Let me start by saying I LOVE TEENAGERS! Considering my age you might chalk this off to dementia, but the truth is the more rebellious a teen, the more I love them. Rebellion is misdirected energy. What a challenge to guide that energy into positive channels. The fun and reward comes in the journey of getting there. I have spent most of my life working with teens and am now retired after thirty years employed by the State of Utah. This book is the culmination of my experiences with youththe laughter and the tears, the triumphs and the defeats.

"It was time to heal. I had to stop creating a life that I could not live. It was time for the pain and suffering to stop. There was too much pain. I will die if the pain continues. Why does my life keep ending up in the same place? Abusive marriages, divorces, lawyers, legal suits - people in my life that had alcoholism, mental illness and abusive behavior, all telling me that I am the problem. Why did I keep creating and recreating everything I did not want and vowed not to have in my life? In the process of the healing - soul searching - reading of books - discussing - studying - therapy; seemingly insignificant scenes from my childhood kept entering my mind. The scenes were overpowering me, forcing me to look at and relive the feelings that I was having at the time. I began writing down the stories and discovered very meaningful messages that I was given as a child, messages that imprinted me and shaped my life's existence. These scenes and the feelings they created caused me to experience a repetitive pattern. It did not matter if the imprints were intended to create this pattern, only that it was the pattern it created in me. Until I was genuinely ready and able to look at my imprints and beliefs, where they came from and release them - the pattern would remain." Negative imprints, beliefs, thinking and emotions cause a great deal of mental, emotional and physical distress. Negative thoughts and worry sink deep and can control your life. There is power in how you perceive your past, your relation to it and your world . Awareness of how your past affects and guides will help stop the vicious cycle 'Daddy Throws Me In The Air' is a journey through childhood memories to awareness. It includes a process to assist in releasing negative imprints and beliefs.

The three plays in this collection„Waltz on a Merry-Go-Round (1975), Simpson Street (1979), and Women Without Men (1985)„ are all milestones in the development of Hispanic American drama, but Simpson Street represents a turning point. Simpson StreetÍs enormous critical and popular success around the country and abroad established its place solidly in the mainstream of American drama. The play speaks with the authentic voice of the Puerto Rican community to all Americans of our deepest longing and fears in all our rich ethnic diversity; abroad, it speaks with the authentic voice of America to all peoples.

The love of family. The heartbreak of war. The triumph of coming home. 1940. Rural Wisconsin. Sixteen-year-old Earl “Earwig” Gunderman is not like other boys his age. Fiercely protected by his older brother, Earwig sees his town and the world around him through the prism of his own unique understanding. He sees his mother’s sadness and his father’s growing solitude. He sees his brother, Jimmy, falling in love with the most beautiful girl in town. And while Earwig is unable to make change for customers at his family’s store, he is singularly well suited to understand what other people in his town cannot: that life as they know it is about to change; the coming war will touch them all. For Jimmy will enlist in the military. And Earwig will watch his parents’ marriage buckle under the strain of a family secret. And when Jimmy returns–a fractured shadow of his former self–it is Earwig’s turn to care for him. His struggles to right the wrongs visited upon his revered older brother by war, women, and life are at once heartwarming and riotously funny. Their family and town irrevocably altered, Earwig and Jimmy fight to find their own places in a world changed forever.

"In 1943, ten year old Todd Jansan and his family live on a tobacco farm in the small community of Cedar Cove, North Carolina . The closest neighbor is a cruel man who punishes his children by holding them over a well, [threatening] to drop them to their deaths. When their neighbor becomes more involved in their lives, the Jansans face things they never imagined."--Back cover

"Parenting: A Child's Perspective" is neither biographical nor auto-biographical, but includes selected snap-shots form the lives of hundreds of parents and children. The author of the book spent many years observing and listening to parents and children in a wide variety of situations, and has done an excellent job of recounting these experiences without being judgmental. These experiences are not just presented, the author sought to interpret these experiences form the child's point of view, and in a most empathetic way, advises parents on how they could respond in similar situations. As one reads, one gets the feeling that one is in a counseling session with an astute professional. The interesting thing, however, is that the book is not burdened by the professional jargon that can be inhibiting to most readers. The particular technique used by the author is quite difficulty. He sought to write the book from a child's perspective and to do so without gender bias. The reader will be impressed by the fact that the author has succeeded on both counts. As you read the book you get the feeling that the author was in your home eavesdropping on your family, because the situations are so real. If you are curious about how your child might view you, the book gives insights; wanting to know how to deal with difficult issues such as sex and sibling conflicts? This book gives you an unbiased and child-centered approach. Each chapter of the book takes a major issue during the first five years of the child's life, and dissects it in a way that provides new insights to parents at every stage of the parenting process.