Mindy T. Barnes is introduced in the 1st book of this fantasy/sci-fi series where nothing is exactly as it appears to be and secrets are everywhere. Mindy is an independent young girl who wakes up at 12 years of age to a leadership role she never expected and to gifts way beyond her imagination. The life she knew unravels as she moves towards fulfilling her destiny. She develops a difficult yet very important relationship with Zack, travels to the planet Tessina in a test tube vial, and ends up on a collision course with the challenges of managing the lives of thousands. Mindy's greatest challenge, though, is a man who claims to have created her and a number of other races - among them the Native and the Earth Tessinians. Plot twists and turns, and memorable characters add to the richness of this fast-paced read for both adults and younger readers. "What a story! What an ending!" ~ Lola S. Book includes: Topics of Discussion for Reading Groups and Teachers, and other important story reference materials Books in the Secret Life of Mindy T. Barnes series By Lila Moon [email protected] Book 1 - Life Unraveled Book 2 - The Rebellion Book 3 - Escape (end of 2013) Book 4 - Birthing Pains (2014) Book 5 - Life, Love and War (2014) Book 6 - The Dying Times (2014) ...LIKE 'Mindy T. Barnes' on Facebook and get the New Tessinian font downloaded to your computer (The font includes Mindy's handwriting and 44 symbols.)

Arguing against conventional wisdom, this important book makes a compelling case for the continuing strength of China’s one-party system. Many analysts have predicted that China’s unprecedented economic development and middle-class expansion would lead to a liberalization of its political regime and a move toward democracy. Instead, leading scholar Jean-Pierre Cabestan contends that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to adapt and prosper in the coming decades, representing a growing challenge to all democracies. Influenced by China’s traditional culture and even more so by the regime’s Soviet ideology, institutions, and modus operandi, most Chinese are not pushing for democracy, choosing security, stability and prosperity over political freedoms and participation.

A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For 150 years as a British colony, Hong Kong was a beacon of prosperity where people, money, and technology flowed freely, and residents enjoyed many civil liberties. In preparation for handing the territory over to China in 1997, Deng Xiaoping promised that it would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. An international treaty established a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with a far freer political system than that of Communist China—one with its own currency and government administration, a common-law legal system, and freedoms of press, speech, and religion. But as the halfway mark of the SAR’s lifespan approaches in 2022, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted, harassment and brutality have become normalized, and activists are being jailed en masse. To make matters worse, a national security law that further crimps Hong Kong’s freedoms has recently been decreed in Beijing. This tragic backslide has dire worldwide implications—as China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower’s control. Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for protests so peaceful that toddlers joined grandparents in millions-strong rallies became a place where police have fired more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbors, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators in the streets. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, author Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation firsthand. As a celebrated publisher and journalist, he has unrivaled access to the full range of the city’s society, from student protestors and political prisoners to aristocrats and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, this book is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.

By 2030, China's cities will be home to 1 billion people - one in every eight people on earth. What kind of lives will China's urban billion lead? And what will China's cities be like? Over the past thirty years, China's urban population expanded by 500 million people, and is on track to swell by a further 300 million by 2030. Hundreds of millions of these new urban residents are rural migrants, who lead second-class lives without access to urban benefits. Even those lucky citizens who live in modern tower blocks must put up with clogged roads, polluted skies and cityscapes of unremitting ugliness. The rapid expansion of urban China is astonishing, but new policies are urgently needed to create healthier cities. Combining on-the-ground reportage and up-to-date research, this pivotal book explains why China has failed to reap many of the economic and social benefits of urbanization, and suggests how these problems can be resolved. If its leaders get urbanization right, China will surpass the United States and cement its position as the world's largest economy. But if they get it wrong, China could spend the next twenty years languishing in middle-income torpor, its cities pockmarked by giant slums.

For years, China has served as the "factory floor" for global production, driving down prices for consumers worldwide. But, unfortunately, China's rapid and chaotic industrialization has put it on a collision course with the rest of the world. The Coming China Wars was the first book to systematically cover all those conflicts: political, economic, and environmental. Now, in this new edition, Dr. Peter Navarro has thoroughly updated the entire book. You'll find new chapters on the danger posed by China's flood of defective products and contaminated food; China's dramatic military expansion and the rising threat of a "hot war"; China's space program and its profound strategic implications; China's growing suppression of human rights and free speech; and much more. The coming China Wars will be fought over everything from decent jobs, livable wages, and advanced technologies to strategic resources...and eventually to our most basic of all needs: bread, water, and air. Unless all nations immediately address these impending conflicts, the results may be catastrophic. Like the First Edition, this book demands that we think much more deeply about how to stop the coming China Wars, laying out hard choices that must be made sooner rather than later. This new edition offers even more policy recommendations, including original contributions from several of the world's most important China experts.

“Americans need not be hostile toward China's rise, but they should be wary about its eventual effects. The United States is the only nation with the scale and power to try to set the terms of its interaction with China rather than just succumb. So starting now, Americans need to consider the economic, environmental, political, and social goals they care about defending as Chinese influence grows.” —from “China Makes, the World Takes” Since December 2006, The Atlantic Magazine's James Fallows has been writing some of the most discerning accounts of the economic and political transformation occurring in China. The ten essays collected here cover a wide-range of topics: from visionary tycoons and TV-battling entrepreneurs, to environmental pollution and how China subsidizes our economy. Fallows expertly and lucidly explains the economic, political, social, and cultural forces at work turning China into a world superpower at breakneck speed. This eye-opening and cautionary account is essential reading for all concerned not only with China's but America's future role in the world.