About this product: It's 1911, and China is slowly beginning to accept modern ideas--but the changes may not happen fast enough for young Ailin. Her grandmother has decided it's time she has her feet bound, to make her more attractive to a future husband. When Ailin sees the sad state of her sister's feet, she is stunned. "I stared at the pitiful stumps at the end of Second Sister's legs... her foot had been squeezed into a wedge: the big toe had been left undeformed, but the rest of the foot... had been forced down under the sole... like a piece of bread folded over." Luckily, Ailin's progressive father allows her to keep her feet unfettered, even though it means breaking off her prearranged marriage into a more traditional family. He also sends her to a public school to learn English. But by the time Ailin is in her teens, her father has died, leaving her less tolerant Big Uncle to be the head of the family. Big Uncle forbids Ailin's schooling and gives her the choice of either being a nun or a peasant's wife--the only alternatives left for an unmarried Chinese woman with "big feet." Ailin refuses both options, and instead becomes a nanny for an American missionary couple. Due to their generosity, Ailin starts a new life in the United States.
Powerfully told in flashback, Ties that Bind, Ties that Break is a thoughtful exploration of the ways cultural pressures can bend not only our personal values but even our physical appearance. And this gripping, lyrical story's theme may be most meaningful to those teens who feel the need to pierce and tattoo their bodies in order to fit into contemporary adolescent society. (Ages 11 to 14) --Jennifer Hubert
About this product: Based on the Natural Approach, Dos mundos: En breve stresses the use of engaging activities and interesting readings in a natural and spontaneous classroom atmosphere. In this comprehension-based approach to learning language, the development of communicative language skills is the central goal, with formal grammar presentation and grammar practice at the service of communication. The text is designed so that class time can be devoted to exposing students to Spanish through creative activities and readings, allowing grammar explanations and exercises to be studied outside the classroom.
About this product: This beautifully written book tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. It is the story of Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee warrior and successful farmer, and Doll, an African slave he acquired in the late 1790s. Over the next thirty years, Shoe Boots and Doll lived together as master and slave and also as lifelong partners who, with their children and grandchildren, experienced key events in American history--including slavery, the Creek War, the founding of the Cherokee Nation and subsequent removal of Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War. This is the gripping story of their lives, in slavery and in freedom. Meticulously crafted from historical and literary sources, Ties That Bind vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is mostly known through the records of things done to her--her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children--but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. A sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, the book provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century.
About this product: An examination of adults who have been manipulated by divorcing parents.
Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) occurs when divorcing parents use children as pawns, trying to turn the child against the other parent. This book examines the impact of PAS on adults and offers strategies and hope for dealing with the long-term effects.
About this product: Can you imagine making a Double Wedding Ring Quilt without the tiny pieces, without the curved seams, without the binding, then quilting it block by block? Then the Rings That Bind method is for you. Step by step illustrations guide you through this unique technique, as seen on Simply Quilts Episode #1033. One Arc-Ease does it all and it's included FREE inside the book.
About this product: Fred and Florence Littauer show readers how childhood experiences lead to emotional strains, how to identify the symptoms of childhood trauma, and discover biblical steps toward restoration through Jesus Christ.
A Bertie and Jeeves classic, featuring the Junior Ganymede, a Market Snodsbury election, and the Observer crossword puzzle.
Jeeves, who has saved Bertie Wooster so often in the past, may finally prove to be the unwitting cause of this young master's undoing in Jeeves and the Tie that Binds. The Junior Ganymede, a club for butlers in London's fashionable West End, requires every member to provide details about the fellow he is working for. When information is inadvertently revealed to a dangerous source, it falls to Jeeves to undo the damage.
About this product: In many ways, today is the best time in history to be a girl: Opportunities for a girl’s success are as unlimited as her dreams. Yet an alarm is sounding, revealing a disturbing portrait of the stresses affecting girls of all ages. Societal expectations, cultural trends, and conflicting messages are creating what psychologist and researcher Stephen Hinshaw calls “the Triple Bind.” Girls are now expected to excel at “girl skills,” achieve “boy goals,” and be models of female perfection, 100 percent of the time. The Triple Bind is putting more and more girls at risk for aggression, eating disorders, depression, and even suicide.
Dr. Hinshaw’s fascinating and groundbreaking book shows concerned parents how to listen, learn, and help girls unlock the shackles of the Triple Bind. The Triple Bind discusses many key topics, including
• Today’s trap: how internal conflict can turn self-expression into self-destruction • Nature versus nurture: genes, hormones, and the role of biology in confronting the Triple Bind • Life in the pressure cooker: overscheduled, overtaxed lives, and how the pressure to excel at everything sets girls up for crisis • When virtue is its own punishment: how traditionally feminine qualities like empathy, self-awareness, and verbal ability can put girls at risk for anxiety, depression, and other disorders • Getting all Pussycat Dolled up: the oversexualization of little girls, preteens, and teenagers • The wired child: how cyberculture exacerbates the Triple Bind • Girls who hit: the reasons girls are channeling pressure into violence • The plight of normal girls: hidden aspects of the Triple Bind crisis that don’t show up in statistics
Combining moving personal stories about girls and their families with extensive research into genetic risk, vulnerability, and cultural influence, Dr. Hinshaw provides strategies and tools for parents who want to empower their daughters to deal in healthy ways with today’s pressures.
About this product: Trueblood has given us an unusual gift by laying out his life so honestly and from the heart. The most impactful section, and the one which gives rise to the title, is about his year in Viet Nam, serving as a surgeon at a military hospital. His poem "Nine Time Zones From Hell," summarizes beautifully when he says
Thirty-five years later, I find
myself weeping, uncontrollably weeping.
I returned to the arms of those dearest to me
with a wound I did not know I had, buried deep inside.
The next poem, "A Bag of Memories," fills in the story:
I did not think I was wounded
that long year in Da Nang.
The hospital was blown up the night before I arrived.
We were fired on and shelled
and yet physical danger was trivial
compared to the men in the jungle.
I never shot or killed,
but the wounded died in my hands.
I cut off hundreds of mangled legs,
unzipped so many body bags.
As you can see this is not poetry of the rhyming variety. To my untrained ear it has the feeling of an Oriental art form, often with a simple, powerful concluding line.
Trueblood's dedication is itself a beautiful, one line poem: "For making sacrifices greater than we have the right to ask, this book is dedicated to our men and women serving in wartime."
The other sections also have power - for example "Autumn Tragedy," which describes the sudden death of a childhood friend in a freak accident. But it is in sharing his Viet Nam experience that Trueblood is at his best. For those who have experienced combat, I suspect it would help "to bind up their wounds." And, for those like me who have not, it helps give us a clearer picture of what we are asking others to do when we send them off to war.
As I write this, I am receiving Christmas cards, many hoping for "Peace on earth, Goodwill to men." If more people read Trueblood's account, those wishes would have a better chance of coming true. I just ordered several copies to give as gifts. Highly recommended!
About this product: As the only book in the adapted physical education market to provide both task-specific and developmental teaching approaches, this text gives physical educators the up-to-date knowledge and skills to teach students at all levels. Aligned with the national movement to include most students with disabilities into the general curriculum, the text enables both adapted and regular physical education teachers to successfully address the needs of students with disabilities in the regular physical education class.
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