Shocking, intimate, often uncomfortably honest, these stories reaffirm Doris Lessing’s unequalled ability to capture the truth of the human condition In the title novel, two friends fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, vowing a respectable old age. In Victoria and the Staveneys, a young woman gives birth to a child of mixed race and struggles with feelings of estrangement as her daughter gets drawn into a world of white privilege. The Reason for It traces the birth, faltering, and decline of an ancient culture, with enlightening modern resonances. A Love Child features a World War II soldier who believes he has fathered a love child during a fleeting wartime romance and cannot be convinced otherwise.

We are thirteen indigenous grandmothers. . . . We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth, the atrocities of war, the global scourge of poverty, the prevailing culture of materialism, the epidemics that threaten the health of the Earth’s peoples, and with the destruction of indigenous ways of life. We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, believe that our ancestral ways of prayer, peacemaking, and healing are vitally needed today. . . . We believe that the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future. In some Native American societies, tribal leaders consulted a council of grandmothers before making any major decisions that would affect the whole community. What if we consulted our wise women elders about the problems facing our global community today? This book presents the insights and guidance of thirteen indigenous grandmothers from five continents, many of whom are living legends among their own peoples. The Grandmothers offer wisdom on such timely issues as nurturing our families; cultivating physical and mental health; and confronting violence, war, and poverty. Also included are the reflections of Western women elders, including Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Carol Moseley Brown.

A visit to Grandmother’s house has never been so frightening. . . . Charlie and Georgie Oughtt have been sent to visit their Grandmother Pearl, and this troubles Charlie for three reasons. The first is that he’s an exceptionally nervous twelve-year-old boy, and he worries about everything. The second is that the other children in his neighborhood who pay visits to their grandmothers never seem to return. And the third is that Charlie and Georgie don’t have any grandmothers. Upon their arrival, all of Charlie’s concerns are confirmed, as “Grandmother Pearl” quickly reveals herself to be something much more gruesome than even Charlie’s most outlandish fears could have predicted. He and Georgie are thrust into a creepy underworld created from stolen nightmares, where monsters disguised as grandmothers serve an ancient, evil queen by holding children captive as they slowly sap each one of their memories and dreams. But something is different about Charlie. His worrisome nature, so often a burden, proves an asset in this frightening world. Will he be able to harness this newfound power to defeat the queen and save his sister?

?Once in a blue moon (which means a fairly long cycle in my case) one who deals professionally with new books comes upon something that seems to him truly noteworthy and memorable-a reading experience which he will cherish for the rest of his life. And when this book is original and, indeed, unique-when it achieves something that has never been done before-one's impulse is to rent a billboard, to hire a hall, in some way to underline and emphasize the excitement and enthusiasm of his discovery, so that other readers may share his pleasure. "This has been my experience with The Ten Grandmothers, by Alice Marriott. It was the custom of certain tribes of Indians of the Great Plains to keep a 'winter count,' or calendar, of important events. Each year an officially designated scribe or historian of the tribe inscribed on a specially selected and prepared buffalo hide (which was a sacred tribal possession) a colored pictograph commemorating the most noteworthy event of the year-the happening or circumstance for which the year would be remembered in the oral literature and traditions of the tribe. "Miss Marriott's book is based upon such a tribal history of the Kiowas, an important and tenacious nation of the southern Great Plains, for more than a hundred years. She has taken representative incidents from this story and built each into a unified narrative of personal experience, concrete and dramatic. The thirty-three narratives fall into four groups reflecting the major phases of Kiowa history in the last century; they are called, since Kiowa .economy was based on the buffalo, The Time When There Were Plenty of Buffalo; The Time When Buffalo Were Going; The Time When Buffalo Were Gone; and Modern Times. Since the same characters appear recurringly, the book has the effect of a loosely constructed novel. "Miss Marriott is an ethnologist. Her book is based on eight years of work with the Kiowas?work that certainly consisted of much more than superficial interviews with aged Indians. There is evidence everywhere, not only of accurate scientific knowledge of the material to be presented, but of profound human insight and understanding. "Miss Marriott is also a creative artist of extraordinary powers. Her book has abundant humor, drama and melodrama, beauty and sordidness, pathos and tragedy: all presented sharply, objectively, with economy, restraint, and dignity. The narrative of the long journey of Wooden Lance, to see for himself and for his tribe whether the leader of the Ghost Dance movement (that inspired the last desperate, irrational struggle of the plains Indians against the whites) had 'true power is unforgettable in its simplicity and reality. The story of the Kiowa girl Leah's return from her years at a boarding school in the East to her family on the reservation is as true and socially significant as it is poignant and dramatic. "The great achievement of Miss Marriott's book is that it makes accessible to the reader of today the essence of a culture, a way of life and thought, now almost vanished from the earth. "We have an uneasy feeling that some special meaning and value for Americans of today and tomorrow must lie in the older cultures of our continent which our own has so largely displaced. American writers from Longfellow on have tried with varying degrees of success to capture that meaning for us. "Miss Marriott's book shows that our feeling was justified. No discerning reader will fail to find in the men and women who are so vivid in its pages-Sitting Bear and Eagle Plume, old Quanah and Spear Woman, and the Kiowa boys riding in their jeep to enlist for the present World War-in their vision and knowledge of life and their essential experience, abundant meaning for today."

Grace says goodbye to Grandmother in this touching book about love and loss. Grandmother lives with Grace’s family. She teaches her how to measure water for rice. She tells her stories about growing up in China and together they savor the flavors of her childhood. Grandmother says goodbye when she drops Grace off at school every morning and hello when she picks her up at the end of the day. Suddenly, Grandmother stops walking Grace to and from school, and the door to her room stays closed. Father comes home early to make dinner, but the rice bowls stay full. One day, Grandmother’s room is empty. And soon after, she is buried. After the funeral, Grace’s mom turns on all the outside lights so that Grandmother’s spirit can find its way home for one final goodbye. Carmen Mok’s gentle illustrations show the love between a child and her grandmother in this story that will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one. Betty Quan’s picture-book debut is haunting yet hopeful. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.6 Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.7 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

A grandmother promises to skip stones, dunk cookies, and love her grandchild in every way forever.

The four oral histories presented in this attractive volume pay homage to elder women who quietly serve as community and political activists within the Lakota-Dakota Nation. . . Recommended.--Library Journal

In Widowsbury, an isolated village where people believe "known is good, new is bad," three outcasts form the girls' school join forces with a home-schooled boy to uncover and combat the evil that is making people disappear.

For those people who are in the process of "no longer playing small" this book is medicine for the soul. It contains the wisdom I wish I would have known and spoken throughout my life. It is the second chance for my grandmothers (and all women) to have their voices heard. I invite you to join my grandmothers. Sit down with a cup of tea and a scone, and delve into the wisdom that comes from beyond the beyond. If you enjoy the book, I would love it if you would consider leaving a short review on Amazon where you found it.

Based on the accounts of midwives, their descendants, and the women they served, In the Way of Our Grandmothers tells of the midwife's trade--her principles, traditions, and skills--and of the competing medical profession's successful program to systematically destroy the practice. The rural South was one of the last strongholds of the traditional "granny" midwife. Whether she came by her trade through individual choice or inherited a practice from an older relative, a woman who accepted the "call" of midwife launched a lifelong vocation of public service. While the profession was arduous, it had numerous rewards. Midwives assumed positions of leadership within their communities, were able to define themselves and their actions on their own terms, and derived a great sense of pride and satisfaction from performing a much-loved job. Despite national statistics that placed midwives above all other attendants in low childbirth mortality, Florida's state health experts began in the early twentieth century to view the craft as a menace to public health. Efforts to regulate midwives through education and licensing were part of a long-term plan to replace them with modern medical and hospital services. Eager to demonstrate their good will and common interest, most midwives complied with the increasingly restrictive rules imposed by the state, unknowingly contributing to the demise of their own profession. The recent interest of the youthful middle class in home birth methods has been accompanied by a rediscovery of the midwife's craft. Yet the new midwifery represents the state's successful attainment of a long-awaited goal: the replacement of the traditional lay midwife with the modern nurse-midwife. In the Way of Our Grandmothers provides a voice for the few women in the South who still remember the earlier trade--one that evolved organically from the needs of women and existed outside the realms of men.