In this poignant story about the friendship between a dandelion and a sparrow, young readers are given a reassuring, yet emotionally powerful introduction to the natural cycle of life. One fine summer day, when Sparrow meets a dandelion with only 10 seed pods left, he asks how he can help. Dandelion laments that a short while ago, she was the brightest yellow, but now a strong wind could blow away her remaining pods and no one will remember her. Together, they decide to write Dandelion's story in the dirt, and so Dandelion tells Sparrow all the things she has seen and loved. Later that night, a storm changes everything. . . . But the tale of Dandelion lives on.

The humble dandelion. By roadside or mountainside, it flowers every month of the year throughout the world, a fitting symbol of life. Its journey is our journey, filled with challenge, wonder and beauty.

A fascinating discovery, Kawabata’s unfinished final novel Dandelions is a great master’s last word A fascinating discovery, Dandelions is Kawabata's final novel, left incomplete when he committed suicide in 1972. Beautifully spare and deeply strange, Dandelions explores love and madness and consists almost entirely conversations between a woman identified only as Ineko's mother, and Kuno, a young man who loves Ineko and wants to marry her. The two have left Ineko at the Ikuta Clinic, a mental hospital, which she has entered for treatment of somagnosia, a condition that might be called “seizures of body blindness.” Although her vision as a whole is unaffected, she periodically becomes unable to see her lover Kuno. Whether this condition actually constitutes madness is a topic of heated discussion between Kuno and Ineko’s mother: Kuno believes Ineko's blindness is actually an expression of her love for him, as it is only he, the beloved, she cannot see. In this tantalizing book, Kawabata explores the incommunicability of desire and carries the art of the novel, where he always suggested more than he stated, into mysterious and strange new realms. Dandelions is the final word of a truly great master, the first Japanese winner of the Nobel Prize.

Rhyming text presents the dandelion, not as a weed, but as a flower of great beauty. Includes information about the flower, a recipe, and science activities.

"Based on groundbreaking research that has the power to change the lives of countless children--and the adults who love them." --Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts. A book that offers hope and a pathway to success for parents, teachers, psychologists, and child development experts coping with difficult children. In Tom Boyce's extraordinary new book, he explores the "dandelion" child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the "orchid" child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children. Boyce writes of his pathfinding research as a developmental pediatrician working with troubled children in child-development research for almost four decades, and explores his major discovery that reveals how genetic make-up and environment shape behavior. He writes that certain variant genes can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors. But rather than seeing this "risk" gene as a liability, Boyce, through his daring research, has recast the way we think of human frailty, and has shown that while these "bad" genes can create problems, they can also, in the right setting and the right environment, result in producing children who not only do better than before but far exceed their peers. Orchid children, Boyce makes clear, are not failed dandelions; they are a different category of child, with special sensitivities and strengths, and need to be nurtured and taught in special ways. And in The Orchid and the Dandelion, Boyce shows us how to understand these children for their unique sensibilities, their considerable challenges, their remarkable gifts.

“A story beautifully told, with richly drawn characters that will...make you want to laugh and cry”* from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends and Before We Were Yours. All her life, Epiphany Salerno has been tossed like a dandelion seed on the wind. Now, at sixteen, she must move to the low-rent side of Blue Sky Hill and work where she's not wanted: in an upscale home on The Hill. J. Norman Alvord's daughter has hired a teenager to stay with him in the afternoons. Widowed and suffering from heart trouble, Norman wants to be left alone. But in Epie's presence, Norman discovers a mystery. Deep in his mind lie memories of another house, another life, and a woman who saved him. As summer comes to Blue Sky Hill, two residents from different worlds will journey through a turbulent past, and find that with an unexpected road trip through sleepy Southern towns comes life-changing friendship...and clues to a family secret hidden for a lifetime. Winner of the 2012 Carol Award for Women's Fiction from the American Christian Fiction Writers

Embarking on a new life in a new place, Zoe and her family journey west to the Nebraska Territory in the 1800s. They build their soddie, but in the endless miles of prairie, it can't be seen from any distance, so Zoe plants dandelions on their soddie.

What happens to a family already on the brink of disaster when the world around them crumbles? Dandelions for Dinner presents a memoir set in the sleepy town of Gargaliani, Greece, spanning the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the Greek Civil War of the 1940s. Told through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, it is an epic tale of youth, family, poverty, war, and unjust loss. It is also an uplifting story of how in the midst of calamity, survival is possible by using your head, taking your hits, and maintaining an undying faith. Though it is the tale of a family that is by all standards poor, Dandelions for Dinner demonstrates just how rich the poor can be when they have hope, faith, and love for one anotherwhen they maintain the lessons of their parents and forefathers, nurture a love of education, and never let up on their hope for freedom. This memoir is, above all, a story about the importance of Americanot only for those who live there, but also for all those who reside in the dark corners of faraway lands and dream of a better life. Over the course of their life together, any family will most assuredly experience both want and plenty, suffering and joy. Dandelions for Dinner is the surprising story of what remains when everything else is lost.

"Dandelions thrive on all seven continents. The blooms are among the most resilient and adaptable in the world. Learn how the crafty plant travels on the wind and hitches rides in all manner of ways in order to spread far and wide. Includes a map and backmatter on dandelions"--