A Cry of Innocence


Book Description

For Ijeoma, it's an ordinary afternoon. She's curled up in a comfy chair, reading a novel, and enjoying her time off from school. Then her mother storms into the room and asks a question that will change the teenage girl's life forever: "Are you a witch?" Dumbfounded by the ridiculous charge, Ijeoma further learns that her classmate, a beautiful young girl named Adaugo, is dead. But before she died, Adaugo confessed to being a witch, and claimed that Ijeoma was one, as well. Ijeoma vehemently denies this charge, but her mother does not believe her. Worse, neither does her beloved father. Their entire Nigerian village soon hears of the charge, and Ijeoma is judged accordingly. Helpless, vulnerable, naïve, and inexperienced, Ijeoma is abandoned by her loved ones and forced to face the indignities of those who want her punished. But in the midst of the ashes of her life, Ijeoma clings to her faith and determines to discover the truth behind the deceit. Intense and thought-provoking, A Cry of Innocence reveals the tragic consequences suffered by those falsely accused and serves as a stark reminder of society's responsibility to the truth.




The Giving Tree


Book Description

As The Giving Tree turns fifty, this timeless classic is available for the first time ever in ebook format. This digital edition allows young readers and lifelong fans to continue the legacy and love of a classic that will now reach an even wider audience. "Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy." So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. This moving parable for all ages offers a touching interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein's incomparable career as a bestselling children's book author and illustrator began with Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. He is also the creator of picture books including A Giraffe and a Half, Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros?, The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and the perennial favorite The Giving Tree, and of classic poetry collections such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, Every Thing On It, Don't Bump the Glump!, and Runny Babbit. And don't miss the other Shel Silverstein ebooks, Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic!




Someone Cry for the Children


Book Description




Innocent Spouse


Book Description

What would you do if, just weeks after your spouse's sudden death, you found out he was keeping secrets? Big secrets. Secrets that could cost you millions of dollars—and brand you as a criminal. Innocent Spouse is an eye-opening memoir that asks a provocative and disturbing question: Is it possible to really know and trust someone, even your spouse? Carol Ross Joynt was a successful television producer in Washington, D.C. Her husband, Howard, owned Nathans, a legendary restaurant in Georgetown. From an outsider’s perspective, Carol and Howard lived a fairy-tale life—spending weekends at their Chesapeake Bay estate, rubbing shoulders with New York’s and Washington’s elite, and raising their beloved son, Spencer. But everything changed with Howard’s sudden death when Spencer was only five years old. Like any widow, Carol was devastated because she lost the love of her life and her son’s father. But soon Carol had much more to cope with than her grief and new life as a single parent. As she was forced to take over her family’s legal and financial responsibilities, as well as run Howard’s restaurant on her own, Carol discovered that her husband had secrets, and one of them, an almost $3 million debt to the IRS, threatened to derail her entire life. And even though Carol didn’t know anything about the tax fraud—finances had always been Howard's department—no one cared. As his surviving spouse, legally, Carol was responsible. In Innocent Spouse, Carol shares her harrowing struggles with the IRS, as manipulative business colleagues and lawyers assumed the worst of her and friends turned their backs when her name became associated with scandal. Fighting to maintain a stable life for her son, Carol had to figure out how to preserve Spencer’s happy memories of his father, even as their lives were shattered by his deceptions and lies. But as Carol picks up the pieces of her fractured life and copes with her sadness and anger, she learns to become something she’d never been before: self-sufficient. Poignant, eye-opening, and at times heartbreaking, Innocent Spouse is ultimately an inspiring story of strength and newfound independence in the face of loss and betrayal.




Guilty until Proven Innocent


Book Description

Until now, Quiote' was working hard to find ways elevate her self-esteem, get her children back, and earn liberation from living the street life. She has fought through every failed step in surviving this journey called life: physical and mental abuse, children kidnapped and taken away, feeling unloved by family, homelessness, and finally accepting she had no one who really cared about her. Through it all, she held on to a small flicker of light; she did believe in God. Although she did not understand why it did not make her life better, holding on to that sliver of hope is why she is still alive. But then a quick turn of events by a sudden, unexpected visitor turns Quiote's life upside down yet again. Now she is running for her life with nowhere to turn. Will she survive this time? Will her little light of hope be enough to show her the way out yet again? "About three things I was positive about: First, God so loved the world that He gave His only son. Second, He told me He did not want me to suffer, and I didn't know how important that might be, that unconditional love. Third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Him, although I didn't understand fully what it meant" (Quiote).




Indians Don't Cry


Book Description

George Kenny is an Anishinaabe poet and playwright who learned traditional ways from his parents before being sent to residential school in 1958. When Kenny published his first book, 1982’s Indians Don’t Cry, he joined the ranks of Indigenous writers such as Maria Campbell, Basil Johnston, and Rita Joe whose work melded art and political action. Hailed as a landmark in the history of Indigenous literature in Canada, this new edition is expected to inspire a new generation of Anishinaabe writers with poems and stories that depict the challenges of Indigenous people confronting and finding ways to live within urban settler society. Indians Don’t Cry: Gaawin Mawisiiwag Anishinaabeg is the second book in the First Voices, First Texts series, which publishes lost or underappreciated texts by Indigenous artists. This new bi-lingual edition includes a translation of Kenny’s poems and stories into Anishinaabemowin by Pat Ningewance and an afterword by literary scholar Renate Eigenbrod.




Now Can I Cry?


Book Description

Rainey was born during the great depression in a rural country in Arkansas. She was born of a sickly, prostitute mother, who lived with a grandmother on a small, hard scrabble piece of farmland. Their situation was so dire, with the mother knowing she had not long to live, and the grandmother too old to attempt to raise a child under such difficult circumstances, the mother reluctantly offers Rainey up for adoption. (This was not uncommon during the depression when children were shunted off to relatives or neighbors.) Given first to another farm family, which by today's standards would be considered dysfunctional, she runs away at the age of six. She eventually ends up with a group of women, mostly old-maid schoolteachers, who make some attempt to restore a degree of normalcy to the child's life. This is the nearest thing to a functional family she would ever know, but an unfortunate and ill-advised wartime marriage, once again, turns her on the wrong road of life. She goes through a series of misfortunes, including a jail term, before she eventually meets the love of her life. But once again, fate is cruel to her because he is married. She has an illegitimate child by him and, knowing he cannot marry her, leaves him with no forwarding address. She returns to the area of her childhood, where he, now single, eventually finds her, and in true romance fashion, they are brought together and supposedly live happily-ever-after.