The story of Mika, a Jewish boy, who becomes a puppeteer in the Warsaw ghetto - a stunning debut for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas and Schindler's List I was twelve when the coat was made. Nathan, our tailor and dear friend, cut it for Grandfather in the first week of March 1938. It was the last week of freedom for Warsaw and for us... Even in the most difficult of lives, there is hope. And sometimes that hope comes in the form of a small boy, armed with a troupe of puppets - a prince, a girl, a fool, a crocodile with half-painted teeth.... When Mika's grandfather dies in the Warsaw ghetto, he inherits not only his great coat, but its treasure trove of secrets. In one remote pocket, he finds a papier mache head, a scrap of cloth...the prince. And what better way to cheer the cousin who has lost her father, the little boy who his ill, the neighbours living in one cramped room, than a puppet show? Soon the whole ghetto is talking about the puppet boy - until the day when Mika is stopped by a German officer and is forced into a secret life... This is a story about survival. It is an epic journey, spanning continents and generations, from Warsaw to the gulags of Siberia, and two lives that intertwine amid the chaos of war. Because even in wartime, there is hope...

THE ALCHEMIST meets THE SNOW CHILD in this beautiful odyssey through the snowy landscapes of northern Finland. Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Ritva is sent away to Seili - a remote island to the south of Finland. A former leper colony, Seili is now home to 'hopeless cases' - women who have been outcast from society. But Ritva can't understand why her father has allowed her to be taken there, and she longs to be reunited with her little sister. Hope arrives in the form of Martta, a headstrong girl who is a Sami, and who reminds Ritva of her lost mother and her tales - of Vaja the reindeer, the stolen sealskin, and of a sacred drum hidden long ago. When Ritva and Martta decide to escape, there is only one place that calls to them. And so they begin the long journey North, to the land of the Sami, in search of healing and forgiveness... Readers say: 'Some books make a lasting impression and I think this is definitely one of them. .. It's a celebration of the human spirit and our connection to nature.' Rosie Evans, Good Reads, 5 stars 'I love losing myself in a book & this one is one of those for me. I was transported to the land of the midnight sun.' Lynda, Good Reads 5 stars 'It has been one of those books that I have felt I have escaped into, because the setting is so richly described and the story line sweeps you up and carries you along.' https://becomingfinnishsite.wordpress.com 'The setting in Scandinavia and the lands at the top of the world was so well described as to almost be a character in itself and I was fascinated by the details relating to the indigenous people of this region - the Sami - and their way of life.' Bruce Gargoyle, Good Reads, 4 stars

Set in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant, and heartbreaking novel inspired by the true story of one doctor who was determined to protect two hundred Jewish orphans from extermination. Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom. Forced to return to the Warsaw ghetto, they help Misha's mentor, Dr Janusz Korczak, care for the two hundred children in his orphanage. As Korczak struggles to uphold the rights of even the smallest child in the face of unimaginable conditions, he becomes a beacon of hope for the thousands who live behind the walls. As the noose tightens around the ghetto, Misha and Sophia are torn from one another, forcing them to face their worst fears alone. They can only hope to find each other again one day . . . Meanwhile, refusing to leave the children unprotected, Korczak must confront a terrible darkness.

Describes the formation of one of the most daring underground movements of World War II under the leadership of twenty-four-year-old Isaac Zuckerman, and the group's collective efforts to gather information, build an arms cache, participate in uprisings, and organize escape systems.

From the author of Blind, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story set during World War II in Shanghai, one of the only places Jews without visas could find refuge. Warsaw, Poland. The year is 1940 and Lillia is fifteen when her mother, Alenka, disappears and her father flees with Lillia and her younger sister, Naomi, to Shanghai, one of the few places that will accept Jews without visas. There they struggle to make a life; they have no money, there is little work, no decent place to live, a culture that doesn't understand them. And always the worry about Alenka. How will she find them? Is she still alive? Meanwhile Lillia is growing up, trying to care for Naomi, whose development is frighteningly slow, in part from malnourishment. Lillia finds an outlet for her artistic talent by making puppets, remembering the happy days in Warsaw when her family was circus performers. She attends school sporadically, makes friends with Wei, a Chinese boy, and finds work as a performer at a "gentlemen's club" without her father's knowledge. But meanwhile the conflict grows more intense as the Americans declare war and the Japanese force the Americans in Shanghai into camps. More bombing, more death. Can they survive, caught in the crossfire?

Positive Art Therapy Theory and Practice outlines a clear, systematic approach for combining positive psychology with art therapy’s capacity to mobilize client strengths; induce engagement, flow and positive emotions; transform perceptions; build healing relationships and empowering narratives; and illuminate life purpose and meaning. Woven throughout are clinical illustrations, state-of-the-art research, discussion questions, and reflections on how therapists can apply this approach to their work with clients, and their personal and professional development. The book also includes a comprehensive list of more than 80 positive art therapy directives, a robust glossary, and lists of strengths and values. Written in an inviting and amusing style, this manual is both entertaining and practical—an invaluable tool for any practitioner looking to apply the most current theory and research on positive psychology and art therapy to their clinical practice.

Reprint. Originally published: New York: Holocaust Library, c1978.

In Inside Creativity Coaching, 40 creativity coaches from around the world describe their work with creative clients in this first-ever case study examination of the art and practice of creativity coaching. Curated by one of America’s foremost creativity coaches, these rich narratives examine how creativity coaches work with writers, painters, musicians, craftspeople, and other creatives on issues such as motivation, procrastination, blockage, and performance and career anxiety. Packed with concrete tools and techniques, the book draws on inspirational success stories from across the globe to help coaches better understand and serve their creative clients. It will be a valuable resource to creativity coaches, coaches interested in developing a specialty, and creatives and performing artists looking to overcome their challenges. Covering a diverse range of disciplines, Inside Creativity Coaching is a must-have book for both aspiring and experienced creativity coaches, and anyone interested in helping creatives.

Stories abound of immigrant Jews on the outside looking in, clambering up the ladder of social mobility, successfully assimilating and integrating into their new worlds. But this book is not about the success stories. It's a paean to the bunglers, the blockheads, and the just plain weird—Jews who were flung from small, impoverished eastern European towns into the urban shtetls of New York and Warsaw, where, as they say in Yiddish, their bread landed butter side down in the dirt. These marginal Jews may have found their way into the history books far less frequently than their more socially upstanding neighbors, but there's one place you can find them in force: in the Yiddish newspapers that had their heyday from the 1880s to the 1930s. Disaster, misery, and misfortune: you will find no better chronicle of the daily ignominies of urban Jewish life than in the pages of the Yiddish press. An underground history of downwardly mobile Jews, Bad Rabbi exposes the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With true stories plucked from the pages of the Yiddish papers, Eddy Portnoy introduces us to the drunks, thieves, murderers, wrestlers, poets, and beauty queens whose misadventures were immortalized in print. There's the Polish rabbi blackmailed by an American widow, mass brawls at weddings and funerals, a psychic who specialized in locating missing husbands, and violent gangs of Jewish mothers on the prowl—in short, not quite the Jews you'd expect. One part Isaac Bashevis Singer, one part Jerry Springer, this irreverent, unvarnished, and frequently hilarious compendium of stories provides a window into an unknown Yiddish world that was.