Full of energy, rambunctious and spirited five year old Joey has a rough few days. Joey finds himself in trouble quite often, getting into real life experiences and troubles with his mommy. Joey's behavior ultimately leads him to the dreaded whoopin' from his mommy. This is a great book to sit and read with your child as it lays out behaviors and consequences, and helps a parent and a child both with working through the struggles of disciplining a child.

If you read the first book about this family entitled Emily, you will recognize most of these characters and be introduced to more as the saga continues. Fate brings Emily Jones to a farmhouse outside of Perryville, Kentucky in the heart of the great Depression when her car breaks down on the way to her sisters home in Virginia. She and her children have no money and no food. They are prepared to beg for something to eat and to be allowed to sleep in the barn. They stay on by making themselves indispensable to a household that has recently lost its wife and mother. There they make an amazing discovery. This is a story of people adapting to hard situations and decisions in hard times. It is a story of misplaced people and some of the things they had to do to survive. It is the story of a country in turmoil. It starts in 1931 and goes through to 1982. This book, All Of Us, starts out with Emily in 1904, when she is 2 years old and is told in the first person by each character. It is indicative of individual views on some of the same situations. The history of our country factors into this book, also. The Brown family extends into a loving, caring family of a hundred people from Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, Texas, Georgia, and Michigan who decide to have a family reunion after World War II. It ends with a tragedy in 1950. The next book will be More About the Rest of Us and will cover 1950 to 1986 with some flashbacks to earlier times.

"Earnest . . . Compelling . . . successfully captures the anger, frustration, and freedom of kids on the brink of adulthood." -Kirkus Reviews, Recommended Review A group of troubled but charismatic boys in a tough Buffalo, NY neighborhood play basketball at a local park and dream of winning a state high school championship. Driven by raw talent and killer instinct, they dominate the court, but everywhere else, they feel like losers. Hammond is told through the eyes of James Lombardi, a precocious but mentally ill boy who believes winning a championship will ease his "Evil Thoughts" and save his family, long haunted by generations of substance abuse, uncontrollable rage, and suicide. A dark but humorous coming-of-age novel, Hammond offers a poetic and disturbing look inside the complex mind of an adolescent boy as he slowly learns that having the heart of a champion can sometimes be more burden than blessing. *Hammond is the first novel in a loosely-linked series with The Summer of Crud, Understanding the Alacrán, Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story, and The Soul City Salvation as books two-five. Each novel can be read independently of the others.

Three life-long friends embark on a journey to Africa for their annual hunt and get caught up in a series of power plays and cons by powerful men. They find themselves targeted by an ancient African tribe and must find a way to survive to make it home. A story of a man who achieved the American dream only to find that it exposed him to the evils of politics, as he is being influenced by men who wish to blackmail him and take advantage of his success. He turns to his friends for help and understanding. Powerful, dramatic, sometimes horrifying and sometimes hilarious. A quick read with a great storyline.

An American classic—and Pulitzer Prize–winning story—that shows the ultimate bond between child and pet. No novel better epitomizes the love between a child and a pet than The Yearling. Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend. There has been a film and even a musical based on this moving story, a fine work of great American literature.

To spank or not to spank? If you are a parent, you have most likely already asked yourself this question - should you spank your child? And if so, how should you go about it? Spanking is an effective punishment and discipline method when done right. This book will take you through the principles of ethical and constructive spanking, followed by a step-by-step guide on how to spank your child with love. Punishing your child can hurt you more than it does him/her. Responsible parents will do everything they can to mold their children to principled and compassionate individuals, including an occasional whip. However, spanking your child could have the opposite effects if you don't do it right. Unfortunately, lack of knowledge, or willful breaking of the spanking rules, will have the same negative results on your child's psychology. It is your responsibility as a parent to educate yourself in spanking, or not do it all.

LaLee is a typical cat. She’s snooty, hostile, and opinionated. She’s also been kittynapped. Heaven help the idiots who thought that was a good idea. The good news is that they’ll probably be so sick of her antics by the time we find them that they’ll be happy to give her back! My name is Joey Fulle and my superpower is solving mysteries with my handsome PI boyfriend. We also get a little help from my sweet Pitbull Caphy and her sisters in crime, LaLee the Siamese cat and Ethel Squeaks the miniature potbelly pig. Fortunately, we’ve been in a mystery dry spell for a few weeks and I’ll admit, I’ve been a little bored. A condition I immediately regretted when LaLee was kittynapped. Now my posse and I need to discover why they took the crotchety cat, figure out how to save her, and then solve a murder. Just another day in Bumpkinville!

With standardized testing and predetermined subgroups garnering the attention of educational leaders, abused and neglected children have fallen deeper into the crevice of the system. For years these children have been ignored, save the obvious, visible bruises or child-initiated confessions. Because researching children is difficult without parental consent, it is nearly impossible to expose this problem with any level of legitimacy. By combining research from scientific research and the humanities, autobiographical flashbacks fuse with narratives that vividly detail the author's disturbing encounters with abused children as a school administrator. The effect is the realization that public schools unknowingly feed on weaker children beneath the awning of accountability.