Divorce affects everyone in a family that was once united. Parents deal through lawyers. Siblings have each other and grandparents watch silently as legal and often painful proceedings take their course.'Dear Jake' a follow up to our first book, 'Dear Sammie' is an illustrated letter to a granddaughter from her grandmother. The book has received an outstanding and pleasantly surprising reception. Countless readers, grandparents, children and parents have expressed their gratitude followed by wondering why nothing like it had previously been published. Then came the inevitable question. What about a book for a grandson? Grandpa also needs to let his grandchild know he cares, that he is there for him, even if he lives far away. He doesn't want to interfere, he doesn't want to take sides, but he also doesn't want to stay silent. 'Dear Jake' expresses heartfelt emotions with simple words and whimsical drawings that take the readers on a fun filled, meaningful outing with Grandpa. These books come out of a collaborative family effort motivated by love and concern for all children. Together with my daughter and a dear family friend who created the remarkable illustrations, we confront the collateral damage which is inescapable in any divorce.

"Jake takes place during one of the single most powerfully shaping times in a person's life--secondary education. Through the metaphor of the utopian and fictitious St. Stephen's Episcopal School, author Arch Montgomery shows us how our humanity can only be fully realized through other humans. The book depicts three deaths and one near-fatal disease while simultaneously tracking the rebirth of Jake, the titular and main character. He moves from a transparent ""only-good-as-I-have-to-be"" mentality to a lifestyle of excellence and three-dimensionality with the help of his school, which is personified through the characters of Mary White, rector; George Meader, teacher; and Joel Kohn, student.Jake presents both Montgomery's view of public school systems (which Jake, without a drop of nostalgia, refers to as ""out in the county"") and his view of an ideal school, which, in this case, comes in the form of an independent school, though the tenets that make it so admirable could be applied to almost any school--public, independent, parochial, or otherwise. Mixing real-world models with an informed idealism, Montgomery creates St. Stephen's in order to demonstrate the most positive influence a school can have on one person.On the flipside of that coin, however, remain numerous questions about what kind of negative effects sub-par schools can have on their students. While St. Stephen's gives its students a three-dimensional education--mind (academics), body (athletics), and spirit (chapel and community service)--do public schools scratch the surface of even just one dimension? While Mary White, the head of St. Stephen's, plays roles as varied as disciplinarian, spiritual leader, and friend, in what light do most public school students view their own principals? While the educational events of the highest consequence happen to Jake outside the classroom, how many public school students interact with their classmates, teachers, or administration beyond a school setting?On a continuum of education quality--satisfactory, good, great, excellent, ideal--where does St. Stephen's fall? Where does the school you went to, or your children go to, fall? These and many other questions arise in Jake, and beg to be discussed, because once problems are recognized, they can begin to get solved."

“A rollicking history of the telephone system and the hackers who exploited its flaws.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Before smartphones, back even before the Internet and personal computers, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world’s largest machine: the telephone system. Starting with Alexander Graham Bell’s revolutionary “harmonic telegraph,” by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same. Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T’s monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell’s Achilles’ heel. Phil Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine underground of “phone phreaks” who turned the network into their electronic playground, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, the explosion of telephone hacking in the counterculture, and the war between the phreaks, the phone company, and the FBI. The product of extensive original research, Exploding the Phone is a groundbreaking, captivating book that “does for the phone phreaks what Steven Levy’s Hackers did for computer pioneers” (Boing Boing). “An authoritative, jaunty and enjoyable account of their sometimes comical, sometimes impressive and sometimes disquieting misdeeds.” —The Wall Street Journal “Brilliantly researched.” —The Atlantic “A fantastically fun romp through the world of early phone hackers, who sought free long distance, and in the end helped launch the computer era.” —The Seattle Times

Two natives, one b*stard and a mighty bog... A Girl Called Jake draws on a translation from a hitherto secret archive to tell the story of a gigantic narcotics plant that's built upon a mighty bog. But in a strange and distant land, a rising for liberty is crushed with vicious and unparalleled violence. And in the country of the book's principal action an agitation grows - and grows. For here too is a disturbing spirit of national sentiment. And here too a rising - a strictly unconstitutional affair!!! - takes place. So in the giant plant is fought once more one of the great battles of classical antiquity. But in the very moment of victory - defeat! For just as the cops’ big bust gets under way - the whole plant tilts and flips, and sinks forever in its mighty bog: and everything goes back to the good old way that it was. With an introduction: and, by the translator, an afterword.