This is a book about a young lady trying to find herself. All she wants is to be wanted. Her life has been an obstacle of challenges, and she seeks the affection of different men. In the early years of Ayanas life, she stumbled across a few trials that helped her to grow as a person and succeed in a way that she thought was impossible. Ayana, born and raised in Chicago, is an entrepreneur, a romantic, and an overall naive person that is seeking a feeling to be wanted and be good enough throughout her life.

For use in schools and libraries only. A question and answer format addresses basic physiology, such as why one has bones, why one needs food, and how the body grows.

Two street kids get tangled in a plot over their heads - and risk an unexpected connection - in this heart-pounding thriller by Tim Wynne-Jones. (Age 14 and up) Boy, did Blink get off on the wrong floor. All he wanted was to steal some breakfast for his empty belly, but instead he stumbled upon a fake kidnapping and a cell phone dropped by an "abducted" CEO, giving Blink a link to his perfect blonde daughter. Now Blink is on the run, but it’s OK as long as he’s smart enough to stay in the game and keep Captain Panic locked in his hold. Enter a girl named Caution. As in "Caution: Toxic." As in "Caution: Watch Your Step." She’s also on the run, from a skeezy drug-dealer boyfriend and from a nightmare in her past that won’t let her go. When she spies Blink at the train station, Caution can see he’s an easy mark. But there’s something about this naïve, skinny street punk, whom she only wanted to rob, that tugs at her heart, a heart she thought deserved not to feel. Charged with suspense and intrigue, this taut novel trails two deeply compelling characters as they forge a blackmail scheme that is foolhardy at best, disastrous at worst - along with a fated, tender partnership that will offer them each a rare chance for redemption.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays by acclaimed writer and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott, “the modern day reincarnation of…Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin—all rolled into one” (The Washington Post), about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on a successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list—and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right” but still felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? Taking on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood, Philpott provides a “frank and funny look at what happens when, in the midst of a tidy life, there occur impossible-to-ignore tugs toward creativity, meaning, and the possibility of something more” (Southern Living). She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife and reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary. Most of all, in this “warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly” (Esquire), Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down. You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that? “Be forewarned that you’ll laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you’ll want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know” (Real Simple).

Travis Barker’s soul-baring memoir chronicles the highlights and lowlights of the renowned drummer’s art and his life, including the harrowing plane crash that nearly killed him and his traumatic road to recovery—a fascinating never-before-told-in-full story of personal reinvention grounded in musical salvation and fatherhood. After breaking out as the acclaimed drummer of the multiplatinum punk band Blink-182, everything changed for Travis Barker. But the dark side of rock stardom took its toll: his marriage, chronicled for an MTV reality show, fell apart. Constant touring concealed a serious drug addiction. A reckoning did not truly come until he was forced to face mortality: His life nearly ended in a horrifying plane crash, and then his close friend, collaborator, and fellow crash survivor DJ AM died of an overdose. In this blunt, driving memoir, Barker ruminates on rock stardom, fatherhood, death, loss, and redemption, sharing stories shaped by decades’ worth of hard-earned insights. His pulsating memoir is as energetic as his acclaimed beats. It brings to a close the first chapters of a well-lived life, inspiring readers to follow the rhythms of their own hearts and find meaning in their lives.

In Taste the Wild Wonder, fresh new poetic voice John Mark Green takes the reader on a transformative journey, awakening the heart to see the world with new eyes. This imaginative collection explores life, mortality, meaning, creativity, love, wonder, and nature, through the windows of 71 poems and 11 interior illustrations. These poems are infused with what the Japanese call yūgen - "a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe ... and the sad beauty of human suffering" (Benito Ortolani), and wabi-sabi - the beauty of impermanent, imperfect, and transient things. Since 2014, John Mark Green has grown a worldwide following for his poetry on social media. This is his first book. From the back cover Born of the ancient star remnants in our bones and nameless longings of the human heart, this poetry collection explores the firefly flicker of existence amidst the vast reaches of time and space. Capturing feelings of awe and aching beauty which stir the imagination, it illuminates our brief but glorious moment on life's stage. Imbued with the knowledge that everything we hold beautiful is inexorably slipping through our fingers, these poems are trail markers on a journey of awakening to the wild wonder which surrounds us, leading readers on a whirlwind tour of our place in the grand tapestry of nature, with a perspective which both dazzles and delights. Praise for Taste the Wild Wonder "John Mark Green writes with soul and weaves poetry from love and bones and fire. His new book is art and includes illustrations that complement the words beautifully." Jacob Nordby, author of Blessed Are the Weird - A Manifesto for Creatives