'If Trash Could Talk' represents Jacquie Ottman's personal experiences and insights woven into thought-provoking poetry, stories and musings. Designed to amuse, entertain, and inspire conversations and change, the sixty entries in the book were created over the course of Ottman's lifelong journey, beginning at age four when she rescued board games from the neighbor's trash. Reflecting conversations with conversed with fellow waste-haters, consumers, and visitors to Ottman's WeHateToWaste.com global platform, combined with a laser-like focus on New York City's trash culture, the book is packed with insights into why we waste and what we can do to avoid it. Readers will discover new ways to use things up, use stuff longer, pass stuff along, and pass things up altogether in the name of reducing waste. They will smile at their own 'trashy' eccentricities, reflected in Ottman's experiences, shared with humor and self-deprecation. They will see waste through a new set of eyes and be inspired to share with others what it is that they do to cut down on waste. Influencers and teachers looking to catalyze meaningful conversations in their own schools, churches and communities can use these poems, stories and musings as a springboard for discussion, as well as inspiration when creating their own. As Ottman hopes, 'by starting to talk about what we all can do to save a little this, spare a little that, readers will take the first meaningful steps towards making real changes in consumption culture that can eventually help everyone live a whole lot better.' What Readers Say about "If Trash Can Talk" "Jacquie makes poetry fun. It was great hearing the stories of a like-minded person, and I learned so many things too!" "I'm energized and full of new ideas to create community and cut down on waste through sharing." "In these times when backward-looking people now hold power, to make policy around what Jacquelyn has to say takes on great importance. Shes tells us that we can do something. That we can make a difference. That we can be the powers that be. Few understandings are more important."

If Walls Could Talk: Some Need To Be Silenced But Some Speak Out Loud By: Bernard Mavritte Ever since human beings have known how to build structures with walls, a ceiling and some kind of roof, the walls within those structures have witnessed so much. If they were animate objects, with eyes, a mouth and ears, they could say so much that could not be constrained within all the books upon the earth. Those walls have witnessed the good, the bad, the joys, and the sorrows. They have seen things that those who live within the parameter of the walls would love to share with others, and yet many occurrences that should never be revealed, the deep secrets of our lives we are ashamed to reveal to others. From our entrance on this earth, until we depart, the walls have seen it all. In this autobiography memoir, Bernard Mavritte reveals the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows in his own life, a story that is full of life itself. He shares how God has opened so many doors for him, bringing him through his many trials. If the walls in his life could talk, some of them would need to be silenced, but some would need to speak loudly.

The Guided Reading: Connect resource book for third and fourth grades features 36 readers—six sets of two each for below-, on-, and above-level student readers. Filled with photos and maps, this nonfiction resource features informational text about money, recycling, and more. Guided Reading: Connect provides you with a comprehensive reading program. Perfect for differentiated reading, each teacher resource book includes: -discussion guides -prompts to encourage students to work with the text and text features -leveled readers with intriguing topics -graphic organizers and an observation sheet Separated into three readability levels, informational readers capture students’ attention with graphic charts,detailed maps, and more. Students are encouraged to apply reading strategies to the text and complete writing prompts to prove comprehension. Available for grades 1–6, the 12-book Ready to Go: Guided Reading series improves reading organization with an all-in-one set. These 80-page reading resource books feature three reproducible pages, six discussion guides, and 36 readers. Each grade span includes four books, focusing on the following comprehension strategies: -Question -Infer -Connect -Summarize The Lexile (R) leveled readers contain short nonfiction texts and text features such as photographs, charts, maps, and callout boxes to keep students engaged.

If Nights Could Talk is a rich gothic story of a Southern family, a tale of wealth and emotional need that spans generations. Marsha Recknagel's memoir begins with the surprise appearance of her 16-year-old nephew, Jamie, who arrives on her doorstep and into her ordered, childless life. Fleeing a chaotic home run by Marsha's unstable younger brother and his wife, Jamie is an ominous creature-and the center of an ongoing family tug-of-war. For Marsha, to open the door is to risk opening herself up to the pain of the past. Reluctantly she takes him in. Thus begins the painful, terrifying, and extraordinary process of unraveling the damage inflicted by her family on one of its own.

If My Shoes Could Talk is a compilation of both intimate and humorous stories as told by the collective persona of girls everywhere.

A recollection of memories and stories written by the Russian guitar maker Yuriy Shishkov. After his risky departure from the Soviet Union to the USA in 1990, he began working for major guitar companies. This led to many of his instruments finding their place in the hands of famous artists, celebrities, and guitar collectors. This book describes interesting aspects of his life, in detail, covering everything from Soviet daycares to the search for music that was banned by the state. It explains the beginning of his guitar making career in Russia as well as the harsh life of the Soviet people at the time of the Cold War spanning from 1964 until the end of the USSR. Aside from the up-close and personal life story, this autobiography includes unique photos depicting a wide spectrum of his craftsmanship work from Russia and America. A detailed anthology about the reality of the Soviet Union, the challenges faced during this time, and Yuriy's passion to pursue guitar making artistry.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist takes readers on a surprising tour of the world of garbage. Take a journey inside the secret world of our biggest export, our most prodigious product, and our greatest legacy: our trash. It’s the biggest thing we make: The average American is on track to produce a whopping 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime, $50 billion in squandered riches rolled to the curb each year, more than that produced by any other people in the world. But that trash doesn’t just magically disappear; our bins are merely the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century. In Garbology, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Edward Humes investigates the trail of that 102 tons of trash—what’s in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity. Along the way , he introduces a collection of garbage denizens unlike anyone you’ve ever met: the trash-tracking detectives of MIT, the bulldozer-driving sanitation workers building Los Angeles’ immense Garbage Mountain landfill, the artists in residence at San Francisco’s dump, and the family whose annual trash output fills not a dumpster or a trash can, but a single mason jar. Garbology digs through our epic piles of trash to reveal not just what we throw away, but who we are and where our society is headed. Are we destined to remain the country whose number-one export is scrap—America as China’s trash compactor—or will the country that invented the disposable economy pioneer a new and less wasteful path? The real secret at the heart of Garbology may well be the potential for a happy ending buried in our landfill. Waste, Humes writes, is the one environmental and economic harm that ordinary working Americans have the power to change—and prosper in the process.

A behind the scenes perspective on Boston Celtics history from two-time champion Cedric Maxwell Having won two NBA titles with the Celtics before joining the broadcasting team as a radio analyst, Cedric Maxwell knows what it means to live and breathe Celtics basketball. In If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Celtics, Maxwell opens up about his life and career and provides insight into the team's inner sanctum as only he can, from Larry Bird to the Big Three era and up to the current roster. Featuring conversations with players and coaches past and present as well as off-the-wall anecdotes only Maxwell can tell, this indispensable volume is your ticket to Celtics history.

Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But more than her reputation is on the line in the first novel in the New York Times bestselling Haunted Home Renovation Mystery series. At her newest renovation project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by tracking down the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man. Mel’s only clue is an odd box she discovers inside a wall at the job site. If she can make sense of its mysterious contents, she might be able to nail a killer—before she herself becomes the next construction casualty...