by Leslie Pietrzyk (2004)
Fifteen-year-old Alice dreams of her first kiss, has sleepovers, auditions for Our Town, and tries to pass high school biology. It's 1975, and at first look, her life would seem to be normal and unexceptional. But in the world that Leslie Pietrzyk paints, every moment she chronicles is revealed through the kaleidoscope of loss, stained by the fact that Alice's mother, without warning, note, or apology, deliberately parks her car on the railroad tracks, in the path of an oncoming train.In the emotional year that follows, Alice and her older brother find themselves in the care of their great aunt, forced to cope and move forward. Lonely and confused, Alice absorbs herself in her mother Annette's familiar rituals, trying to recapture their connection — only to be stunned by the sound of her mother's voice speaking to her, engaging Alice in "conversations" and offering some insight into the life that she had led, beyond her role as Alice's mother.
Charlotte Vale Allen
Lucinda Hunter has been a virtual recluse in a Connecticut farmhouse for 27 years. Katanya Taylor is a nine-year old from Harlem who is staying with a host family for two weeks and meets Lucinda while admiring her garden. Lucinda's acquaintance with Katanya prompts the older woman to reexamine her life.
David Clark
Over almost 10 years, the work of the Project on Death in America (PDIA) played a formative role in the advancement of end-of-life care in the US. The project concerned itself with adults and children, and with interests crossing boundaries between the clinical disciplines, the social sciences, arts, and humanities. PDIA engaged with the problems of resources in poor communities and marginalized groups and settings, and it attempted to foster collaboration across a range of sectors and organisations. This book examines the broad, ambitious conception of PDIA and assesses PDIA's contribution to the development of the palliative care field and to wider debates about end-of-life care within American society.
written and
Cleo Lovedrop is trying to be a good girlfriend for Myrtle, but things don't go quite as planned. Myrtle doesn't like Cleo being away from her, and when Cleo goes to a comic convention with Trilby, she ends up kissing her good friend Mara. Even though Cleo has vowed to not keep any more secrets, this seems like something she shouldn't tell anyone.
Louise Candlish
Anna has waited a long time to fall in love, and now that she has she doesn't intend to let the small matter of Charlie's mother stand in her way. Meredith Grainger is well-bred, highly cultured and impossible to impress. Anna hasn't even been allowed to meet her. Then Charlie leaves the country on business for the summer and Anna decides to take matters into her own hands, reinventing herself into the perfect, butter-wouldn't-melt new model. Garden parties, Sunday tennis, little vintage dresses from Laura Ashley - it all seems so easy. Until, that is, she decides to join Meredith on an Art Explorer's trip to Andalucia. There, she begins to wonder if she might be a little out of her depth after all.