Little Bento: 32 Irresistible Bento Box Lunches for Kids


Michele Olivier - 2016
    You NEED this book."—Toddler and Toast blogYour challenge: Packing a healthy lunch for your picky little eater. Your solution: The bento box! Little Bento is your ultimate bento guide to planning, preparing, and assembling yummy, wholesome, easy bento box lunches that your kids will actually eat. Say “buh-bye” to the stress of getting your kids to eat, and “hello” to the deliciously simple bento box with: Over 100 seasonally-inspired bento recipes and 32 photos of fully-assembled bento boxes for easy guidance Expert guidance from mom, food blogger, and bestselling author of Little Foodie, Michele Olivier, who shows you how to make balanced bento meals using the #1 selling kids' lunch box A weekly bento meal planning worksheet with helpful tips for planning your bento lunches in advance Quick reference bento ingredient lists assist in making safe decisions for food sensitive or allergic eaters “We started a new daycare program where I have to bring my own lunches and Little Bento has totally saved my life. Not only do I love the bento recipes for our son, I love some of them for myself! Lots of great options to make for dinner and use as lunch the next day. I also love that its divided into sections by season! Little Bento is a must have for parents looking to get out of a lunch rut and make sure their kids are getting great wholesome foods.”—C. Webster, Amazon Customer

Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer


Richard Shelton - 2007
    Richard Shelton was a young English professor in 1970 when a convict named Charles Schmid—a serial killer dubbed the “Pied Piper of Tucson” in national magazines—shared his brooding verse. But for Shelton, the novelty of meeting a death-row monster became a thirty-year commitment to helping prisoners express themselves. Shelton began organizing creative writing workshops behind bars, and in this gritty memoir he offers up a chronicle of reaching out to forgotten men and women—and of creativity blossoming in a repressive environment. He tells of published students such as Paul Ashley, Greg Forker, Ken Lamberton, and Jimmy Santiago Baca who have made names for themselves through their writing instead of their crimes. Shelton also recounts the bittersweet triumph of seeing work published by men who later met with agonizing deaths, and the despair of seeing the creative strides of inmates broken by politically motivated transfers to private prisons. And his memoir bristles with hard-edged experiences, ranging from inside knowledge of prison breaks to a workshop conducted while a riot raged outside a barricaded door. Reflecting on his decision to tutor Schmid, Shelton sees that the choice “has led me through bloody tragedies and terrible disappointments to a better understanding of what it means to be human.”Crossing the Yard is a rare story of professional fulfillment—and a testament to the transformative power of writing.

Selections from One Thousand Gifts: Finding Joy in What Really Matters


Ann Voskamp - 2012
    Because if joy is a matter of gratitude, and gratitude is a matter of perspective, then giving thanks changes not only your perspective, but also changes your life. Open these lyrical pages and slow down to discover the joy you've always been looking for. Come find God in the moments

Miracles We Have Seen: America's Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can't Forget


Harley Rotbart - 2016
    These dramatic first-person essays detail spectacular serendipities, impossible cures, breathtaking resuscitations, extraordinary awakenings, and recovery from unimaginable disasters. Still other essays give voice to cases in which the physical aspects were less dramatic than the emotional aspects, yet miraculous and transformational for everyone involved. Positive impacts left in the wake of even the gravest of tragedies, profound triumphs of heart and spirit. Preeminent physicians in many specialties, including deans and department heads on the faculties of the top university medical schools in the country describe, in everyday language and with moving testimony, their very personal reactions to these remarkable clinical experiences. Among the extraordinary cases poignantly recounted by the physicians witnessing them: A priest visiting a hospitalized patient went into cardiac arrest on the elevator, which opened up on the cardiac floor, right at the foot of the cardiac specialist, at just the right moment.A tiny premature baby dying from irreversible lung disease despite the most intensive care who recovered almost immediately after being taken from his hospital bed and placed on his mother's chest.President John F. Kennedy's son Patrick, who died shortly after birth, and whose disease eventually led to research that saved generations of babies.A nine-year-old boy who was decapitated in a horrific car accident but survived without neurological damage.A woman who conceived and delivered a healthy baby—despite having had both of her fallopian tubes surgically removed.A young man whose only hope for survival was a heart transplant, but just at the moment he developed a potentially fatal complication making a transplant impossible, his own heart began healing itself.A teenage girl near death after contracting full-blown rabies who became the first patient ever to recover from that disease after an unexpected visit by Timothy Dolan, the man who would go on to become the Archbishop of New York.A Manhattan window-washer who fell 47 stories—and not only became the only person ever to survive a fall from that height, but went on to make a full recovery. Miracles We Have Seen is a book of inspiration and optimism, and a compelling glimpse into the lives of physicians—their humanity and determined devotion to their patients and their patients' families. It reminds us that what we don't know or don't understand isn‘t necessarily cause for fear, and can even be reason for hope

Friends of the Family


Tommy Dades - 2007
    When they retired in the early 1990s, they left behind a pile of bodies—and for more than a decade, it looked like they were going to get away with it. As highly decorated NYPD detectives with access to the department's most sensitive information, they sold their badges to the Mafia—and became murderers for the mob. Eventually they retired to Las Vegas, believing they had put their lives of murder and mayhem safely behind them. And they would have lived happily ever after, if not for one dedicated cop at the end of his career and an assistant district attorney. Detective Tommy Dades and Brooklyn Assistant DA Mike Vecchione turned this seemingly unsolvable cold-blooded case into one of the great law-and-order stories in the annals of New York City. And for the first time, in this book, Dades and Vecchione tell the whole inside story of the investigation. For Detective Tommy Dades, the case began with a phone call from a distraught mother who just happened to mention an almost forgotten meeting that had taken place years earlier. Dades and Mike Vecchione had performed cold-case miracles before, but this one seemed impossible. Together, quietly and tenaciously, they began to uncover the hideous truth. A highly secret joint state and federal task force began building a body-by-body case against an incredible array of characters, from one of the most viciously insane Mafia bosses in history—who wanted to kill people he dreamed were plotting against him—to the one-eyed Jew who knew all the secrets. As the cold case got front-page-headlinehot, Dades and Vecchione encountered an unexpected obstacle: the federal prosecutor plotted to take the case—and those headlines—away from Brooklyn. For the first time, the two men who brought this incredible story to life reveal the epic confrontations that occurred behind the scenes and led to a stunning courtroom announcement—and came perilously close to destroying the case against the Mafia cops. Friends of the Family is the complete, inside story of the historic case that rocked the world of law enforcement.

I Forced a Bot to Write This Book: A.I. Meets B.S.


Keaton Patti - 2020
    Each “bot-generated” piece can be enjoyed as surrealist commentary on the media we consume every day or simply as silly robot jokes—either way, you’ll probably end up laughing.

The Worst Loss: How Families Heal from the Death of a Child


Barbara D. Rosof - 1994
    The Worst Loss will help families who have experienced this to know what they are facing, understand what they are feeling, and appreciate their own needs and timetables.

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life


Sandra Beasley - 2011
    Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.” When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!” It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,” as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story. With candor, wit, and a journalist’s curiosity, Sandra draws on her own experiences while covering the scientific, cultural, and sociological terrain of allergies. She explains exactly what an allergy is, describes surviving a family reunion in heart-of-Texas beef country with her vegetarian sister, delves into how being allergic has affected her romantic relationships, exposes the dark side of Benadryl, explains how parents can work with schools to protect their allergic children, and details how people with allergies should advocate for themselves in a restaurant. A compelling mix of memoir, cultural history, and science, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is mandatory reading for the millions of families navigating the world of allergies—and a not-to-be-missed literary treat for the rest of us.

The Last Act of Love


Cathy Rentzenbrink - 2015
    He was left in a permanent vegetative state. Over the following years, Cathy and her parents took care of Matty - they built an extension onto the village pub where they lived and worked; they talked to him, fed him, bathed him, loved him. But there came a point at which it seemed the best thing they could do for Matty - and for themselves - was let him go. With unflinching honesty and raw emotional power, Cathy describes the unimaginable pain of losing her brother and the decision that changed her family's lives forever. As she delves into the past and reclaims memories that have lain buried for many years, Cathy reconnects with the bright, funny, adoring brother she lost and is finally able to see the end of his life as it really was - a last act of love. Powerful, intimate and intensely moving, this is a personal journey with universal resonance - a story of unconditional love, of grief, survival and the strength of the ties that bind. It's a story that will speak to anyone who has lost someone close to them, to anyone who has fiercely loved a sibling, and to anyone who has ever wondered whether prolonging a loved one's life might be more heartbreaking than saying goodbye.

Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy


Roger Harms - 2004
    Compiled by Mayo Clinic experts in obstetrics, it offers a clear, thorough and reliable reference for this exciting and sometimes unpredictable journey. This comprehensive book includes: A month-by-month look at mom and baby, In-depth "Decision Guides" to help you make informed decisions on topics such as how to select a health care provider, prenatal testing options, pain relief for childbirth, and many others, an easy-to-use reference guide that covers topics such as morning sickness, heartburn, back pain, headaches and yeast infections, among others, information on pregnancy health concerns, including preterm labor, gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, along with an overview on being pregnant when you have pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes or hyperthyroidism.

Cartoon Guide to Genetics


Larry Gonick - 1983
    Have you ever asked yourself:Are spliced genes the same as mended Levis?Watson and Crick? Aren't they a team of British detectives?Plant sex? Can they do that?Is Genetic Mutation the name of one of those heavy metal bands?Asparagine? Which of the four food groups is that in?Then you need The Cartoon Guide to Genetics to explain the important concepts of classical and modern genetics—it's not only educational, it's funny too!