"Why is 14-year-old David struggling to survive in one of the wealthiest countries on earth? We're living in a traumatized and traumatizing society that's dooming our children and families to lives without the basic services for surviving, let alone thriving. In David, Age 14 we explore how many of our vulnerable young people and parents are falling through the cracks in rural and urban America. Change agents and authors Dr. Katherine Ortega Courtney...

Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child -- the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment -- weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest...

"Nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan, Magnolia doesn't have much to look forward to. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, by her predatory landlord, by the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown. One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia's luck around. He offers her a lucrative "modeling" job at his family's funeral...

Two years after a tragedy saddles him with viral fame, twelve-year-old Simon O'Keeffe and his family move to Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, where the internet and cell phones are banned so astrophysicists can scan the sky for signs of alien life, and where, with the help of two new friends, a puppy, and a giant radio telescope, Simon plans to restart the narrative of his life.

"Do you know someone who seems to thrive on chaos, a person who manufactures crisis where there is none, makes mountains out of molehills, and whose very presence feels like an inescapable whirlwind? You may even label them a "drama queen." This person might be someone close to you. This person might even be you. In this groundbreaking book, clinical psychologist and mind-body expert Dr. Scott Lyons turns the notion of the "drama queen" on its head,...

" -A sister insists to her little brother that "Half the House Is Haunted" by a strange presence. But is it the house that's haunted-or their childhoods? -In "Argyle," a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder. -A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in "The Jupiter Drop," but the real journey is into his own dark past. -In "Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer," a...

"Few things get our compassion flowing like the sight of suffering. But our response is often shaped by our ability to empathize with others. Some people respond to the suffering of only humans or to one person's plight more than another's. Others react more strongly to the suffering of an animal. These divergent realities can be troubling -- but they are also a reminder that trauma and suffering are endured by all beings, and we can learn lessons...

"With research showing child maltreatment is substantiated for one in eight children in the US, it's clear Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), a broader category of experiences than just maltreatment, are at an epidemic scale in our society ... The authors' main thesis, quite simply, is that protecting all our children is entirely possible, but only when we know the scope of the challenges families face. The book provides a detailed, data-driven...

"Ellen's stopped talking. She thinks she may have killed her dad. Her brother's barricaded himself in his room. Their mother, a successful actress, carries on as normal. We're a family of light! she insists. But darkness seeps in everywhere and in their separate worlds each of them longs for togetherness. Welcome to America is a scintillating portrait of a sensitive, strong-willed child in the throes of trauma, a family on the brink of implosion,...

"Sydney appears to be a normal, rudderless, suburban 15-year-old freshman. But she harbors a secret that threatens to overwhelm her."--Page [4] of cover.