reminds everyone of the age-old struggle not just to find a house, but to build a true home.
Far from the coastal centers of culture and politics, Kansas stands at the very center of American stereotypes about red states. In the American imagination, it is a place LGBT people leave. No Place Like Home is about why they stay. The book tells the epic story of how a few disorganized and politically naïve Kansans, realizing they were unfairly under attack, rolled up their sleeves, went looking for fights, and ended up making friends in one of the country’s most hostile states. The LGBT civil rights movement’s history in California and in big cities such as New York and Washington, DC, has been well documented. But what is it like for LGBT activists in a place like Kansas, where they face much stiffer headwinds? How do they win hearts and minds in the shadow of the Westboro Baptist Church (“Christian” motto: “God Hates Fags”)? Traveling the state in search of answers—from city to suburb to farm—journalist C. J. Janovy encounters LGBT activists who have fought, in ways big and small, for the acceptance and respect of their neighbors, their communities, and their government. Her book tells the story of these twenty-first-century citizen activists—the issues that unite them, the actions they take, and the personal and larger consequences of their efforts, however successful they might be. With its close-up view of the lives and work behind LGBT activism in Kansas, No Place Like Home fills a prairie-sized gap in the narrative of civil rights in America. The book also looks forward, as an inspiring guide for progressives concerned about the future of any vilified minority in an increasingly polarized nation.
Heaven Is Waiting is about heaven, but it is much more. It is about our longing for heaven, our innate instinct for it. It is about eternity in our hearts and how the hope of heaven inspires and sustains us. We groan inside as we resist death and cry for something more beyond the grave. What we call life is a journey to death; what we call death is the gateway to life. Using biblical principles, Triplett paints a refreshing picture of heaven and provides proof that heaven is a real place. He challenges many preconceived ideas of what heaven will be like while answering the questions that you may not have had the courage to ask. He has collaborated with noted clergymen who share their insights about the heaven that can become your final forwarding address. This book will either affirm your belief in heaven or challenge your plan for getting there. Heaven is a permanent residence, a city without a cemetery, a place where we unpack our bags-memories-and stay forever. Are you excited and ready for a great adventure? Are you anticipating what awaits you beyond death's door? Prepare for the time of your life-heaven is waiting.