The Toughest Kid We Knew


Book Description

Frank Bergon’s newest work is a thoughtful exploration of the ways that memories of random childhood events become unexpected revelations about life in the West. In many senses this project is a personalized version of Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man where Bergon explored the ways that a multiethnic and multiracial society shaped, and continues to shape, the day-to-day lived realities of the residents and communities of the San Joaquin Valley. Bergon’s latest book creation, however, is more elegiac in tone, paying tribute to ranching and farming lives that are disappearing under suburban and exurban sprawl, industrial farming, and white-collar job growth.




The Toughest Kid We Knew


Book Description

From critically acclaimed author Frank Bergon comes a new personal narrative about the San Joaquin Valley in California. This intimate companion to Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man brings us back to an Old West at odds with New West realities where rapid change is a common trait and memories are of rural beauty. Despite the physical transformations wrought by technology and modernity in the twenty-first century, elements of an older way of thinking still remain, and Bergon traces its presence using experiences from his own family and friends. Communal camaraderie, love of the land and its food, and joy in hard work done well describe Western lives ignored or misrepresented in most histories of California and the West. Yet nostalgia does not drive Frank Bergon’s intellectual return to that world. Also prevalent was a culture of fighting, ignorance about alcoholic addiction, brutalizing labor, and a feudal mentality that created a pain better lost and bid good riddance. Through it all, what emerges from his portraits and essays is a revelation of small-town and ranch life in the rural West. A place where the American way of extirpating the past and violently altering the land is accelerated. What Bergon has written is a portrayal of a past and people shaping the country he called home.




The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask about Christianity


Book Description

University apologist, director, and popular speaker Alex McFarland has spent the last two decades answering questions about Christian worldview and the Bible from children, teens, and parents. In The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask about Christianity, he summarizes questions today’s children and teens are asking about God, the Bible, and the problem of evil. Alex’s experiences have taught him that how adults answer questions about God is as important as, if not more important than, what kids ask. He provides parents with teaching strategies that will help them reach their children intellectually and spiritually. Today’s kids and teens are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward truth. Alex comes alongside parents and gives them tools to effectively answer not only their children’s toughest academic questions but also the questions that plague their hearts.




The Night Gate


Book Description

There are worlds that exist beyond our dreams…and our nightmares. A brilliant scientist has uncovered a secret that threatens humanity's future. Now his girlfriend is missing, and the voices in his head are back. Since losing his daughter, Emma, seven years ago, Pike Shepard has struggled to maintain a normal life for himself in the coastal community of Blackwater. It’s a quiet life, until a beautiful scientist shows up on his doorstep with a desperate plea for help. Dr. Kate Cassidy has uncovered a new aspect to quantum entanglement: the ability to not just see the multiverse but a way to travel through it. Her device allows them to SideSlip between parallel planes that are at once familiar and quite bizarre, wondrous, and terrifying. Her ability to travel between realities uncovers a dark future for mankind. A man with a dark purpose promises profound evil and a ruthless government agent eager to see them all fail. Unless Kate and Pike can outwit them, the place they call home may never be safe again. Few authors would dare tackle interdimensional travel from a hard-science point of view. Franks does that and does it brilliantly. Slip into this gripping techno-thriller, where the biggest enemy you face might just be yourself. You absolutely won’t want to miss The Night Gate. Grab your copy now!




Way of the Warrior Kid


Book Description

In this first book of a new illustrated middle grade series by a #1 New York Times bestselling author, Marc learns to become a Warrior Kid after his uncle Jake, a Navy SEAL, comes to stay for the summer.




THE SMUGGLERS LAMENT


Book Description

Ever since he was a young man he would write long letters to his family and friends. Many people liked them and even saved them. Some said that he would be a great writer someday. Growing up in the wild days of the late 60s gave him plenty to write about. Living through the hippie daze of sex, and drugs and rock and roll put him on the search for that cosmic consciousness, if there was really such a thing ? Getting drafted really changed all that. What started as a bunch of guys chipping in to cop some grass in the Village ended up on speed boats and planes. Then the United States Air Force became the biggest smugglers in the world. Nothing was what it seemed to be, deception ruled. Join Doug on a wild ride through the California coast and America, SE Asia, Europe , Africa and behind the Iron Curtain. After all of that it was time to switch the tables and go after sex trafficking and the human smugglers. But the biggest journey was finding love and then finding God.




Cannabis Chronicles


Book Description

Do you ever wonder why we do the things we do? What makes us so inclined to make the wrong choices? Are we captains of our own lives or are we passengers directed merely by force of habit? In the Cannabis Chronicles, Timmy struggles with these questions as well and learns various harsh lesson of the world and also of the people he chose to be around him.




The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting


Book Description

“I absolutely loved this book, both as a parent and as a nerd.” —Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure Delightfully witty, refreshingly irreverent, and just a bit Machiavellian, The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting looks past the fads to offer advice you can put into action today. As every parent knows, kids are surprisingly clever negotiators. But how can we avoid those all-too-familiar wails of “That’s not fair!” and “You can’t make me!”? In The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting, the award-winning journalist and father of five Paul Raeburn and the game theorist Kevin Zollman pair up to highlight tactics from the worlds of economics and business that can help parents break the endless cycle of quarrels and ineffective solutions. Raeburn and Zollman show that some of the same strategies successfully applied to big business deals and politics—such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Ultimatum Game—can be used to solve such titanic, age-old parenting problems as dividing up toys, keeping the peace on long car rides, and sticking to homework routines. Raeburn and Zollman open each chapter with a common parenting dilemma. Then they show how carefully concocted schemes involving bargains and fair incentives can save the day. Through smart case studies of game theory in action, Raeburn and Zollman reveal how parents and children devise strategies, where those strategies go wrong, and what we can do to help raise happy and savvy kids while keeping the rest of the family happy too.




Oath of Office


Book Description

This book chronicles the rearing of an African-American child in the Upsouth during the 1950s and 1960s, and his experiences as an adult in another worldthe F.B.I. The author walks the reader through many harrowing experiences; several nearly fatal, growing up in St. Louis and also with the F.B.I. His life with the F.B.I. will take you through the urban jungles of several U.S. cities to the tropical rainforests and islands of the Caribbean. The author details his personal experiences with segregation coupled with lessons taught by his family and older friends. Highlighted early in the book is the authors controversial admission to college at the age of eighteen. This book focuses on family history lessons taught by his elders whom he used as a guide for his education, and his career in law enforcement. The author highlights the controversy he caused in his family, when he defied his parents wishes, and joined the F.B.I in 1979. His fascinating career covers 21 1/2 years of complex federal investigations and dangerous undercover operations. The author sums up his experiences and career with the F.B.I. by examing the differences between him and scores of criminals he arrested over the years. After reading this book, you will discover the values of strong parents, knowledge of ones history, and thanking The Almighty everyday.




Dangerous Minds


Book Description

Ex-Marine LouAnne Johnson's account of her first year teaching at Parkmount High School in California.