When Jessica and Elizabeth befriend a retired actress, they not only learn about acting themselves, but convince the actress to return to acting. Sweet Valley Twins #32.

Part dialogue, part narrative, part playscript, this unique book contains the award-winning play Jessica, as well as the extraordinary story of its making.

The New York Times bestselling, groundbreaking manifesto on the critical school years when parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships, and interfere on the playing field. As teacher and writer Jessica Lahey explains, even though these parents see themselves as being highly responsive to their children’s well being, they aren’t giving them the chance to experience failure—or the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems. Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine their education, Lahey reminds us. Teachers don’t just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They teach responsibility, organization, manners, restraint, and foresight—important life skills children carry with them long after they leave the classroom. Providing a path toward solutions, Lahey lays out a blueprint with targeted advice for handling homework, report cards, social dynamics, and sports. Most importantly, she sets forth a plan to help parents learn to step back and embrace their children’s failures. Hard-hitting yet warm and wise, The Gift of Failure is essential reading for parents, educators, and psychologists nationwide who want to help children succeed.

A Finalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography "Deliciously bizarre and utterly American.…[A] Coen brothers movie come to life.…I couldn't put it down." —Caitlin Doughty, best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Sounds Like Titanic tells the unforgettable story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Struggling to pay her college tuition, Hindman accepts a dream position in an award-winning ensemble that brings ready money. But the ensemble is a sham. When the group performs, the microphones are off while the music—which sounds suspiciously like the soundtrack to the movie Titanic—blares from a hidden CD player. Hindman, who toured with the ensemble and its peculiar Composer for four years, writes with unflinching candor and humor about her surreal and quietly devastating odyssey. Sounds Like Titanic is at once a singular coming-of-age memoir about the lengths to which one woman goes to make ends meet and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties about gender, class, and ambition.

A 2019 Schneider Family Book Award Winner Based on a real-life partnership, the heartening story of the love and teamwork between a girl and her service dog will illuminate and inspire. Rescue thought he’d grow up to be a Seeing Eye dog — it’s the family business, after all. When he gets the news that he’s better suited to being a service dog, he’s worried that he’s not up to the task. Then he meets Jessica, a girl whose life is turning out differently than the way she'd imagined it, too. Now Jessica needs Rescue by her side to help her accomplish everyday tasks. And it turns out that Rescue can help Jessica see after all: a way forward, together, one step at a time. An endnote from the authors tells more about the training and extraordinary abilities of service dogs, particularly their real-life best friend and black lab, Rescue.

Francis has never had a friend like Jessica before. She's the first person he's ever met who can make him feel completely himself. Jessica has never had a friend like Francis before. Not just because he's someone to laugh with every day - but because he's the first person who has ever been able to see her . . . Jessica's Ghost is a funny, moving and beautiful book by a master storyteller, about the power of friendship to shine a warm light into dark places.

Though Jessica Todd Harper (born 1975) uses a camera rather than a paintbrush, the viewer quickly senses in her images the familiar canvases of Sargent, Whistler and Vermeer. Harper's naturalistic images pause or recreate real life for the camera; the play between the often-formal environment and her subjects--intimately portrayed family members--creates images that seem at once intimate and artificial. Her latest collection is thus aptly called The Home Stage, a double entendre that references the home-bound lifestyle of families with small children as well as the idea that home is the stage on which children first learn to live. With her elegant compositions, unique color palette and skillful handling of light, Harper transforms every room and yard into a stage set. No detail is left untouched by her eye: even the wallpaper that recedes into darkness bears symbolic significance. Somehow both private and universal, Harper's photography is genuine, tender, uninhibited and, at times, humorous, demonstrating the emotional range of the finest actor and director and drawing strong performances from her supporting cast--her husband, her children, her sister, extended family and friends. Harper's photographs have been reviewed in The New Yorker, Photo District News, Camera Austria, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and other publications, and she has taught at the International Center of Photography and Swarthmore College. She lives in Philadelphia.

The only thing better than naptime is naptime with a friend. Theo the puppy (part-Boxer, part-Shepherd, part-Labrador, part-Sharpei) was rescued by Beau, a twenty-three-month-old toddler, and his family from an animal shelter in Santa Cruz. The two of them instantly became best friends. And every day at naptime, Theo waits for Beau to fall asleep, then curls up next to him. Theo and Beau were already a viral sensation thanks to the "unbearably adorable," "utterly charming" photos that author (Beau's mother) Jessica Shyba has been posting on her popular blogMomma's Gone City. And now, she's matched the very sweetest of them to a charming bedtime text to make a board book that is (as Alyssa Milano said of the blog) "so cute it hurts."

`the how, when, where and what of preparing for a performance is spelled out in considerable detail. If you do accept the challenge at the core of the book you will certainly not want for help' - Junior Education This is the first in a series of creative and practical resources to link the school assembly with the Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education (PSCHE) curriculum and the national literacy objectives for children aged five to 11. Using the theme of bullying, this scheme of work starts with a lively and dramatic student performance by older pupils in the primary school, including every member of the class. Full scripts, music and dance scores are provided. The bullying scenes involve the audience by focusing on the role of the bystanders. Comprehensive teacher notes, activities and resources are also included for follow-up work with each year group. This comprehensive pack, produced by two experienced teachers, is useful for anyone running an anti-bullying initiative in their primary school. Bridget Smith has worked for many years as a specialist in deafness within the health service, as part of a Cambridge University research group, and in the voluntary sector. She has taught as a general practitioner in primary and middle schools with specific responsibilities for music and IT. As well as having tutored children who are excluded from school she is regularly involved in coaching music and sport and in the development of local facilities for youth. Kate Baker has created and developed effective assemblies with children over many years, as class teacher, literacy and drama co-ordinator and Deputy Head. She has also devised and directed productions in schools, at children's drama and music courses and for the theatre. Kate still teaches in primary and middle schools and is currently developing more ideas and materials to enrich the curriculum for Key Stages 1 to 3.

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Kim confronts the dark underbelly of the K-pop world as she strives to become a K-pop star.