The best friend I ever had

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Sandra Lesher Stuban

Sandra Lesher Stuban has written an inspirational autobiography about dealing with a devastating medical diagnosis. She grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the daughter of a butcher who instilled in her the solid values she would use throughout her adult life. She attended nursing school in Philadelphia, and after graduation, she joined the Army. She shares her adventures as an Army nurse and her successful career as a military officer. She was serving as a Lieutenant Colonel, when, at the age of thirty-eight, she was diagnosed with a chronically progressive disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease. She was given a prognosis of two to three years to live, and was medically retired from the Army. She advanced quickly from being a strong, physically fit military officer, to being a ventilator dependent quadriplegic. She shares this journey of progressive paralysis along with her insights on living with a disability. Her perspective on the importance of family and friends, dependence on caregivers, raising a young son, and having a strong survivor's attitude, will be a source of inspiration for anyone facing such an obstacle in the road. She has lived with ALS for fourteen years, and still counting!

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edited and annotated by Mary A. Hill

Historian Mary A. Hill, who earlier chronicled the life and work of feminist theorist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, turns to the private side of Gilman in this annotated collection of love letters the activist wrote to her second husband, Houghton Gilman, from 1897 to their marriage in 1900. She wrote these twenty- to thirty-page letters on an almost daily basis, revealing a private and passionate side very different from the public career that had won her justifiable national and international acclaim. Although Gilman's published writings have understandably received considerable scholarly attention, her private letters have not yet received the attention they deserve. Hill puts the letters into biographical and historical context in an introductory essay that also explains their theoretical and historical importance. The edited and annotated letters then follow in chapters, each preceded by an introductory essay. The book concludes with a biographical sketch of the remaining thirty-five years of Gilman's life, together with an assessment of the letters' historical and biographical significance.

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Catherine Ross-Stroud

"Much has been written about the state of black adolescence - often from a sociological point of view situating black teens in an at-risk category. However, through her characters, young adult author Janet McDonald (1954-2007) presents the wide range of adolescent life. McDonald presents the multifarious views of society in relation to the self efficacious drive of urban teens to rise above their circumstances by any means necessary." "This book is a biocritical study of McDonald and her work as it relates to the contribution she has made to teen fiction. It explains McDonald's profoundly realistic fiction, which holds wide appeal for teens in search of answers to the coming of age mystery."--BOOK JACKET.

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Madeleine L'Engle

This journal shares fruitful reflections on life and career prompted by the author's visit to her personal place of retreat near her country home.