To First Be Friends

Sample

H. Svi Shapiro

Education and Hope in Troubled Times brings together a group of the best and most creative educational thinkers to reflect on the purpose and future of public education. These original essays by leading social and educational commentators in North America attempt to articulate a new vision for education, especially public education, and begin to set an alternative direction. This is a time of crisis, but also of renewed possibility--one that offers the opportunity to radically reconsider what is the meaning of education for a generation that will bear the brunt of grappling with the extraordinary dangers and challenges we confront today. At its core this volume questions what will it mean to be an educated human being in the 21st century compelled to confront and address so much that threatens the very basis of a decent and hopeful human existence. Carrying forward a project of redefining and reshaping public discourse on education in the U.S., it is a critical catalyst and focus for re-thinking public policy on education. --Publisher description.

Sample

Tony Black

Australia is the Lucky Country, and Joey Driscol knows it. It's a far cry from his native Ireland, but he believes this is the place he and his wife Shauna can make a new life and forget the troubles of the past. For a time, they do just that, and soon welcome their son Marti into the family. But as the years pass, this new life thousands of miles from the Old Country comes under threat. Joey's wife has been struggling with demons of her own, their marriage is on the rocks and suddenly, Shauna disappears and takes Marti with her. Joey is beside himself, with no clues about where they are, with both his childhood sweetheart and his son – his pride and joy – now missing. Then, when Joey gets word that his wife and son have returned to Ireland, he knows that he'll now have to do the same if he ever wants to see them again. And he also knows that he'll finally have to confront the ghosts of his past that he's been running from for years. His Father's Son is a touching and beautiful story of a family struggling to come to terms with their past, their present and an uncertain future.

Sample

Kathleen Eagle

Miguel Hidalgo had been left for dead by the minions of De Colores's evil dictator, but he was very much alive--and determined to exact revenge and return his country to freedom. But even a man of Miguel's determination and talents couldn't accomplish that alone. He needed Veronica Harper. Ronnie had flown into De Colores on a mission of mercy only to find herself hijacked at gunpoint, forced to fly the handsomest man she'd ever seen to safety. Soon guns were no longer necessary, because once Ronnie heard Miguel's story she was eager to help him rescue his island home, and even more eager to spend the future by his side.

Sample

Elizabeth Nunez

"Justin Peters is a Harvard-educated professor of British and classic literature who reads Shakespeare to his four-year-old daughter, Giselle. A native of Trinidad and the product of a strict, English-style education, Justin and his focus on the works of "Dead White Men" receive little professional respect at the public Brooklyn college where he teaches. But whatever troubles he might have at work are eclipsed when he realizes his wife, Sally, has begun to pull away from him, both physically and emotionally." "Harlem-born Sally Peters, a mother on the verge of turning forty, is a primary school teacher who believes that joy is a learned skill, and that it takes strength to be happy. After a life of tragic losses, Sally thought she had finally found that strength when she met Justin.". "But now Sally wants something more. And Justin is angered by her uncertainty about their life and frightened by the thought that perhaps Sally never stopped loving the ex-boyfriend for whom she wrote fierce poems. Is he, Justin wonders, responsible for helping Sally find meaning in her life - a life that seems to him most fortunate? If Sally and Justin's union is to survive, both must face the rippling echoes of their own pasts before those memories forever cloud and alter their future."--BOOK JACKET.