Victim to Victory is about a woman in her midthirties who tells her life story about how she was a victim of emotional, financial, mental, physical, and sexual abuse. It goes into details about how it has had a negative effect on her life. This story gets into the mind of an abuser and unveiled reasons why abusers abuse. This story helps to get a better understanding of why people don’t leave abusive relationships. I hope after reading this book, someone that has been in any of these situations will find comfort and relief through this reading and find it the way I did through God.

Critical stories are narratives that recount the writer’s experiences, situating those experiences in broader cultural contexts. In this volume of Critical Storytelling, marginalized, excluded, and oppressed peoples share insights from their liminality to help readers learn from their perspectives on living from behind invisible bars. Female inmates at Decatur’s Correctional Center and the undergraduate Millikin University students who worked with them come together to give voice to their specific histories of living from behind invisibile bars and pose important questions to the reader about inciting change for the future. Specifically, the voices in this volume seek to expose, analyze, and challenge deeply-entrenched narratives and characterizations of incarcerated women, whose histories are often marked by sexual abuse, domestic violence, poverty, PTSD, a lack of education, housing insecurity, mental illness, and substance addiction. These silenced female inmate voices need to be heard and contextualized within the larger metanarrative of prison literature. Through telling critical stories, these writers attempt to: sustain recovery from trauma, make positive changes and informed decisions, create a real sense of empowerment, strengthen their capacity to exercise personal agency, and inspire audiences to create change far outside the reaches of physical and metaphorical bars. Contributors are: Anonymous, Soren Belle, Megan Batty, Dwight G. Brown, Jr., Sandra Brown, Kathryn Coffey, Kelly Cunningham, Paiten Hamilton, Kathlyn J. Housh, Rebekah Icenesse, Kala Keller, Jelisa Lovette, Bric Martin, Amanda Minetti, Laura Nearing, Angie Oaks, Claire Prendergast, Cara Quiett, J. M. Spence, Noah Villarreal and Alisha Walker.

It’s no secret that Sylvia is a little crazy. People have thought so ever since she first came to town when she was a teenager. But outside her own family, no one knows the depth of her mental illness. For her daughter, Mercy, Sylvia’s illness is at once a source of agony and fascination. Mercy’s mother is absent from her life on several occasions. First, she is taken away to a mental hospital for treatment. Later, on a summer night in the early 1980s, Sylvia disappears entirely, never to be seen again. Her absence is pivotal in Mercy’s life. Populated by an array of compelling characters the mad mother, the lovelorn father, the crossdressing younger brother, the quirky grandmother Love Object is a gripping account of the coming-of-age of a teenage girl in rural Ontario in the 1980s.

BOOK FIVE DOUBLE DARE Tess wants to be noticed. But making her mark has a high cost. Is it all worth it? Can super achievements change her into someone really special? This year’s birthday is the worst. First, Tess is cut from the school play. Then all her friends cancel on her birthday sleepover. Worst of all, everyone seems to be great at something–except her. Tess searches for a way she, too, can be unique and special, like her brother and her friends. Finally, she finds one. She decides to try out for the local gymnastics squad–and she’s good! But the demands of practice time force her to give up other things she cares about, like time with her Secret Sister, Erin. Making the team might be the answer to her dreams. Or is there something about who she is already that makes her a superstar?

An intimate coming-of age novel for teens, told in verse with delicate line art, chronicling the beauty, magic and transformative power of summer camp, for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Judy Blume. After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an arts and crafts counsellor at an all-girls' camp in the mountains of West Virginia. There, she meets girls and women from all walks of life with their own heartaches and triumphs. Immersed in this new camp experience, trying to form bonds with her fellow counselors while learning to be a trusted adviser for her campers, Nora distracts herself from her feelings, even during the intimate conversations around the nightly campfires. But when a letter from home comes bearing unexpected news, Nora finds inner strength in her devastation with the healing power of female friendship. Presented as Nora's camp journal, including Nora's sketches of camp life, scraps of letters, and spare poems, The Lightning Circle is an intimate coming-of-age portrait.

This book presents a unique annotated collection of some 2000 playground games, rhymes, and wordplay of London children. It charts continuity and development in childlore at a time of major social and cultural change and offers a detailed snapshot of changes in the traditions and language of young people. Topics include: starting a game; counting-out rhymes; games (without songs); singing and chanting games; clapping, skipping, and ball bouncing games; school rhymes and parodies; teasing and taunting; traditional belief and practice; traditional wordplay; and a concluding miscellany. Recorded mainly in the 1980s by primary schoolteacher Nigel Kelsey, transcribed verbatim from the children’s own words, and accompanied by extensive commentaries and annotation, the book sets a wealth of new information in the wider historical and contemporary context of existing studies in Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the English-speaking world. This valuable new resource will open new avenues for research and be of particular interest to folklorists and linguists, as well as to those working across the full spectrum of social, cultural, and educational studies.

*A New York Public Library Best Children's Book of 2018!* *A Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2018* *A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018* In Detroit, 1945, eleven-year-old Betty’s house doesn’t quite feel like home. She believes her mother loves her, but she can’t shake the feeling that her mother doesn’t want her. Church helps those worries fade, if only for a little while. The singing, the preaching, the speeches from guest activists like Paul Robeson and Thurgood Marshall stir African Americans in her community to stand up for their rights. Betty quickly finds confidence and purpose in volunteering for the Housewives League, an organization that supports black-owned businesses. Soon, the American civil rights icon we now know as Dr. Betty Shabazz is born. Inspired by Betty's real life--but expanded upon and fictionalized through collaboration with novelist Renée Watson--Ilyasah Shabazz illuminates four poignant years in her mother’s childhood with this book, painting an inspiring portrait of a girl overcoming the challenges of self-acceptance and belonging that will resonate with young readers today. Backmatter included. This title has Common Core connections.

Ailina’s life changes after a tragic event as a child. She was once a good girl who was well-trusted and loved by her parents, but something happened that caused her to move in with her grandparents. Being unable to control herself, she goes on a suicide attempt only to have it lead her into a mental institution. Years later, she meets an abusive older guy who only wants to control and misuse her. She escapes the abusive relationship and meets another man who seems to grow fond of her. But she makes a crucial decision that almost costs her her life and her marriage.