Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2017 - Best Picture Books to Give Readers Strength STARRED REVIEW! "This book is a necessary one."—Kirkus Reviews starred review STARRED REVIEW! "A highly recommended title that serves as an excellent entry to discuss incarceration in an age-appropriate way."—School Library Journal starred review Millions of children worldwide have a parent in jail or prison. Kids can have all kinds of feelings and questions when a parent is incarcerated. Rafael is embarrassed. Rashid is angry. Yen wonders if it's her fault. This sensitive story illustrates a range of situations children may face with moms or dads behind bars, while reassuring them they are not alone.

Close to the Heart is a comprehensive guide that opens a world of imaginative yet simple ways to approach personal prayer. Breaking through boundaries and stereotypes, best-selling author Margaret Silf shows personal prayer to be a journey into reflective living as she invites readers to experience prayer as a natural, organic process. Silf's stories and suggestions, drawn from contemporary life, are solid and practical. She explains, "This book sets the scene for deep personal prayer by suggesting ways of inner stillness and reflective living. It tempts the reader to search for 'clues to the kingdom' on the sidewalks of his or her own hometown."

Jessie Medina, enthused about starting her professional job at St. Joseph's High School in Texas, confronts challenges that include gender discrimination and determining the role of love in her new life.

This new translation of Clarice Lispector's sensational first book tells the story of a middle class woman's life from childhood through an unhappy marriage and its dissolution to transcendence. Near to the Wild Heart, published in Rio de Janeiro in 1943, introduced Brazil to what one writer called “Hurricane Clarice”: a twenty-three-year-old girl who wrote her first book in a tiny rented room and then baptized it with a title taken from Joyce: “He was alone, unheeded, near to the wild heart of life.” The book was an unprecedented sensation — the discovery of a genius. Narrative epiphanies and interior monologue frame the life of Joana, from her middle-class childhood through her unhappy marriage and its dissolution to transcendence, when she proclaims: “I shall arise as strong and comely as a young colt.”

Close to the Heart is a comprehensive guide that opens a world of imaginative yet simple ways to approach personal prayer. Breaking through boundaries and stereotypes, best-selling author Margaret Silf shows personal prayer to be a journey into reflective living as she invites readers to experience prayer as a natural, organic process. Silf's stories and suggestions, drawn from contemporary life, are solid and practical. She explains, "This book sets the scene for deep personal prayer by suggesting ways of inner stillness and reflective living. It tempts the reader to search for 'clues to the kingdom' on the sidewalks of his or her own hometown."

Dani Carrigan has always relied on logic when making important life decisions, but when she discovers she’s pregnant – and that there’s a chance her baby may be born “not perfect”– logic lets her down. It would help if the baby’s father would pop the question, but widowed father Adrian seems more interested in protecting his six-year-old daughter than committing to his new relationship with Dani. The last time she felt this alone and scared was when she was 16 and her mother died, leaving Dani to raise her younger sisters with precious little help from her distant and disapproving rancher father. She felt so inadequate then, but is she any more prepared to be a mother now? Support comes from an unlikely source. Dani always saw her next-door neighbour and friend, divorce attorney Elliot Gilmore, as a charming, handsome, playboy-type. But with each challenge she faces, from pregnancy, to delivery and beyond–Elliot reveals himself a better man than she ever guessed. Is it possible that Elliot hasn’t been playing the field–but waiting for her?

In his forties, Malcolm gave up his job in suburban Glasgow when a persistent seed that had been growing inside him started to bloom, disrupting the foundations of his life. When he saw the job advert, 'urgent: island doctor needed', he applied immediately. What he didn't anticipate was how much Orkney would affect his family, for better or worse. In stories that range from the humorous to the deeply moving, Malcolm describes what it's like adjusting to life without modern conveniences and to the extreme - and constantly changing - weather; and what it means to be providing the best medical care to the local population with limited resources. Which often includes the wildlife as well ...Malcolm's journey evokes the awe that the Orkney landscape can inspire, as well as the challenges of island life and the demons that the dark, cold winter months can give birth to. Gripping and beautifully written, Close to Where the Heart Gives Out reminds us of the importance of listening to our heart, as well as to the rhythms of the landscape.

“A surgeon internationally recognized for his expertise in heart and lung transplants . . . writes with assurance and aplomb about his achievements.” —Kirkus Reviews Stuart Jamieson has lived two lives. One began in heat and dust. Born to British ex-pats in colonial Africa, Jamieson was sent at the age of eight to a local boarding school, where heartless instructors bullied and tormented their students. In the summers he escaped to fish on crocodile-infested rivers and explore the African bush. As a teenager, an apprenticeship with one of Africa’s most fabled trackers taught Jamieson how to deal with dangerous game and even more dangerous poachers, lessons that would later serve him well in the high-stakes career he chose. Jamieson’s second life unfolded when he went to London to study medicine during the turbulent 1960s, leaving behind the only home he knew as it descended into revolution. Brilliant and self-assured, Jamieson advanced quickly in the still-new field of open-heart surgery. It was a fraught time. For patients with terminal heart disease, heart transplants were the new hope. But poor outcomes had all but ended the procedure. In 1978 Jamieson came to America and to Stanford—the only cardiac center in the world doing heart transplants successfully. Here, Jamieson’s pioneering work on the anti-rejection drug cyclosporin would help to make heart transplantation a routine life-saving operation, that is still in practice today as he continues to train the next generation of heart surgeons. Stuart Jamieson’s story is the story of four decades of advances in heart surgery. “Every reader interested in the history behind one of medicine’s riskiest procedures will find it fascinating.” —Booklist

Rostad takes the reader into the heart of this North Pacific island where bears are the king of the mountains, and fishermen do battle with wind and waves as they fish the deep waters. Kodiak Island's real wealth is her people who share their stories.

The book Close to my Heart is an odyssey of my life with love for nature, time spent with my family, personal relations, pains of waiting, separating, and joys of meeting. Most of the poems are vivid imagery, deeply passionate and come straight from the core of my heart. A reader can connect to any poem and experience the same feelings during their lifetime. The mood in the Close to my Heart reflects a variety of experiences of contentment, regret, delight, loneliness, separation and ecstasy in personal, professional, and emotional life. I did not follow any traditional regular poetic scheme; however the flow of the verse sounds rhythmic. Some poems are short and some are long, yet remain focused on a particular theme and topic. Usually it's the rejection, abandonment and the solitude that turns you to Almighty. Nowhere it is mentioned in the book; however a reader can perceive my trust and subservience to the Omnipotent. Occasionally it takes many pages to express one's thoughts but anthology Close to my Heart is a squeezed collection of my poems with myriad thoughts and scores of experiences. Any critique or analyst can spend years paraphrasing those thoughts into writing. For a reader's convenience, anthology is divided into very succinct six sections: Realization, Nature, Prayers, Connection, Charismatic Kullu, and Close to my Heart.