Learn about Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of the Special Olympics who wanted to give everyone the opportunity to play the sports they love. This nonfiction book explores how she created places for athletes with disabilities to shine. Ideal for young readers, this book includes a fiction story related to the topic, discussion questions, an additional project, and other meaningful features. This 24-page full-color book describes the life and legacy of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. It also covers important topics such as acceptance and inclusivity, and includes an extension activity for Grade 1. Perfect for the classroom, at-home learning, or homeschool to learn about people with disabilities, amazing athletes, and leadership.

Essays from a Native American grandfather to help navigate life's difficult experiences. Offered in the oral traditions of the Nez Perce, Native American writer W. S. Penn records the conversations he held with his granddaughter, lovingly referred to as ""Bean,"" as he guided her toward adulthood while confronting society's interest in possessions, fairness, and status. Drawing on his own family history and Native mythology, Penn charts a way through life where each endeavor is a journey-an opportunity to love, to learn, or to interact-rather than the means to a prize at the end. Divided into five parts, Penn addresses topics such as the power of words, race and identity, school, and how to be. In the essay "In the Nick of Names," Penn takes an amused look at the words we use for people and how their power, real or imagined, can alter our perception of an entire group. To Have and On Hold is an essay about wanting to assimilate into a group but at the risk of losing a good bit of yourself. "A Harvest Moon" is a humorous anecdote about a Native grandfather visiting his granddaughter's classroom and the absurdities of being a professional Indian. "Not Nobody" uses "Be All that You Can Be Week" at Bean's school to reveal the lessons and advantages of being a "nobody." In "From Paper to Person," Penn imagines the joy that may come to Bean when she spends time with her Paper People-three-foot-tall drawings, mounted on stiff cardboard-and as she grows into a young woman like her mom, able to say she is a person who is happy with what she has and not sorry for what she doesn't. Comical and engaging, the essays in Raising Bean will appeal to readers of all backgrounds and interests, especially those with a curiosity in language, perception, humor, and the ways in which Native people guide their families and friends with stories.

A fun, sophisticated illustrated collection of essays that catalogs the simple and not so simple pleasures of the eclectic world of candy from the award-winning author of After the Eclipse. With illustrations by Forsyth Harmon.

A taxonomy of sweetness, a rhapsody of artificial flavors, and a multi-faceted theory of pleasure, Sweet Nothings is made up of one hundred illustrated micro essays organized by candy color, from the red of Pop Rocks to the purple Jelly Bonbon in the Whitman’s Sampler. Each entry is a meditation on taste and texture, a memory unlocked. Everyone’s favorites—and least favorites—are carefully considered, including Snickers and Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups, as well as the beloved Good n’ Plenty and Werther’s Originals.

An expert guide and exquisite writer, Sarah Perry asks such pressing questions as: Twizzlers or Red Vines? Why are Mentos eaters so maniacally happy? And in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, how could Edmund sell out his siblings for, of all things, Turkish delight? She rejects the dreaded “What is your favorite candy?” question and counters: Under what circumstances? F The question itself is flawed—favorite under what circumstances? In what weather? On the road, or at home? In what mood? For candy is inextricably tied to the seasons of our lives. Sweet Nothings moves associatively, touching on pop culture, art, culinary history, philosophy, body image, and class-based food moralism. It challenges the very idea of “junk” food and posits taking pleasure seriously as a means of survival.

Sarah Perry’s pure love of candy weaves together elegiac glimpses of her 90s childhood—and the loss at its center—with stories of love and desire. Surprisingly smart and frequently funny, Sweet Nothings is a tart and sweet ode to finding small joys where you can. Yes, even in black licorice.

The first time Ravi Shankar was arrested, he spoke out against racist policing on National Public Radio and successfully sued the city of New York. The second time, he was incarcerated when his promotion to full professor was finalized. During his ninety-day pretrial confinement at the Hartford Correctional Center--a level 4, high-security urban jail in Connecticut--he met men who shared harrowing and heart-felt stories. The experience taught him about the persistence of structural racism, the limitations of mass media, and the pervasive traumas of twenty-first-century daily life. Shankar's bold and complex self-portrait--and portrait of America--challenges us to rethink our complicity in the criminal justice system and mental health policies that perpetuate inequity and harm. Correctional dives into the inner workings of his mind and heart, framing his unexpected encounters with law and order through the lenses of race, class, privilege, and his bicultural upbringing as the first and only son of South Indian immigrants. Vignettes from his early life set the scene for his spectacular fall and subsequent struggle to come to terms with his own demons. Many of them, it turns out, are also our own.

From beloved spiritual writer and Catholic leader Gregory Floyd comes a moving meditation on the power of memory and how God is often more clearly seen when we look back. This is a book about memory, about what stays in the mind, and why. It is a book about the presence of God in our lives and the sights, sounds, words, and experiences that become unforgettable. Beginning with a single word he heard in the middle of the night-one that changed his life-this powerful memoir by Gregory Floyd asks the question: without memory, who are we? It is a meditation on beauty, marriage, family, and prayer, asking of the memories that each implants: what do they reveal? Where do they lead? -and witnessing to their potential to draw us to God.

Learn about Clara Barton, a nurse and founder of the American Red Cross, with this exciting nonfiction book. Ideal for young readers, the book includes a short fiction piece related to the topic, an additional project, discussion questions, and other useful features. This 20-page full-color book details the life and legacy of Clara Barton using historical images and grade-level text. It also covers important topics such as leadership and volunteerism, and includes an extension activity for kindergarten. Perfect for the classroom, at-home learning, or homeschool to learn about American leaders, helping others, and U.S. History.

This nonfiction book gives students a close-up look at Congressman and activist John Lewis, who inspired important change in America with his fight for equal justice. Perfect for young readers, the book also includes a glossary and a short fiction piece related to the topic. With an extension activity and other helpful features, this book teaches students that one person can make a difference in their community and their country. Explore the life of John Lewis with easy-to-read text and exciting pictures. This 32-page full-color book covers important ideas like civic duty and responsibilities and includes an extension activity for grade 3. Perfect for the classroom, at-home learning, or homeschool to explore the civil rights movement, American leaders, and U.S. history.

33,000 PAGES

44 MILLION WORDS

10 BILLION YEARS OF HISTORY

1 OBSESSED MAN

Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), "The Know-It-All" chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" from A to Z.

To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.

With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, "The Know-It-All" recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life -- from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at "Esquire." Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavors to join Mensa, win a spot on "Jeopardy!, " and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and the paralyzing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility -- the impending birth of his first child.

"The Know-It-All" is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.

A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual questions while taking the reader on a wild ride from the deep American South to the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. Once the golden girl of her Arkansas town, Natalie finds herself squeezed under small town shame and rejection after being kicked out of church for getting a divorce. It's a hard fall off of a sanctimonious high horse, and religious fundamentalism has left her feeling broken and stuck. But she can't shake the 'wanderlust woes' that have plagued her since childhood, so she runs away to the Middle East. As a mostly-sheltered Southerner, she struggles to adapt but is determined to be 'at home' in the world. Her journey is more than a pilgrimage, it's a peregrination: a one-way ticket to elsewhere in search of the place of her own resurrection. Within these pages is a suspenseful adventure filled with love, loss, laughter, tears, and a little bit of scandalous behavior, but at the heart of it, Natalie walks squarely into the unknown to confront the secret matters of the soul that we wrestle with at night.

Louis, a self trained photorapher , grew up on a smallholding north east of Pretoria in South Africa. Louis qualified in the field of commerce and followed a corporate career in a large financial services organisation . At the age of 40, Louis started to take photography, his hobby for many years, more seriously.

He enrolled for varies courses and did a lot of self studying on the subject. Louis discovered the value of photography as a medium to communicate without words and how to paint stories with light. He became passionate about photographing remote landscapes, places and ordinary people. Over the last 20 years, Louis has participated in several solo and group exhibitions. He exhibits permanently in Price Albert, his hometown, and shares his passion for photography with others during workshops .

Carrie Kills A Man* is about growing up in a world that doesn't want you, and about how it feels to throw a hand grenade into a perfect life. It's the story of how a tattooed transgender rock singer killed a depressed suburban dad, and of the lessons you learn when you renounce all your privilege and power. When more people think they've seen a ghost than met a trans person, it's easy for bad actors to exploit that - and they do, as you can see from the headlines and online. But here's the reality, from someone who's living it. From coming out and navigating trans parenthood to the thrills of gender-bending pop stars, fashion disasters and looking like Velma Dinkley, this is a tale of ripping it up and starting again: Carrie's story in all its fearless, frank and funny glory. *"Spoiler: That man was me." - Carrie

In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three and halfway through her architecture studies, Elspeth Beard left her family and friends in London and set off on a 35,000-mile solo adventure around the world on her 1974 BMW R60/6. Reeling from a recent breakup and with only limited savings from her pub job, a tent, a few clothes and some tools, all packed on the back of her bike, she was determined to prove herself. She had ridden bikes since her teens and was well travelled. But nothing could prepare her for what lay ahead. When she returned to London nearly two and a half years later she was stones lighter and decades wiser. She'd ridden through unforgiving landscapes and countries ravaged by war, witnessed civil uprisings that forced her to fake documents, and fended off sexual attacks, biker gangs and corrupt police convinced she was trafficking drugs. She'd survived life-threatening illnesses, personal loss and brutal accidents that had left permanent scars and a black hole in her memory. And she'd fallen in love with two very different men. In an age before email, the internet, mobile phones, satnavs and, in some parts of the world, readily available and reliable maps, Elspeth achieved something that would still seem remarkable today. Told with honesty and wit, this is the extraordinary and moving story of a unique and life-changing adventure.

WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES ALAN PATON AWARD

On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa's oldest and most reviled prison gang, for decades rumoured to have specialised in rape and robbery. In front of him lay the prospect of a law-abiding future, and life in a household of eight adults and six children, none of whom earned a living. Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences.

The Number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg's journeys to the places and people of Wentzel's past. Wentzel had lived a bewilderingly schizophrenic life, wandering to and fro between three worlds: the arcane universe of prison gangs, steeped in a mythology of banditry and retribution, where he was known as JR; the fringes of South Africa's criminal economy, where he lived by a string of stolen names and learned the arts of commercial fraud; and his scattered family which eked out a living int the coloured ghettos of the Cape flats. The Number visits each of those worlds in turn. It is a tale of modern South Africa's historic events seen through the eyes of the country's underclass.

Surprisingly, perhaps, it is neither a story of passivity nor despair, but of beguiling ingenuity and cool cynicism. Most of all, the book is an account of memory and identity, of Wentzel's project to make some sense of his bewildering past and something worthy of his future. When Steinberg met him, Wentzel was embarking on a quest to retrieve the name he had been given at birth. He was also beginning the daunting task of gathering together the estranged children he had sired into a nuclear family. It was an eccentric and painful venture for a man with his past, but it has led him to construct an account of himself that begs to be told.