Velvet is odd. Instead of dolls that talk and cry, Velvet brings a milkweed pod for show and tell. She wins the class art contest using only an eight-pack of crayons. She likes to collect rocks. Even her name is strange-Velvet! But as the school year unfolds, the things Velvet does and the things that Velvet says slowly begin to make sense. And, in the end, Velvet's classmates discover that being different is what makes Velvet so much fun.
Velvet is a naughty puppy who doesnt like to obey her mother. Sometimes this gets her into trouble. Its especially difficult to behave when Velvets nose is filled with the most delicious scent shes ever smelled. Velvet hears her mother calling her as she trots away toward the delicious aroma. But for Velvet, a mothers scolding is far easier to ignore than a yummy scent. Velvets twitching nose leads her to a cozy cottage, where she finds three freshly baked sugar cookies laid nicely on a plate labeled For Santa. Before she knows it, Velvet has gobbled up one of the sugar cookies. As she turns to leave, Velvet finds herself nose-to-boot with a familiar man dressed all in red. Its Santa Clausand he doesnt look happy with what he sees. Velvet Learns a Lesson offers parents a magical opportunity to demonstrate the importance of obedience to young children. Remind your young ones that Santas always watching with Velvets whimsical adventure to the North Pole and back.
“Not only a rock memoir and recipe book but also a poignant work of personal self-discovery and the challenges yet joys of parenting.” —Huffington Post Part memoir, part cookbook, and all rock and roll, Red Velvet Underground tells the story of how musician Freda Love Smith’s indie-rock past grew into her family—and food-centric present. Smith, born in Nashville and raised in Indiana, is best known as the drummer and co-founder of bands such as the Boston-based Blake Babies, Antenna, and the Mysteries of Life. Red Velvet Underground is loosely framed around cooking lessons Smith gave to her eldest son, Jonah, before he left for college. Smith compares her son’s experiences to her own—meeting Juliana Hatfield and starting the Blake Babies, touring in Evan Dando’s hand-me-down station wagon, and crashing with Henry Rollins, who introduced the band to local California fare—all while plumbing the deeper meanings behind the role of food, cooking, and family. Interspersed throughout these stories are forty-five flexitarian recipes—mostly, but not exclusively, vegetarian—such as red pepper-cashew spread, spinach and brazil nut pesto, and vegan strawberry-cream scones. Throughout the book, Smith reveals how food, in addition to music, has evolved into an important means for creativity and improvisation. Red Velvet Underground is an engaging exploration of the ways food and music have informed identity through every stage of one woman’s life. “These are sweet, unsentimental scenes from the ever-evolving life of a woman of many shifting and balancing roles: mother, wife, drummer, student, teacher, friend, daughter, food enthusiast. It’s all tied together with tantalizing recipes that have been lovingly improvised and tweaked into a life-affirming doneness.” —Juliana Hatfield, musician
The gay male world today is characterized by seductive beauty, artful creativity, flamboyant sexuality, and, encouragingly, unprecedented acceptability in society. Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a fa?ade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.
From the Diary of Leonie Noirot: The perfect corset should invite its undoing . . . Lethally charming Simon Blair, Marquess of Lisburne, has reluctantly returned to London for one reason only: a family obligation. Still, he might make time for the seduction of a certain redheaded dressmaker—but Leonie Noirot hasn't time for him. She's obsessed with transforming his cousin, the dowdy Lady Gladys, into a swan. Leonie's skills can coax curves—and profits—from thin air, but his criminally handsome lordship is too busy trying to seduce her to appreciate her genius. He badly needs to learn a lesson, and the wager she provokes ought to teach him, once and for all. A great plan, in theory—but Lisburne's become a serious distraction and Leonie's usual logic is in danger of slipping away as easily as a silk chemise. Could the Season's greatest transformation be her own?
From New York Times business reporter Nelson D. Schwartz comes a gripping investigation of how a virtual velvet rope divides Americans in every arena of life, creating a friction-free existence for those with money on one side and a Darwinian struggle for the middle class on the other side. In nearly every realm of daily life--from health care to education, highways to home security--there is an invisible velvet rope that divides how Americans live. On one side of the rope, for a price, red tape is cut, lines are jumped, appointments are secured, and doors are opened. On the other side, middle- and working-class Americans fight to find an empty seat on the plane, a place in line with their kids at the amusement park, a college acceptance, or a hospital bed. We are all aware of the gap between the rich and everyone else, but when we weren't looking, business innovators stepped in to exploit it, shifting services away from the masses and finding new ways to profit by serving the privileged. And as decision-makers and corporate leaders increasingly live on the friction-free side of the velvet rope, they are less inclined to change--or even notice--the obstacles everyone else must contend with. Schwartz's "must read" book takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of this new reality and shows the toll the velvet rope divide takes on society.
"The book is one that horse lovers of every age cannot fail to enjoy." — The New York Times "Humorous, charming, National Velvet is a little masterpiece." — Time "Put on your not-to-be-missed list." — The New Yorker A butcher's daughter in a small Sussex town ends her nightly prayers with "Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England!" The answer to fourteen-year-old Velvet Brown's plea materializes in the form of an unwanted piebald, raffled off in a village lottery, who turns out to be adept at jumping fences—exactly the sort of horse that could win the world's most famous steeplechase, the Grand National. Richly atmospheric of rural English life between the World Wars, National Velvet has enchanted generations of readers since its 1935 debut. The heroine's grit and determination, backed by the support of her eccentric and loving family, offer an inspiring example of the struggles and rewards of following a dream.
DIVFinding a special place where you can be at peace is difficult—but holding onto it is even harder/divDIV The last three years of Robin Williams’s life have been very difficult. She’s had to move with her large, poor family multiple times as her father seeks jobs as a migrant worker. Now, her father has a new job at the McCurdy Ranch and Robin often wanders off in order to cope with the constant change and difficulty surrounding her./divDIV /divDIVNear the McCurdy Ranch is the Palmeras House, an old abandoned house that Robin is told repeatedly not to explore. However, with a little help, she finds herself inside the building, in the one place it seems she has always been looking for: the Velvet Room. This plush room is the most beautiful place she has ever seen. Robin is fascinated and enchanted, but she can’t help but wonder: Why is it there? /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an extended biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder./div
