A family struck by almost unbearable tragedy is finally able to go with their lives… BEGIN AGAIN The Ludzecky family was leveled by an unspeakable tragedy. Three years later, Paulina runs a contracting business with her twin, Antonia. And she’s ready to dip her toes in romance, especially after she meets the architect on the new next project. PRIMARY COLORS Antonia is stuck in her grief and can’t find a way out of her sorrow over the untimely death of her beloved husband. Until she meets a modern artist whose gentle demeanor and lack of arrogance attracts her. RISKY BUSINESS Magdalena is a child prodigy and career woman extraordinaire. She’s a partner in a private equity firm and is a force to be reckoned with. Her best friend is her colleague, Logan Pierce, who’s always there for her, especially when her brothers-in-law were killed. Suddenly, they find attraction growing between them. But an office romance is unthinkable. THE WAY WE WERE Ana Ludzecky had it all—a sexy husband, a beautiful daughter, her dream house and the best extended family in the world. Then, tragedy strikes their family and her life turns upside down. She makes some bad choices that eventually lead to the dissolution of her marriage to the love of her life. HANDLE WITH CARE Diagnosed with leukemia at sixteen, Sofia has been affected by more tragedy than any of her sisters. But she found the strength to help her sisters out and also take care of herself. Being a yoga teacher helps her live a calm life. Enter the athletic, boisterous Physical Education teacher who goes after her with all he’s got. LOVE STORY Elizabeta Ludzecky is two different women: one the risk-taking, hip, wild child in the Ludzecky family. And the other, a Rhodes Scholar and businesswoman who works at the Met. But there’s a problem at the museum and the undercover cop is placed there. When she sets her sights on him, his first instinct is to run in the other direction. Soon, that changes dramatically.

This culturally relevant intervention helps girls achieve the direction, identity, empowerment, and critical consciousness that lead to more positive self-esteem. It also helps them develop relationships with others, greater ethnic pride, and higher expectations for future accomplishments. Group sessions cover topics such as relationship skills, African and African American culture, personal hygiene and health, community and media messages, education, and leadership.

In a world laced with the lethal threads of racism, sexism, classism, and sexual oppression we need a liberating hope that dismantles these intersecting problems that render us into a stupor of chronic despair. In the United States, where the color of your skin can determine life or death, we need hope that will give us life abundantly. In a country where state laws prohibited mixed-race marriages between white and black people as recent as the year 2000 and black/white mixed-race children were demonized by both whites and blacks, our hope must be inspired by the Holy Spirit, God the Creator and Redeemer at work in the world today. This book offers emancipatory hope as this divine hope. With a focus on black/white mixed-race young women and their troubling relationships with women and girls of all ethnicities, Between Sisters provides a process toward emancipatory hope through forgiveness, femaleship, fortitude, and freedom. The process toward emancipatory hope challenges Christian churches to practice forgiveness, femaleship, fortitude, and freedom in a racist society. While the process is not without struggle, it promises that hope through the power of the Holy Spirit will someday usher in a society of justice, peace, and love.

The history of people must be told to their children. Each child who is born into a family has an oral and written history, which we should present to our children and not hide it under a bushel. This book is a sequel to Cultural Gumbo, Our Roots, Our Stories and A Diary of Lettie’s Daughter. I have used my family members to tell the stories because I can trace their footsteps through oral and documented tradition and history.

In this collection of articles, Geneva Gay invites readers to make educational equity and excellence for all students a reality, not just an ethic or an ideal. Through teaching narratives and pragmatic examples, Gay illustrates that a combination of ideology, ethics, personal commitment, and praxis on the part of educators is essential to achieving equity for underachieving racial and ethnic minority students. The text is organized into three themes: Identity (how the identities and behaviors of educators are influenced by their membership in ethnic and cultural groups); Ideology (how the beliefs, attitudes, and expectations of educators shape their behaviors and instruction); and Action (suggestions for equitable teaching, classroom management, curriculum development, and teacher preparation). Each individual essay can be read separately, but they are especially powerful when read in conjunction with each other. Educating for Equity and Excellence is applicable to a broad spectrum of teaching contexts, including early childhood, elementary, secondary, and college. Book Features: A good blend of ideas and actions for teaching diverse students, including Black, Asian American, Native American, and Latinx students. Narratives from the personal experiences of the author as well as those of other education scholars, researchers, and practitioners. Suggested teaching actions applicable to educating students at different grade levels and abilities. Easy-to-understand chapters, with pragmatic explanations, that describe complex conceptual ideas. Recommended actions for promoting and sustaining equity across contexts. She received the 2023 AERA Division B (Curriculum Studies) Lifetime Achievement Award.

A New York Times and USA TODAY Bestseller “50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Last 50 Years.” —Essence Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read The instant classic from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Life After Death brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable novel. I came busting into the world during one of New York’s worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn’t want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top. Twenty-five years and over one million copies later, The Coldest Winter Ever is a bestseller and a national treasure, a classic handed down from one reading generation to the next. Whether you are reading it for the first time or have cherished it for years, you will never forget this Winter’s tale.

chapters discuss issues impacting the education of African American girls and many of challenges that they encounter during their schooling experiences. The chapters were written by 24 authors including a school superintendent, university administrator and professors, classroom teacher, mother and a 10th grade African American student. The 20 chapters of the book are organized into four sections. Section one introduces the book and provides critical perspectives. Section Two focuses on Curriculum and instruction. Section Three shares information from significant stakeholders while the last section includes other schooling experiences and ends with a powerful poem by a tenth grade African American girl, entitled “Proud.” The forward of the book, written by a Japanese American scholar, Valerie Pang, denotes the urgency of the book noting that the book “warms the heart.” The book ends with an epilogue, written by an African American scholar, Tyrone Howard, who has a vested interest in African American males. He shares commanding interest in this scholarship, because what happens to African American females, impacts African American males and the entire African American community.

Eric Jerome Dickey, author of fourteen New York Times bestselling novels, imagines the formative college years of one of his most popular heroines, Nia Simone Bijou. This Penguin Special includes a preview of Decadence, coming April 2013. From her first days at Virginia’s Hampton University, impressionable, creative Nia falls smitten with Chris Eidos Alleyne, an athlete and a scholar. “Love is sweet nothings and beautiful promises,” Nia writes in her journal. What her girlfriends know, and her mother doesn’t, is that Chris’s expression of love is deeply physical. Wielding powerful charisma, Chris soon has Nia abandoning innocence for experience. Believing that Chris will reward her sacrifices with lifelong commitment, Nia thrills to her newfound pleasures. She knows in her heart that each act of intimacy draws them ever closer. But when the Big Man on Campus learns to take what is freely given, without regard to love, Nia finds herself newly enrolled in Heartbreak 101. The Education of Nia Simone Bijou is a rousing tale of youthful passion, once kindled, never extinguished.

Heart wrenching and thought-provoking, these stories take you on an emotional journey to a crossroad where you will be inspired to love unconditionally. It begins with the Author's Notes and insightful descriptions of the Ages of Unconditional Love. The journey continues with the touching story of Nia's mysterious return in The Visit. Has she come to receive unconditional love? From there you travel through the provocative story, The Breakup. It will challenge you to determine whether love or obsession inspired Victoria to walk away from her dreams. But is mere love ever enough to sustain a relationship? That is the question Elizabeth must answer in the enlightening story Second Thoughts. Will she walk away from the "perfect" wedding and the "perfect" groom? This is a must read for anyone considering a romantic relationship. In the probing story, Setting A Screen, guilt is clearly the motivating emotion. Through daily journal entries, the protagonist examines her personal demons as well as God's reasons for Hurricane Camille and Katrina. How can a basketball play help her? The journey concludes with a look at the tenaciousness of parental love. In the true story, Troubled, Cameron's parents determine that he is on a path that can only lead to incarceration or death. Their unconditional love induces them to make an excruciating decision. Conversely, in Coral's Apology, an unexpected change in mind-set causes Coral to comprehend the pain that she's inflicted on her parents. Who will apologize? Query: Is your love truly . . . unconditional.

This highly multidisciplinary volume contains contributions from leading researchers in STEAM-H disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics and Health). The volume explores new frontiers in multidisciplinary research, including: the mathematics of cardiac arrhythmia; brain research on working memory; penalized ordinal regression to classify melanoma skin samples; forecasting of time series data; dynamics of niche models; analysis of chemical moieties as anticancer agents; study of gene locus control regions; qualitative mathematical modelling; convex quadrics and group circle systems; remanufacturing planning and control; complexity reduction of functional differential equations; computation of viscous interfacial motion; and differentiation in human pluripotent stem cells. An extension of a seminar series at Virginia State University, the collection is intended to foster student interest and participation in interdisciplinary research and to stimulate new research. The content will be of interest to a broad spectrum of scientists, mathematicians and research students working in interdisciplinary fields including the biosciences, mathematics, engineering, neurosciences and behavioral sciences.