This impious comedy is about a family of well-to-do crooks who are shocked when the son, an excellent forger, quits the fold to go straight. The reason is not long hidden: he has met a girl. He takes a job in a bank (his forged references are excellent). The family makes every eff ort to get him back into his ancestral profession, to no avail, until it is discovered that his fiancée, the daughter of a Scotland Yard inspector, is a first-class safe-breaker. The white sheep is happy to reenter th
Her parents never really explained what a D.P. was. Years later Daiva Markelis learned that “displaced person” was the designation bestowed upon European refugees like her mom and dad who fled communist Lithuania after the war. Growing up in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, though, Markelis had only heard the name T.P., since her folks pronounced the D as a T: “In first grade we had learned about the Plains Indians, who had lived in tent-like dwellings made of wood and buffalo skin called teepees. In my childish confusion, I thought that perhaps my parents weren’t Lithuanian at all, but Cherokee. I went around telling people that I was the child of teepees.” So begins this touching and affectionate memoir about growing up as a daughter of Lithuanian immigrants. Markelis was raised during the 1960s and 1970s in a household where Lithuanian was the first language. White Field, Black Sheep derives much of its charm from this collision of old world and new: a tough but cultured generation that can’t quite understand the ways of America and a younger one weaned on Barbie dolls and The Brady Bunch, Hostess cupcakes and comic books, The Monkees and Captain Kangaroo. Throughout, Markelis recalls the amusing contortions of language and identity that animated her childhood. She also humorously recollects the touchstones of her youth, from her First Communion to her first game of Twister. Ultimately, she revisits the troubles that surfaced in the wake of her assimilation into American culture: the constricting expectations of her family and community, her problems with alcoholism and depression, and her sometimes contentious but always loving relationship with her mother. Deftly recreating the emotional world of adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of adulthood, White Field, Black Sheep is a poignant and moving memoir—a lively tale of this Lithuanian-American life.
From New York Times bestselling author Meghan March comes a story of untold truths and one man’s redemption in the Dirty Mafia Duet. Every family has a black sheep. In the infamous Casso crime family, that black sheep is me—Cannon Freeman. Except I’m not a free man. I’ve never been free. Not since the day I was born. I owe my loyalty to my father, Dominic Casso, even if he won’t publicly acknowledge me as his blood. I’ve never had a reason to go against his wishes… until I met her. Drew Carson turned my world upside when she walked into my club looking for a job. Now, my honor and my life are on the line. Going against my father’s wishes might buy me a bullet straight from his gun, but black sheep or not, it’s time to make my stand. She's worth the fallout.
A captivating memoir of a biracial boy growing up in Washington, D.C., abandoned by his birth parents, and lovingly raised by a woman with deep emotional scars from her upbringing in the segregated South. The unforgettable memoir Black Sheep opens with a middle-aged Ray Studevent returning to Washington, D.C., to his “momma,” Lemell Studevent. She didn’t give birth to him, but she is the woman who raised him. She is the woman who stood by him through thick and thin. She is the woman who saved his life. But now in her late 80s, Lemell is lost to her Alzheimer’s disease. On most days, she has no idea who she is, no recollection of the remarkable life she has lived. Every once in a while, she remembers small fragments of people, places, and things but she doesn’t know how all of these pieces fit together. At night, she is often haunted by nightmares of growing up in the segregated South, of evil men with blue eyes peering through slits in their hooded robes. Frightened by Ray, this stranger, this white man with his piercing blue eyes, she threatens to shoot him. Trying not to get swept up in his own buried, decades-old feelings of abandonment, Ray knows he must work to regain her trust as he thinks back to how far they both have come. Ray Studevent grew up between two worlds. Born to a white, heroin-addicted mother and a black, violent, alcoholic father, the odds were stacked against him from day one. When his parents abandoned him at the age of five, after living in a world no child should experience, he was saved from the foster-care system by his father’s uncle Calvin, who offered him stability and a loving home. When Calvin tragically died two years later, it was up to his widow Lemell to raise Ray. But this was no easy task. Lemell grew up in the brutality of segregated Mississippi, emotionally scarred and justifiably resenting white people. Now, she must confront these demons as she raises a mixed-race child—white on the outside, black on the inside—on the eastern side of the Anacostia River, the blackest part of the blackest city in America. This is a time of heightened racial tension, not long after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the D.C. race riots. There are guidelines if you are black, different rules if you are white, but only mixed messages for mixed-race children who must fight for acceptance as they struggle to find their identity. As Dr. My Haley, the widow of Roots author Alex Haley, wrote in the Foreword for Black Sheep, “Ray’s pathway to manhood came not through the people who taught him what to do, but through the woman who taught him how to be, even as she learned for herself how to be.” At a time when we are all reexamining the complex issues of race, identity, disenfranchisement, and belonging, this compelling true story shows us what is possible when we trust our hearts and follow the path of love.
Little Ewe would rather jump on logs and investigate spider webs than follow the shepherd when he calls. But what happens when she gets lost? How will she find her way home? Told in whimsical rhyme, this humorous counting book for our littlest ones is a delightful reminder that, like a loving parent, our Shepherd will find us and care for us, even when we wander from the path. In Little Ewe: The Story of One Lost Sheep, award-winning author Laura Sassi and illustrator Tommy Doyle tell an endearing tale of a distracted sheep and her persistent shepherd, inspired by the Parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15.
Popular cozy enthusiast and blogger, Liz Marie, and her husband Jose Galvan draw on the sweet story of bringing home a lamb to White Cottage Farm to craft We Belong to Each Other, their first children's book, which focuses on finding family. At first, Grace feels as if she doesn’t belong because she is the only sheep at White Cottage Farm. But as she experiences the love of the other animals and of the kind man and woman and their baby, she begins to feel safe in her new home and recognizes that God provided her with a loving family. With delightful rhyming text and cozy farm illustrations, children will learn: The affirming message that home is any place filled with love Families come in all shapes and sizes How to embrace acceptance with love and patience We Belong to Each Other is perfect for: Ages 4-8 Readers who enjoyed Liz's creativity and welcoming voice in Cozy White Cottage Baby showers and adoption celebrations, birthdays, Gotcha Days, and weddings of blended families You'll love holding your children close as you share the heart of this book with them over and over: we belong to each other.
A black sheep's wool cannot be dyed. A black sheep is 100 percent, authentically original. It cannot be influenced, changed or molded into something it isn't by outside forces. In this powerful new book, author Brant Menswar shows you how to unleash your own black sheep--the five core values that make you who you are--to empower your life. As a motivational speaker, podcast host and founder and CEO of Rock Star Impact, Brant Menswar has inspired thousands of people to tap into their full potential for success by aligning with their black sheep values. Now, in this high-octane, entertaining how-to guide, he delivers one-of-a-kind wisdom for living the amazing life you were always meant to. You will find out how to identify the non-negotiables that are at your core, to live with deliberate intention and practically manifest what matters to you most. You will discover what makes you an extraordinary original and how being uniquely yourself is a power you can set free for success, every day.
Susie Duncan Sexton has lived her entire life in a small town, indeed, in the same house where she grew up. As an adult, she taught at the same grammar school that she attended as a child, and many of the relationships she cultivated while growing up, including her marriage, have endured over the years. Always one to document the present and offer her sometimes unorthodox ideas and opinions, Susie Duncan Sexton has tickled the keys of her trusty old typewriter for nearly five decades, and now that venerable machine is ready to reveal its secrets.
The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
