An internationally renowned expert on near-death experiences (NDEs) presents her discovery of "millennial children"--and their insightful message of hope. Line drawings.

The contributors and editors of this volume begin from the assumption that the changes wrought by globalization compel us to reflect upon the status of the child and childhood at the end of the 20th century. Their essays consider what techniques and technologies are used to govern the child, what role the family plays, what is global and what is culturally specific in the changes, and how the subject is constructed and construed.

The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flowerbeds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee—whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can only be reached underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions. Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises—satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling—against a kaleidoscopic backdrop drawn from East and West of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, sex and romance.

Although Montessori's name is almost universally known in education circles today, and there are countless nursery schools throughout the world using the "Montessori Method," the real core of her thinking has remained largely misunderstood. Most people regard the method as a system for the education of very young children. And most who have some direct experience of it, either as parent or teacher, would regard it as involving a certain set of procedures and specialized educational materials with clear and elaborate instructions for their use. However, the essence of Montessori's philosophy of education is in reality far broader than this, and contains a powerful message for educators everywhere. What is less well-known about Montessori's work is that she began by establishing the effectiveness of her approach at the pre-elementary level, but also strongly encouraged the extension of her method to the higher levels of education. Wentworth's purpose in writing this book is to elucidate this vital aspect of Maria Montessori's life's work and to show how it applies to real-life teaching situations. She believed that by transforming the process of children's education she could help to transform the attitudes of the adults they will later become, and so those of society and the world at large--a message she promoted as vitally relevant to the future of humankind as a whole.

Publisher Description

Presents an in-depth look at children who have experienced the near-death phenomenon and the heightened abilities that these children exhibit • Provides compelling evidence for the existence of a generation of children who represent the spiritual evolution of the human race • Includes firsthand testimonies of children who have returned from near death The New Children and Near-Death Experiences is the first book to provide--from the view of the child--an in-depth study of children who have experienced the near-death phenomenon and its aftereffects. Atwater notes that the child who returns from a near-death experience is not the same child as before, but is a “remodeled, rewired, reconfigured, refined version of the original.” Presenting data to support her contention that these children have experienced structural, chemical, and functional changes in the brain, she also shows how their greater empathic abilities as well as dramatically higher intelligence are qualities that are also present in children born since 1982--enhanced abilities that cannot be tied to simple genetics. Atwater shows that understanding the near-death experiences of children can help us prepare for a quantum leap in the evolution of humanity.

"Children are exposed to a series of environmental threats to their health, physical and mental development--even their survival. Preliminary estimates suggest that up to one-third of the global burden of disease can be attributed to negative environmental indicators, such as polluted water and air. The good news is that morbidity and mortality due to unhealth environmental conditions are largely preventable by taking decisive action and finding innovative, healthy, cost-effective and sustainable ways to develop and improve our livelihoods. As this books outlines, prevention is the only sustainable solution: a healthy future for our children will be ensured only through safeguarding the environment. By illustrating the link between the environment and the well-being of our children, Children in the new millennium intends to raise awareness and deepen our understanding of environmental health issues. Providing an informed basis for action and practical recommendations at different levels, the three United Nations agencies involved with the production of Children in the new millennium hope to inspire everyone who cares about children to take decisive action that will improve both their helath and that of the environment.