Family Culture

It's 1941, and tensions are rising in the United States as the Second World War rages in Europe. Eleven-year-old Gusta's life, like the world around her, is about to change. Her father, a foreign-born labor organizer, has had to flee the country, and Gusta has been sent to live in an orphanage run by her grandmother. Nearsighted, snaggletoothed Gusta arrives in Springdale, Maine, lugging her one precious possession: a beloved old French horn, her sole memento of her father. But in a family that's long on troubles and short on money, how can a girl hang on to something so valuable and yet so useless?

Jazz...Booze...Boys...It’s a dangerous combination. Every girl wants what she can’t have. Seventeen-year-old Gloria Carmody wants the flapper lifestyle - and the bobbed hair, cigarettes, and music-filled nights that go with it. Now that she’s engaged to Sebastian Grey, scion of one of Chicago’s most powerful families, Gloria’s party days are over before they’ve even begun...or are they? Clara Knowles, Gloria’s goody-two-shoes cousin, has arrived to make sure the high-society wedding comes off without a hitch - but Clara isn’t as lily-white as she appears.

Rule by head or rule by heart? Elinor Dashwood is a great believer in "sense," while her exuberant younger sister Marianne feels keenly that only "sensibility" (what today we'd call passion) serves to guide the heart. Through vicissitudes and, in the case of Marianne, outright betrayal by her lover, these two women learn the value in the other's outlook, and thereby prepare themselves for later domestic bliss that is the hallmark resolution of Jane Austen's novels.

In the role of death escort, a Fetch is not supposed to step from Heaven back to Earth. A Fetch is not supposed to fall hopelessly in love with a mortal either. But Calder is a Fetch like no other. And when his actions land him amid the clash and clang of the Russian Revolution, he sets off a chain of events with dire consequences for both the living and the dead.

One of the first true novels in the English language, Robinson Crusoe is the famous adventure of a castaway and his desert-island companion, Friday.

In this companion to Saraha Special, a fifth-grader reveals what she has learned about life during a period in which she took piano lessons from a Holocaust survivor.

No longer did the Michtom's gather family and friends around the kitchen table to talk. No longer was Joseph at leisure to play stickball with the guys. No longer were Joseph and his book-loving sister free from watching their pesky two-year-old brother. Now - when it was summer vacation and more than anything Joseph wanted to experience the thrill, the grandeur, the electricity of Coney Island - Joseph worked.

In 1881, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski wishes she didn't have to board the orphan train in Chicago. But she has no home, no family, and no choice. Rodzina doesn't believe the orphans are on their way out West to be adopted by good families. She's sure they will become slaves to strangers. Anyway, who would ever adopt a large, tough, stubborn girl of Polish origin? As the train heads west, all Rodzina has is a small suitcase and her family memories from the past.

Because Yumi Ruíz-Hirsch has grandparents from Japan, Cuba, and Brooklyn, her mother calls her a poster child for the 21st century. Yumi would laugh if only her life wasn't getting as complicated as her heritage. All of a sudden she's starting eighth grade with a girl who collects tinfoil and a boy who dresses like a squid.

Double Luck is filled with examples of how the human spirit can triumph over adversity. In the Chinese language, the word crisis is written with two symbols: one meaning "danger" and the other meaning "opportunity". Although Chi Fa's childhood was filled with crisis, he always looked for opportunity. His successful triumph over crisis after crisis is an inspiration for all who seek hope in the face of great challenges.

Born in the picturesque town of Taxco, Mexico, Julissa Arce was left behind for months at a time with her two sisters, a nanny, and her grandma while her parents worked tirelessly in America in hopes of building a home and providing a better life for their children. That is, until her parents brought Julissa to Texas to live with them. From then on, Julissa secretly lived as an undocumented immigrant, went on to become a scholarship winner and an honors college graduate, and climbed the ladder to become a vice president at Goldman Sachs.

Angel has just lost her father, and her mother's grief means she might as well be gone, too. She's got a sister and a grandmother to look out for, and a burgeoning consciousness of the unfairness in the world - in her family, her community, and her country. Set against the backdrop of the second Philippine People Power Revolution in 2001, the contemporary struggles of surviving Filipina "Comfort Women" of WWII, and a cold winter’s season in the city of Chicago is the story of a daughter coming of age, coming to forgiveness, and learning to move past the chaos of grief to survive.

A teenage boy goes shopping on the Internet, sees something he likes, immediately reaches his mother via cell phone, and in a few short keystrokes, types in her credit card number and gets a shiny new lacrosse stick. Thanks to technological advances, including computers, the Internet, cell phones, and satellites, today's children are faced with a world markedly more complex - and often more distracting - than that of any other preceding generation.

Make a lasting connection with your kid by learning how to effectively discuss life's most complicated topics. Tough Stuff Parenting will equip you to have thoughtful, age-appropriate conversations with your child. The biblically-based wisdom and practical tools you'll find inside will help you confidently engage your kid in meaningful dialogue. And when questions arise, your child will look to you first for answers instead of friends or the Internet.

Raising kids today is more challenging than it has ever been. Technology, social media, and the ever-shifting standards of what is right and wrong can make parenting in modern-day culture difficult to navigate. If we want to win the battle as parents, we need to have the desire to truly parent well.

You can swim confidently into the murky waters of parenting teens! Rescue offers wisdom, encouragement, and practical applications. Working with a group of young "lifeguards" throughout the audiobook, Candy Gibbs gives struggling parents the life preservers they need to rescue teens from a drowning culture. With Biblical insights and Candy's own creative techniques, Rescue is the "Noah's Ark" of parenting guides, ensuring that today's teens will carry on a legacy of godliness to generations to come.

When her father descends into madness, Verity Pruitt and her little sister Lilah find themselves uprooted from New York, on an orphan train to rural Arkansas. In Wheeler, Lilah is quickly adopted by the town’s beloved schoolteacher - but Verity is not. Willing to do anything to stay close, she pawns herself off as a farmhand, but even charming farm boy Abel Atchley can’t completely distract her from the sense that something is not quite right in this little town.

Lulu Saad doesn't need your advice, thank you very much. She's got her three best friends and nothing can stop her from conquering the known world. Sure, for half a minute she thought she’d nearly drowned a cute guy at a party, but he was totally faking it. And fine, yes, she caused a scene during Ramadan. It's all under control. Ish. Except maybe this time she’s done a little more damage than she realizes. And if Lulu can't find her way out of this mess soon, she'll have to do more than repair friendships, family alliances, and wet clothing. She'll have to go looking for herself.

From guiding caregivers through how to define their own non-negotiable values, to navigating tricky conversations with their in-laws, Please Yell at My Kids provides listeners with the inspiration and practical tools to build a community of care in their own lives and reimagine parenthood in a joyful new way.

Tamarind has never met her Indian mother, Chinty, who died shortly after she was born. But when her father remarries, Tamarindis sent to India to stay with the family she has never met, in their atmospheric ancestral home—a huge mansion high in the Himalaya mountains.