Fifth grader Billy Carmichael is very popular, a great student and a star baseball player. He is looking forward to his last few weeks in elementary school, and can hardly wait until the end-of-term school picnic, followed by the biggest baseball game of the year. Before all this can happen, however, Billy must deal with the escapades of his best friend, Jacob Riley. Jacob is another popular boy at school, but also a bully. Billy is able to accept most of Jacob's behavior, but he constantly struggles with the way Jacob treats Timmy Watkins, a quiet, overweight new kid at school. Jacob calls Timmy fat boy and embarrasses him in front of the rest of the kids. Jacob takes advantage of every opportunity to harass Timmy, beginning with pushing him off the school bus. He doesn't stop there, however, finding all sorts of occasions to make Timmy the subject of his ridicule. All of these events upset Billy, and even affect his ability to play baseball. Rather than confronting Jacob or befriending Timmy, he chooses to ignore it. Billy does, though, turn to his father to discuss his feelings. Strike One! shows what happens when the tables are turned, and the bully needs help from the victim. About the Author: Andrea Prostko hopes to encourage young boys to read. She lives with her family in suburban Detroit and is working on her next book. Publisher's Web site: http: //www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/StrikeOne.htm

In the vein of the hit television show Battlestar Galactica comes Earth Strike—the first book in the action-packed Star Carrier science fiction series by Ian Douglas, author of the popular Inheritance, Heritage, and Legacy Trilogies and one of the most adept writers of military sf working today. Earth Strike rockets readers into a vast and deadly intergalactic battle, as humankind attempts to bring down an evil empire and establish itself as the new major power. Fans of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, welcome aboard the Star Carrier!

One Last Strike by legendary baseball manager Tony La Russa is a thrilling sports comeback story. La Russa, the winner of four Manager of the Year awards—who led his teams to six Pennant wins and three World Series crowns—chronicles one of the most exciting end-of-season runs in baseball history, revealing with fascinating behind-the-scenes details how, under his expert management, the St. Louis Cardinals emerged victorious in the 2011 World Series despite countless injuries, mishaps, and roadblocks along the way. Talking candidly about the remarkable season—and his All-Star players like Albert Pujols and David Freese—the recently retired La Russa celebrates his fifty years in baseball, his team’s amazing recovery from 10 ½ games back, and one final, unforgettable championship in a book that no true baseball fan will want to miss.

The author, a veteran street cop, knows the dangerous "rituals" of violent encounters. Here he reveals the vulnerable targets of the human body that can result in your attacker collapsing to the pavement in pain or unconsciousness. Also learn how street people size you up as a victim and what you can do to discourage them.

Collects Avengers Mech Strike (2021) #1-5. The story that gives new meaning to the phrase "Avengers Assemble!" Earth's Mightiest Heroes find themselves confronted with an unstoppable new menace: monstrous Biomechanoids seemingly impervious to every attack! But the Avengers aren't so easily beaten - and when new threats arise, powerful new tools must be brought to bear! Suiting up in high-tech individualized armor, the Avengers stand ready for one of their greatest battles yet as a shadowy mastermind makes the first moves in a deadly game of chess! While the team battles Biomechanoids across the globe, Iron Man and Black Panther try desperately to uncover their hidden enemy - and discover that the threat is far greater than they had previously imagined. The fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, and an Avenger will fall!

Published under a pseudonym, J. K. Rowling's brilliant debut mystery introduces Detective Cormoran Strike as he investigates a supermodel's suicide in "one of the best books of the year" (USA Today), the first novel in the brilliant series that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max series C.B. Strike. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he's living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry -- known to her friends as the Cuckoo -- famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man. You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Keeping her safe has become his life's mission.Gage Hendrix is a man without roots. As an MSD Team Leader for the Department of State, he operates in high-threat environments. Serving in dangerous postings around the world, his team provides emergency security support and crisis response. Keeping the US ambassador's daughter safe in Sri Lanka? An unusual assignment for an "action group" used to dealing with evacuations, wars, incursions, and coups.Expecting a spoilt princess, Gage finds a hard-working therapist with a huge heart and haunted eyes.Hiding from heartache is no longer an option.Chantal Durant's best friend has gone into hiding with intel that could lead to a nation's upheaval. Enemies have targeted the last person who helped her to escape?Turning a tragic past into a constructive existence, Chantal dedicates herself to helping others. She likes her work, likes her routine, and doesn't like that her safety is now in the hands of a cocky MSD agent. Her undeniable sexual attraction for the ruggedly handsome bodyguard would not only end his career but could get them both killed.As multiple threats close in, Gage is faced with harrowing decisions. Trapped in an unfamiliar landscape, both Gage and Chantal will have to act fast to make it out alive.

The first four novels in Robert Galbraith's "wonderfully entertaining" series (Harlan Coben) featuring the private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. This omnibus set includes the novels The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White. Each of these novels is compulsively readable, with twists at every turn. You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. "Rowling’s wizardry as a writer is on abundant display...This is a crime series deeply rooted in the real world, where brutality and ugliness are leavened by the oh-so-human flaws and virtues of Galbraith’s irresistible hero and heroine." --USA Today

***The 7th novel in the Strike series, THE RUNNING GRAVE, is coming in September 2023. Pre-order now and be the first to read it*** THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, JULY 2023 'A superlative piece of crime fiction' SUNDAY TIMES 'There can be no denying [Galbraith's] considerable talents as a crime writer' GUARDIAN 'Fans will be as entranced as ever' DAILY MAIL When frantic, dishevelled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn't know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie's true identity. Robin decides that the agency can't help with this - and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart. Robin and her business partner Cormoran Strike become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie's true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits - and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways . . . A gripping, fiendishly clever mystery, The Ink Black Heart is a true tour-de-force.

A look at growing up African American in the oppressive conditions of the South and attending segregated schools.