Leaving Johnny Behind


Book Description

In the tradition of Why Johnny Can't Read written by Rudolph Flesch in the 1950s, Leaving Johnny Behind provides a comprehensive examination of the barriers that deny children adequate literacy training. This book describes the obstacles faced by a school principal from Milwaukee's central city when he attempted to implement research-based reading practices. Upon further examination, he discovered that the reading establishment generally rejects the product of legitimate science, choosing instead to engage in a never-ending interfusion of the latest innovations, modifications, and gimmicks. This condition, Anthony Pedriana observes, has a disparate impact on poor and minorities, those who suffer from dyslexia and other forms of reading disability, and those for whom English is a second language.




House of Leaves


Book Description

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.




The Whalestoe Letters


Book Description

Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love. Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves, this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters.




Behind the Hedge 2Nd Edition


Book Description

BEHIND THE HEDGE A Corruption o Time, Talent & Treasure Tom Whitman, behind the wheel on Route 66 heading east with Allison at his side and their cat Caesar curled up on the backseat, would soon find himself immersed in a maelstrom of unimagined dimension. Newly appointed headmaster of Florence Bruce Seminary, Tom was heading toward an unexpected clash of styles and of cultural expectations. His ingrained instincts for sound management were about to challenge the charismatic but lackadaisical leadership style let behind by the former headmaster. In some respects, the differences would be as great as the clash between Indian and white had been three hundred and fifty years earlier. Violence perpetrated on the school and the community by both bystander and combatant would be traumatic. Rules, laws, agreements, accepted tenets of human behavior, simple decency, contracts—written and unwritten—among people of accepted good standing and integrity would be thrown away with abandon or gleefully ignored. In their place, frontier justice—any means to achieve the ends—would be sufficient justification or actions of intense cruelty. The most basic assumptions regarding safety, fair play, due process and continuity would be destroyed; and those who believed that the operating assumptions at Florence Bruce Seminary were based on decency, dignity and respect would be horrified at the level to which these values were betrayed.




In Fear of Her Life


Book Description

Smith is the pseudonym for a woman who lived in fear of her life for 22 years. Married at 16 to a Dublin criminal, she endured years of relentless mental and physical torture until she found the strength to fight back. This is her courageous story told with brutal honesty and at times humour. It chronicles her descent to the brink of suicide and consequent rebuilding of her life. This unique account is essential reading for all those who have ever endured cruelty at the hands of a man, or another human being for that matter. It gives hope to all those who have been victimised. The names and identities of the characters in the book have been changed to protect the author




Grace


Book Description

A New York Times Best Book of the Year A universal story of freedom, love, and motherhood, this sweeping, intergenerational saga features a group of outcast women during one of the most compelling eras in American history. For a runaway slave in the 1840s south, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic Massa. That's what fifteen–year–old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a gun–toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. Amidst a revolving door of gamblers and prostitutes, Naomi falls into a love affair with a smooth–talking white man named Jeremy. The product of their union is Josey, whose white skin and blond hair mark her as different from the others on the plantation. Having been taken in as an infant by a free slave named Charles, Josey has never known her mother, who was murdered at her birth. Josey soon becomes caught in the tide of history when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaches her and a day of supposed freedom turns into one of unfathomable violence that will define Josey—and her lost mother—for years to come.




Young Whit and the Traitor's Treasure


Book Description

This Odyssey book series explores the history of the much-loved character John Avery Whittaker. The series introduces newcomers to the larger world of Odyssey. For readers who are already Odyssey-philes, the novels provide the history of the franchise’s most important character. Whit and his family (father, Harold; stepmother, Fiona; half-sister, Charlie) have just moved to Provenance, NC, in the middle of the Great Depression. Harold will be teaching at nearby Duke University. Not-quite-10-year-old Johnny soon makes a friend in Emmy, who lives across the street and joins him in his adventures. At his new school, he encounters a bully who makes his life miserable, and he makes a new friend in Huck, the custodian. Both of them play key roles in the mysteries and action. The central mystery in book 1 involves Confederate gold missing since the end of the Civil War and the question of whether Johnny’s ancestor was the coward and thief who stole it, as everyone believes.




Left Behind


Book Description

Reproduction of the original: Left Behind by James Otis




The House of Pain


Book Description

Franklin Allen Leib, a former naval officer and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling Fire Arrow, has crafted a legal thriller as suspenseful as it is thought-provoking in The House of Pain. When a spoiled teen is kidnapped outside her prestigious prep school, her parents are faced with the horror only those who've lost a child can know. In their desperation, afraid to contact the police, they enlist the help of millionaire "Crazy Johnny," a former Vietnam tunnel rat. A sufferer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the brutality he saw children endure in the war, he agrees to help the girl's father, but is afraid that if they pay up, the girl will be killed anyway. Crazy Johnny tracks down the kidnappers, determined that the only way to save Sally is to free her by force. Blood is spilled, and only in its aftermath does the true nature of the crime emerge. It is then up to the United States legal system to judge Johnny's vigilantism, and up to an old-time attorney and a young woman lawyer to see that justice emerges from the courtroom. "An interesting story, this legal thriller will make a fast read for teens." - School Library Journal At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Teeth - The Epic Novel With Bite


Book Description

Vol. 1 The South Pacific Trilogy. "Move over Moby-Dick, Jaws and Jurassic - here comes the Father!""'Teeth' is a definite 5-star! Timothy may be the next Michael Crichton.""'Teeth' ranks among my very favorite books of all time.""'Teeth' is a masterpiece of true Samurai spirit.""'Teeth' isn't just about a battle between man and Mother Nature. It's a love story, a thriller, a mystery.