The truth of God's Word about sex Preparing kids before they hear the world's lies To be read with 7-12 year olds

A “delightful story” about a five-year-old’s first Christmas in a new house (Alona Frankel). Five-year-old Ben has moved into a new home with his father. But there’s no chimney! How is Santa going to get in when Christmas comes? Ben asks his dad, his friend, his teacher, his mailman, and even his dog, but no one has a good answer. So he’ll just have to write a letter to Santa Claus, Indiana . . . Inspired by a real town (kids can write to Santa and the elves at P.O. Box 1, Santa Claus, Indiana 47579), this lively storybook also includes appearances by Checkermint the elf, adding extra fun for young readers who can try to spot Checkermint’s many hiding places.

The word crisis comes from the Greek krisis, which literally means decision. When trials, temptations, disasters, personal sin, or anything else bring us to a point of crisis, how we respond - the decisions we make and actions we take - will either reflect a faithful, obedient, God honoring heart or a doubtful, self-centered one. Because crises bring about the need to make many decisions, Christians are afforded opportunities to glorify God by making choices and acting in ways that honor Him. The Biblical Crisis Intervention model presented in this book provides a template upon which the counselor can base his or her crisis ministry. As the world provides temporary solutions to those in crisis, the Biblical Crisis Intervention Model offers an opportunity for those in crisis to find the healing that God offers.

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That’s me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature. Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson’s first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! The cozy comedy of Joe Pera meets the darkly playful illustrations of Joe Bennett in A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing But Using the Bathroom as an Escape, a funny, warm, and sincere guide to regaining calm and confidence when you're hiding in the bathroom. “Nothing says ‘class’ to your dinner guests more than a Joe Pera book next to the can.” —Seth Meyers Joe Pera goes to the bathroom a lot. And his friend, Joe Bennett, does too. They both have small bladders but more often it’s just to get a moment of quiet, a break from work, or because it’s the only way they know how to politely end conversations. So they created a functional meditative guide to help people who suffer from social anxiety and deal with it in this very particular way. Although, it’s a comedic book, the goal is to help these readers: 1. Relax 2. Recharge 3. Rejoin the world outside of the bathroom It’s also fun entertainment for people simply hiding in the bathroom to avoid doing work. A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing But Using the Bathroom as an Escape will be waiting in the bathroom like a beacon for anxious readers looking to feel calm, confident, and less alone. “Nothing says ‘class’ to your dinner guests more than a Joe Pera book next to the can.” —Seth Meyers “A beautiful and funny book about something I have done all my life. Thank you, Mr. Joseph Pera.” —Aidy Bryant At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“If only”, the sad refrain, so familiar, yet seemingly so limited, takes each character to the edge of their own personal cliffs. Regardless of the road taken, invariably, all roads lead to Destiny. No matter how far flung we find ourselves in life, the Force that Governs tomorrow, is never, ever, very far away. Faith, Choice and Fate ever surround us, so that Destiny can take center stage. Will loves Rain. Rain loves Ian. Ian loves another woman. Three lives, three loves and so three families are caught up in this tempest. The name of Love can offer many faces. True Love has only one face. Will, Rain and Ian all want to see their own dreams fulfilled. But Desperation, Infidelity, and Karma entangle all of them, turning their lives upside down. Be mindful of how you choose to tread in this lifetime. The Law of Sowing and Reaping is absolute. Forgiveness becomes the Master Key to still this storm, and could mean the difference between life or death of an innocent child.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption “features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human” (The Chicago Tribune). One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. “Pitch perfect.... Darkly, rippingly funny.... Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.” —The New York Times Book Review