Excellentia is g’n gewone skool nie. Die plek is vol geheime en tradisies wat Quinn se hare laat rys. Maar sy is nie daar om te integreer nie – sy is daar om te leer. Ongelukkig is die lewe nie so voorspelbaar soos ’n chemie-eksperiment nie. En soms maak dit nie saak wat jy doen nie, die moeilikheid kom soek jou.

Queerness is everywhere and it always has been. But queer stories, culture and communities have been often hidden . . .

Queerbook is an invitation to discover and celebrate queer joy, past and present. It’s a whistlestop tour of all the fun (and serious) queer stuff that the foghorn of straight culture drowns out, and that you deserve to know: heroes and histories, science and stories, art, spaces, music, film, TV, fashion – along with jargon-free breakdowns of terms from sexuality and gender identity, to code-switching, intersectionality, bi-erasure, straightwashing, and much, much more.

You don’t need any specific interests to read Queerbook – all you need is curiosity and a desire to learn more about what it means to be LGBTQ+. So, say no to the Straightrix and enter the technicolour world over the rainbow . . .

Ready? Queer we go!

Meet Minna and learn about the concept of masking in this inclusive picture book for young children

This heart-warming and inclusive picture book introduces the concept of masking to young children neurodivergent or otherwise.

Meet Minna. When Minna needs to fool brave, she wears a mask, when she meets new people, she wears a mask. On Minna's first day at a new school, she malises she's left her masks at home and starts to feel very nervous indeed. Things are too loud and too noisy-what if she says the wrong thing or does something silly? But when a classmate shows Minna the mask in his back pocket, she realises she's not alone. Perhaps it is possible to be accepted-with or without a mask.

Masking is used by people to help them fit in or adjust to situations where they may otherwise feel insecure, or unsure. Through Minna's story, readers will leam about about masking as well as important lessons about empathy and compassion.

From Louise Gooding, author of Wonderfully Wired Brains, which was Highly Commended at The Week Junior book awards, comes this vibrant and inclusive picture book series of Wonderfully Wired Stories that sensitively explores a range of neurodivergent experiences. Each book comes with expert guidance to help caregivers discuss big topics with their little leamers.

After years working in children's entertainment, Louise Gooding channelled her creativity into writing. Louise has a keen interest in sharing stories that feature characters that stand out, are different, and who have something to say. Inspired by stories from her own experiences and those of her family, she took up writing to find a way of discussing neurological and physical diversity, and how to explore other sensitive issues within children's books.

Irina Avgustinovich is a children's book illustrator from Belarus, now based in Portugal. Despite having a bachelor's degree in classical painting and ceramics, she found herself in children's illustration many years ago.

- AWARD CONTENDER: Author Louise Gooding's first book with DK-Wonderfully Wired Brains was highly commended in The Week Junior Book Awards 2024, Children's Book of the Year: STEM STEM category
- TOPICAL: "E's estimated that about one person in seven in the UK is neurodivergent" (The Donaldson Trust, 2024), with the impact felt in many families and classrooms
- AUTHOR EXPERTISE Louise Gooding is an Inclusive Minds Ambassador and neurodiversity advocate with first-hand experience of neurodiversity, including ADHD and autism
- STORY OF ACCEPTANCE: When Minna forgets to take her masks to school she feels overwhelmed, but she leams that it is possible to feel brave, calm, and accepted with or without her masks

Women who have maintained their sexual purity often ask, "Is it "really" that important for me to wait until I get married?" Meanwhile, single women who have been sexually active mourn the loss of their innocence, wishing they could somehow start again.
Women want to protect the purity that is God's gift to them, and they also long to be loved. This volatile combination makes them vulnerable to temptation. That is why it is vital that women know not only that God wants them to wait, but "why" God wants them to do so. They need solid reasons, conviction, and a strategy that will prepare them to live out their sexual purity as God intends.
Filled with powerful true stories of hope and healing, "Gift-Wrapped by God" provides compelling emotional and spiritual reasons for choosing God's path of sexual purity, as well as practical help for following it. Whether women have held onto their sexual innocence, have become prematurely sexually active, or have had their purity taken by force, they "can "express and fulfill their desire to come to their wedding day--and live out every day--sexually pure and whole.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Growing up with undiagnosed OCD sure isn’t easy, and here Pan Cooke shares his own experiences with that condition in a graphic-novel memoir that is as funny as it is powerfully candid and openhearted.

Pan Cooke is ten years old when anxious thoughts begin to take over his brain like pieces of an impossible puzzle. What if he blurts out a swear word while in church? What if he accidentally writes something mean in his classmate’s get-well card? What if his friend’s racy photo of a supermodel ends up in his own homework and is discovered by his teacher? More and more, he becomes hijacked by fears that can only be calmed through exhausting, time-consuming rituals.

Pan has no way of knowing that this anxiety puzzle and the stressful attempts to solve it are evidence of a condition called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is his story of living with and eventually learning about OCD. Told with endearing honesty and humor, Puzzled shows the reader the importance of empathy for oneself and those going through something they don’t yet understand.