In 2198 man lives precariously on hastily-established colony worlds and in seven giant starships. Mia Haveros ship tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world. Her trial is fast approaching and she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world.

To the Ends of the Earth, William Golding's great sea trilogy, presents the extraordinary story of a warship's troubled journey to Australia in the early 1800s. Told through the pages of Edmund Talbolt's journall--with equal measure of wit and disdain--it records the mounting tensions and growing misfortunes aboard the ancient ship. An instant maritime classic, and one of Golding's finest achievements, the trilogy was adapted into a major three-part Mastpiece Theatre drama in 2006.

Winner of the 1980 Booker Prize Sailing to Australia in the early years of the nineteenth century, Edmund Talbot keeps a journal to amuse his godfather back in England. Full of wit and disdain, he records the mounting tensions on the ancient, sinking warship where officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped spaces below decks. Then a single passenger, the obsequious Reverend Colley, attracts the animosity of the sailors, and in the seclusion of the fo'castle something happens to bring him into a "hell of degradation," where shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself. William Golding's To the Ends of the Earth trilogy is now a BBC/PBS Masterpiece miniseries staring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jared Harris and Sam Neill. To the Ends of the Earth: 1. Rites of Passage 2. Close Quarters 3. Fire Down Below

Women's Rites of Passage grew out of Abigail Brenner s desire to answer some fundamental questions about the role of rites of passage in contemporary women s lives. Relying on a research study involving over 50 women, Brenner shows how women today understand the need to take responsibility for their lives and for directing their own paths, and are beginning to do so by creating their own very personal rites of passage.

"Johnny, you're leaving us tonight . . . " Fifteen-year-old Johnny Gibbs does, well in school, respects his teachers, and loves his family. Then suddenly, with a few short words, his idyllic life is shattered. He learns that the family he has loved all his life is not his own, but a foster family. And now he is being sent to live with someone else. Shocked by the news, Johnny does the only thing he can think of: he runs. Leaving his childhood behind forever, Johnny takes to the streets where he learns about living life--the hard way. Richard Wright, internationally acclaimed author of Black Boy and Native Son, gives us a coming-of-age story as compelling today as when it was first written, over fifty years ago. ‘Johnny Gibbs arrives home jubilantly one day with his straight ‘A’ report card to find his belongings packed and his mother and sister distraught. Devastated when they tell him that he is not their blood relative and that he is being sent to a new foster home, he runs away. His secure world quickly shatters into a nightmare of subways, dark alleys, theft and street warfare. . . . Striking characters, vivid dialogue, dramatic descriptions, and enduring themes introduce a enw generation of readers to Wright’s powerful voice.’—SLJ. Notable 1995 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)

Van Gennep was the first observer of human behaviour to note that the ritual ceremonies that accompany the landmarks of human life differ only in detail from one culture to another, and that they are in essence universal. Originally published in English in 1960. This edition reprints the paperback edition of 1977.

For generations, other religions and cultures have put their children through a rite of passage to adulthood. Many people are aware of the Jewish practice of the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, for example. The reality, however, is that many children today don’t learn how to become adults on purpose; rather, they ride the wave of adolescence toward an unknown adult future. Moms, dads, and other perfectly placed adults have the unique opportunity to guide the teenagers in their life toward adulthood. This is not a privilege to be taken lightly, but neither is it an impossible task. Jim McBride, executive producer of Fireproof and Courageous, brings wisdom, experience, and practical examples to his guidebook for leading those burgeoning adults in your life through a real-life Rite of Passage.

On a hot summer night in 1963, a teenager named Walt Crowley hopped off a bus in Seattle’s University District, and began his own personal journey through the 1960s. Four years later at age 19, he was installed as “rapidograph in residence” at the Helix, the region’s leading underground newspaper. His cartoons, cover art, and political essays helped define his generation’s experience during that tumultuous decade. Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle weaves Crowley’s personal experience with the strands of international, intellectual, and political history that shaped the decade. As both a member and in-house critic of the New Left and counter-culture, the author offers a unique perspective in explaining why the experiments and excess of the period “made sense at the time.” Anti-war marches, human be-ins, rock festivals, psychedelic drugs, underground newspapers, free universities, light shows, inner-city riots, radical skirmishes, and hippie antics are chronicled with personal anecdotes, contemporary accounts, and historical insights. In the pages of Rites of Passage, the reader will encounter Black (and White) Panthers, the Seattle and Chicago Seven, Weathermen and Radical Women, and many more remarkable characters. As an engaging blend of history and personal reminiscence, Rites of Passage places the sixties in a context unavailable to its participants at the time. In addition to his text, Crowley has assembled a chronology of the decade beginning with its harbingers in the forties and fifties and continuing through its aftermath. This compilation covers political, social, and cultural events, and provides the most complete synopsis of sixties history now in print.

Thinkers and activists from many orientations and traditions are now coming together to explore ways to reconstitute rites of passage as a form of community healing for our public and personal ills. Crossroads is a comprehensive collection of over fifty cutting-edge writings on diverse aspects of the transition to adulthood. "In no uncertain terms, Crossroads opens our eyes to our responsibility to the adolescents who are now growing up without sacred rituals and hence without knowledge of spiritual roots in their culture. Many of the writers have first-hand experience and first-rate ideas of how to transform this cultural crisis. Crossroads also challenges us to integrate our own inner adolescent. Piercing insight with realistic hope " -- Marlon Woodman The Ravaged Bridegroom

Providing a personal, informed and cultural perspective on rites of passage for general readers, this text illustrates the power of rites to help us navigate life's troublesome transitions.