Release My Grip


Book Description

Saying goodbye to a child as they leave the nest and learn to fly ushers parents into an emotional time of grief, joy and nostalgia. Release My Grip, by popular blogger Kami Gilmour, offers inspiration and practical insight as she reveals the surprising truth she learned while knee-deep in this sacred season of parenthood. Often humorous and always honest and hope-filled, these stories have equipped and encouraged the hearts of millions on the popular SoulFeed blog. In this keepsake book, you'll discover how this time can be fertile ground for deepening your relationship with Jesus. You'll also gain the practical tools you need to help you pause, reflect, and capture the words on your heart during your own unique journey as a parent of a young adult fledgling--from high school graduation through the years that follow. With every chapter of Release My Grip, you'll find: - Compelling reflection questions that draw you into the peace of God's presence and promise, gently shifting your focus from the loss you feel to the richness and hope of a new season that's just beginning. - Relevant Scriptures to ponder--words that reveal God's heart, bringing relief and hope in the midst of wondering and worrying. - Practical challenges that help you adjust to the rhythm of life's "new normal" and maintain meaningful connection with your young adult child. - Journaling spaces that make it easy to capture your letting-go journey as it unfolds, making this book a treasured keepsake to reflect back upon.




My Best Friend


Book Description

An NPR Best Book of the Year! New York Times bestselling author Julie Fogliano and Caldecott Honor winner Jillian Tamaki come together to tell a delightful story of first friendship. she is my best friend i think i never had a best friend so i’m not sure but i think she is a really good best friend because when we were drawing she drew me and i drew her. What is a best friend, if not someone who laughs with you the whole entire day, especially when you pretend to be a pickle? This pitch-perfect picture book is a sweetly earnest, visually stunning celebration of the magic of friendship.




Classroom of the Elite: Year 2 (Light Novel) Vol. 9.5


Book Description

The second winter vacation at the Advanced Nurturing High School has arrived at last! But Ayanokouji's Christmas plans with Karuizawa fall through when she comes down with the flu, leaving him to spend the holidays alone... Or so he thinks, but the other classes' leaders won't stop blowing up his phone! Meanwhile Ayanokouji himself seems to have become the subject of gossip and speculation, as his classmates wonder: is he hiding something?




Grown and Flown


Book Description

PARENTING NEVER ENDS. From the founders of the #1 site for parents of teens and young adults comes an essential guide for building strong relationships with your teens and preparing them to successfully launch into adulthood The high school and college years: an extended roller coaster of academics, friends, first loves, first break-ups, driver’s ed, jobs, and everything in between. Kids are constantly changing and how we parent them must change, too. But how do we stay close as a family as our lives move apart? Enter the co-founders of Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington. In the midst of guiding their own kids through this transition, they launched what has become the largest website and online community for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds. Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into this handy, must-have guide. Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars. Consider this your parenting lifeline: an easy-to-use manual that offers support and perspective. Grown and Flown is required reading for anyone looking to raise an adult with whom you have an enduring, profound connection.




Instant Friends


Book Description

On a drizzly, blustery day in January of 1942, four young Mello brothers, from Woburn, Massachusetts, hop aboard a Boston & Maine Budd Liner and head into Boston for one last fling before shipping off to fight in the Second World War. Their first stop is a small raucous bar in Scollay Square called the Red Hat, where they encounter three others also celebrating before two of them, brothers named Jack and Joe Kennedy, go off to war. Jack Kennedy links up with one of the Mello brothers, Danny, and the two young men from opposite ends of the social and economic scales begin what would become an unforgettable bar-hopping journey. Along the way, forging a unique, instant friendship, Danny and Jack reveal their deepest secrets and end up imparting some valuable lessons about life, including possibly the starkest of all. No matter how hard you try to control the direction of your life, your journey's end may just be inexorably foreordained.




The Opposite of Loneliness


Book Description

The instant New York Times bestseller and publishing phenomenon: Marina Keegan’s posthumous collection of award-winning essays and stories “sparkles with talent, humanity, and youth” (O, The Oprah Magazine). Marina Keegan’s star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at The New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Marina left behind a rich, deeply expansive trove of writing that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. Her short story “Cold Pastoral” was published on NewYorker.com. Her essay “Even Artichokes Have Doubts” was excerpted in the Financial Times, and her book was the focus of a Nicholas Kristof column in The New York Times. Millions of her contemporaries have responded to her work on social media. As Marina wrote: “We can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over…We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.” The Opposite of Loneliness is an unforgettable collection of Marina’s essays and stories that articulates the universal struggle all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be and how we can harness our talents to impact the world. “How do you mourn the loss of a fiery talent that was barely a tendril before it was snuffed out? Answer: Read this book. A clear-eyed observer of human nature, Keegan could take a clever idea...and make it something beautiful” (People).




Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country


Book Description

Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country is a collection of interviews with residents of Benton County, Mississippi—an area with a long and fascinating civil rights history. The product of more than twenty-five years of work by the Hill Country Project, this volume examines a revolutionary period in American history through the voices of farmers, teachers, sharecroppers, and students. No other rural farming county in the American South has yet been afforded such a deep dive into its civil rights experiences and their legacies. These accumulated stories truly capture life before, during, and after the movement. The authors’ approach places the region’s history in context and reveals everyday struggles. African American residents of Benton County had been organizing since the 1930s. Citizens formed a local chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s and ’50s. One of the first Mississippi counties to get a federal registrar under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Benton achieved the highest per capita total of African American registered voters in Mississippi. Locals produced a regular, clandestinely distributed newsletter, the Benton County Freedom Train. In addition to documenting this previously unrecorded history, personal narratives capture pivotal moments of individual lives and lend insight into the human cost and the long-term effects of social movements. Benton County residents explain the events that shaped their lives and ultimately, in their own humble way, helped shape the trajectory of America. Through these first-person stories and with dozens of captivating photos covering more than a century’s worth of history, the volume presents a vivid picture of a people and a region still striving for the prize of equality and justice.




Ask a Manager


Book Description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together




A Way That’s Mighty Sweet


Book Description

From an early age, author Linda Aurelia B. Blackmon learned that all things are possible when God is involved. In A Way That’s Mighty Sweet, she shares a memoir of a life spent searching for God, experiencing his protection, and teaching the next generation. Blackmon describes the journey of motherhood that began with the Christian faith of her parents. Growing up, she clung tightly to the security of her parents’ affection and scruples. When she encountered God Almighty for herself, her focus changed from the profound loss of her parents in North Carolina to the spiritual riches of a life in Connecticut. Blackmon narrates the story of her life’s journey—a heartfelt array of enduring tragedy and experiencing love, especially as she developed into her current role as mother, wife, and beloved daughter of God.




The Name on the Envelope


Book Description

Name on the Envelope By: Michael M. Dowd Everyone has a story and for Michael M. Dowd his story is one of discovery—about who he is, how his life began, and the many twists and turns that led him to a family he never knew he had. Like most people, he experienced his share of happiness, sadness, pain, and suffering. But unlike most people, part of Michael’s life remained a mystery. It wasn’t until he embarked on a journey to learn more about his birth mother that Michael began to realize that he spent most of life unaware that he had another family. The Name on the Envelope is about Michael’s journey to learn more about his family, but it is also about his reflections on his life and how our experiences shape who we are and who we become.