Life Age

Whistling in the Dark captivated readers with the story of 10-year-old Sally O'Malley and her sister, Troo, during Milwaukee's summer of 1959. In Good Graces, it's one year later, and a heat wave has everyone in the close-knit Milwaukee neighborhood on edge - none more so than Sally O'Malley, who remains deeply traumatized by the sudden death of her daddy and her near escape from a murderer and molester the previous summer.

Mere Hope offers the core, Christ-centered perspective that all Christians share, and that Christians alone have to offer a world filled with frustration, pain, and disappointment. The spirit of the age is cynicism. When our leaders, our families, and our friends let us down at every turn, this isn't surprising. But we need another perspective; we need hope. Rather than reflecting resigned despair or distracted indifference, author Jason Duesing argues, our lives ought to be shaped by the gospel of Jesus - a gospel of hope.

After a lifetime of abuse, 9-year-old Rusty Travis and his older brother, Bo, decide their father must be stopped when, in a drunken rage, he goes after their 6-year-old sister. After their vengeance is complete, they seek refuge in the tall oak forest where they stumble upon a mysterious runaway orphan. This leads to uncovering secrets about themselves and their family they never imagined leading Rusty to question everything he thought he knew. With his brother by his side, they battle with the demons that shatter their world in the sleepy town of Plum Springs.

When all the fish vanish from the waters and the cod industry abruptly collapses, it's not long before the residents are forced to leave the island in search of work, and 10-year-old Finn Connor suddenly finds himself living in a ghost town. There's no school, no friends, and whole rows of houses stand abandoned. Then, Finn's parents announce that they must separate if their family is to survive. But Finn still has his sister, with whom he counts the dwindling boats on the coast at night, and Mrs. Callaghan, who teaches him the strange and ancient melodies of their native Ireland.

Against the mythical dreamscape of America, Auster brilliantly weaves the bizarre narrative of Marco Stanley Fogg, an orphan searching for love, his father, and the key to the riddle of his origin and fate.

Like stars in the night sky, freckles are scattered across Allegra Bird’s arms, a legacy from her beloved father. Her legacy from her mother is more complicated–until one question from a stranger inspires a change. What if it isn’t about fitting in, but finding the people who make you who you are? Who would those people be? As she searches for connection, Allegra is about to find out that it is our differences that make life worth living–if only someone can help you to join the dots . . .

Soy Maya Vidal, diecinueve años, sexo femenino, soltera, sin un enamorado, por falta de oportunidades y no por quisquillosa, nacida en Berkeley, California, pasaporte estadounidense, temporalmente refugiada en una isla al sur del mundo. Me pusieron Maya porque a mi Nini le atrae la India y a mis padres no se les ocurrió otro nombre, aunque tuvieron nueve meses para pensarlo. En hindi, maya significa "hechizo, ilusión, sueño".

The daughter of a Danish immigrant and a black G.I., Rachel survives a family tragedy only to face new challenges. Sent to live with her strict African-American grandmother in a racially divided Northwest city, she must suppress her grief and reinvent herself in a mostly black community. A beauty with light brown skin and blue eyes, she attracts much attention in her new home. The world wants to see her as either black or white, but that's not how she sees herself.

In 1987, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was 15, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Blume experienced in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and exciting and everyone dreamed of going somewhere, she paints a vivid portrait of a particular time and place....

Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, 10-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading but needs Lucy's help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly antigay classes with celebrity Pastor Bob. Lucy stumbles into a moral dilemma when she finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a knapsack of provisions and an escape plan.

The grandfather of the NDE (near death experience) movement, Raymond Moody has, in the words of Dr. Larry Dossey, author of The Power of Premonitions, "radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife." Paranormal, essential listening for fans of Dannion Brinkley and Jeffrey Long, is "a thrilling and inspiring literary experience. Anyone who is not grateful for Moody's immense contribution to human welfare ought to check his pulse."

Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicating novel of youth well spent. Isa Epley is all of 21 years old and already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. She arrives in New York City for a summer of adventure with her best friend, one newly blonde Gala Novak. They have little money, but that’s hardly going to stop them from having a good time.

More than eight centuries after his death, Saladin's life and reign represent the pinnacle of the Arab world's glory. Saladin is widely considered one of the greatest generals in history and one of the most famous leaders of the Middle Ages, but he remains a paradox, both in personal and in historical terms. A military genius, he first served other generals and was overshadowed later in life by his greatest rival, Richard I of England. He was far more admired by his Christian enemies, who extolled his chivalry, than some of his Muslim rivals.

Willa Chen has never quite fit in. Growing up as a biracial Chinese American girl in New Jersey, Willa felt both hypervisible and unseen, too Asian to fit in at her mostly White school, and too White to speak to the few Asian kids around. After her parents’ early divorce, they both remarried and started new families, and Willa grew up feeling outside of their new lives, too.

Mack Sutton is a normal guy who just happens to attend a very abnormal school. In a college where the pretty girls can kill you with a whisper and most of the guys can bench press a car, Mack and his sister Jetta are just run of the mill people—or are they?

A hungry, stray dog is the last thing Cara Butter needs. Stranded in Georgia with only her backpack and a few dwindling dollars, she already has too much baggage. Like her twin sister, Hana, who has broken Cara's heart one too many times. After a lifetime of family troubles, and bouncing from one foster home to another, Cara decides to leave it all behind and strike out alone - on foot.

When 13-year-old Mia finally reveals a closely-guarded secret, it soon echoes throughout her school. She was born with synesthesia, a neurological cross-wiring that lets her see sounds, taste shapes, and smell colors. To Mia, the letter A glows with faded sunflower-yellow, screeching chalk sizzles with jagged red sparks, and her cat's voice puffs with orange-mango haze. How can Mia "the alien" find acceptance and self-worth?

Art therapy is used across the world to help people explore more about themselves and discover how they can let go of worries, be in the present, and enjoy a sense of calm. Explore different materials and forms of expression so you can find something that you really enjoy doing. Art isn’t just about painting and drawing–it is so much more than that!

Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother’s scientific expedition. But there’s a lot about their lives lately that hasn’t been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either. Now in Siberia with a bunch of serious biologists, Eve and Vera are just bored enough to cause trouble. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting.

Sally O'Malley made a promise to her daddy before he died. She swore she'd look after her sister, Troo. Keep her safe. But like her Granny always said, actions speak louder than words. And Sally would have to agree with her.