Anna Ornstein is a Holocaust survivor. After emigrating to the U.S., she seldom spoke of the experiences she suffered while a young girl. Twenty-five years ago, at the family Seder gathering, her family asked for a story from her past. In an evocative, understated passage, she shared a bit of the tragedy she saw through the eyes of a child. Every year she has added to this tradition by sharing another chapter of the tragedies she witnessed and the small moments of grace in her survival. Through her family's support, Orenstein gained enough strength to share her experiences in My Mother's Eyes, in hopes of keeping the nightmare from ever happening again.
Jean-Marie Faggiano and her family were living in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The following month, she and her family, along with over 3,600 other non-national civilians, were forced to surrender to the Imperial Japanese Army and live as civilian prisoners of war in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. In Through My Mother's Eyes, you will experience how a young girl and her family were able to survive their thirty-seven month ordeal until their nick-of-time rescue by American forces on February 3, 1945. Through My Mother's Eyes is a story of a world rampant with sickness, starvation, and brutality, but it is also an incredible story of love, courage, and enduring faith.
Heart of Submission: Developing a Deeper Relationship with God outlines the necessary principles that will properly align your life with God's plan. Your destiny and purpose will be activated when you submit your life to Him and His will. Submission is a principle that works in conjunction with God's system of unity and organization. Submission to Jesus and His leadership team will put you in a position for godly provision, protection, and promotion. God has prepared your path to success, and the name of that path is SUBMISSION!
This look at the traditional and subversive world of women's folklore examines the realm of women's talk, exploring the ways Italian immigrant women from Montreal use classic folk genres to stretch the boundaries of their culture. Through songs, lullabies, bawdy riddles, and trickster tales, these women subvert, redefine, and alter what it means to be Italian and female in North America. More than just a study of Italian Canadians, this essay delves into broader themes of gender, immigration, and ethnicity, showcasing voices that contradict homogenizing interpretations of traditional historical scholarship.
Through the Eyes of Rose details the story of Rose Kozak and how she successfully defied the Czechoslovakian Communists in October 1949 and escaped with her children through the wilderness of the Bohemian Forest to the freedom of West Germany. John Kozak was just seven when he escaped with his mother and older sister from oppressive Communist rule. His emotional retelling of his mother's struggle to feed her family during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, her near drowning in the Danube River, and her reaction to the news that the Czech Communists had fabricated criminal charges against her husband all make for an intriguing look into the lives of a family deeply affected by the Communist takeover of their native country. When Rose's husband Anthony is unable to return from Switzerland to Prague where he faces imprisonment due to fabricated charges by the new Communist regime, Rose decides to escape. During her journey to seek a better life, she is betrayed by a money-hungry guide, hunted by tracking dogs, and nearly captured by a Soviet patrol. One woman's courage and dogged determination to seek freedom for her family proves that a mother's love will always persevere over evil.
A fifteen-year-old Australian farm boy lies about his age to enlist to war and is caught up in the horrors of World War I in Egypt and on the Western Front, where 5,500 Australian troops were lost in two days at Fromelles alone. This boy s story in this unique, stirring picture book is based on true stories of the twenty-three teenage soldiers one only fourteen who fought with the Australian army in World War I, as recorded at the Australian War Memorial (their names among a list of 60,000 Australian soldiers killed in that war). The author s grandfather was a boy soldier who, unlike the hero of the book, did survive to return home. Told in the boy s own simple language and with extracts from his letters home, the story is extremely moving and evocative of the real tragedy of that worst of all wars. More information and teachers' guide available at www.mymotherseyes.com.au
Shirl is a single mother who urges her son's baby-sitter to swat him when he misbehaves. Helena went back to work to get off welfare, then quit to be with her small daughter. Kathy was making good money but got into cocaine and had to give up her two-year-old son during her rehabilitation. Pundits, politicians, and social critics have plenty to say about such women and their behavior. But in this book, for the first time, we hear what these women have to say for themselves. An eye-opening--and heart-rending--account from the front lines of poverty, Through My Own Eyes offers a firsthand look at how single mothers with the slimmest of resources manage from day to day. We witness their struggles to balance work and motherhood and watch as they negotiate a bewildering maze of child-care and social agencies. For three years the authors followed the lives of fourteen women from poor Boston neighborhoods, all of whom had young children and had been receiving welfare intermittently. We learn how these women keep their families on firm footing and try--frequently in vain--to gain ground. We hear how they find child-care and what they expect from it, as well as what the childcare providers have to say about serving low-income families. Holloway and Fuller view these lives in the context of family policy issues touching on the disintegration of inner cities, welfare reform, early childhood and pro-choice poverty programs.
How would you cope with losing not one, but two young children within three months of each other? This author did, and her inspiring story is weaved throughout the poems and quotes she has written. Based around grief and loss, this collection features breath taking images and honest, powerful, yet poignant verse. This mothers love and devotion for her sons and her family, will leave you appreciating life.
How Do You Forgive a Parent Who Has Failed You? One summer, Melissa Cistaro’s mother stepped into her baby-blue Dodge Dart and drove away, leaving behind Melissa and her brothers. Rarely seeing their mother as they were growing up, they blamed themselves for her leaving, turning to each other for support and seeking out often destructive ways to cope with living without their mom. Decades later, with children of her own, Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington, as her mother is dying. She has just days to find out what happened that summer and to confront the unthinkable fear that a “leaving gene” might be lying dormant inside of her. She knew she came from a long line of mothers who left their children. But when Melissa stumbles across a folder titled “Letters Never Sent” tucked away in her mother’s filing cabinet, she begins to feel the wreckage of her mother’s painful journey, before and after she abandoned her family. Alternating between Melissa’s tumultuous coming-of-age and her mother’s final days, Without My Mother is a haunting yet ultimately uplifting story of one woman’s quest to discover how our parents’ choices impact our own and how we can survive those choices to forge our own paths.
