With my father, what you see is what you get. He doesn't pretend to be some kind of guru, and he doesn't believe he did everything right (which he didn't, despite how hard he tried). But he's definitely confident about what he knows, and eloquent in the way he puts it across. I urge you to put his lessons to the test with your kid, and see how far they'll take you both. I think, once you start reading, you're going to find my dad's confidence and enthusiasm contagious. When I look back now, I remember my father was always focused. Always firm. Always loving. Always thinking about the future. It was kind of like he was always searching for the right way, the most successful way to do things. Make no mistake about it, he was always making sure I watched my p's and q's. I mean always: morning, noon, and night. Without that love and discipline, I would never have gotten to where I am today. You certainly would not have ever heard of Raven-Symon?. Raven-Symon?January 2010 While so many talented and ambitious kids have become tabloid fodder, Raven-Symon?, beloved star of That's So Raven, has remained grounded and happy as she's created a massive franchise for Disney, won multiple Kids' Choice Awards, and made history as the first African-American woman with her own sitcom. The difference? Her parents' positive-approach plan--which you can now use with your own children. As her father and manager, Christopher B. Pearman worked tirelessly to nurture Raven's dream, while teaching her to believe in herself and, most importantly, never losing sight of their family's core values. Inside, Pearman breaks down his plan into eight "Dream Catchers"--spiritual and practical principles that filter out negativity, and allow only affirming thoughts into your child's consciousness. Make no mistake: This is not a guide to stage parenting, but a doctrine for raising your kids to reach their full potential in any endeavor, simple or grand. As a parent, you know there's nothing more important than making sure your children become all they want to be. Dream So Big shows how commitment, responsibility, and dedication to your children's innermost wishes can catapult them to great success--and happiness.

A Dream So Big is the story of Steve Peifer, a corporate manager who once oversaw 9,000 computer software consultants, who today helps provide daily lunches for over 20,000 Kenyan school children in thirty-five national public schools, and maintains solar-powered computer labs at twenty rural African schools. Steve and his wife, Nancy, were enjoying a successful management career with one of America’s high tech corporate giants during the dot-com boom of the 1990’s when, in 1997, he and his wife Nancy discovered they were pregnant with their third child. Tragically, doctors said a chromosomal condition left their baby “incompatible with life.” The Peifers only spent 8 days with baby Stephen before he died. Seeking to flee the pain, Steve and Nancy began a pilgrimage that thrust them into a third-world setting where daily life was often defined by tragedy—drought, disease, poverty, hunger, and death. They didn’t arrive in the service of any divine calling, but the truth of their surroundings spoke to their troubled hearts. A short-term, 12-month mission assignment as dorm parents for a Kenyan boarding school turned this ordinary man into the most unlikely internationally recognized hero, and his story will inspire you to pursue similar lives of service.

Governments pay her. Criminals fear her. Nobody sees her coming. Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she's never looked back. Until now. A Texas oil billionaire has hired her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. It’s not her usual line of work, but she can’t resist the challenge. Pulled deep into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the lands of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that she’s tried for so long to forget. The first book in the Vanessa Michael Munroe series, gripping, ingenious, and impeccably paced, The Informationist marks the arrival or a thrilling new talent. “Stevens’s blazingly brilliant debut introduces a great new action heroine, Vanessa Michael Munroe, who doesn’t have to kick over a hornet’s nest to get attention, though her feral, take-no-prisoners attitude reflects the fire of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander….Thriller fans will eagerly await the sequel to this high-octane page-turner.” —Publishers Weekly, starred, boxed review

Like the winter, grief has a season. Life returns with the spring. A young architect at a prestigious Chicago firm, Bethany Quinn has built the life she dreamed of during her teen years in a trailer park. An unexpected interruption from her estranged mother reveals that tragedy has struck in her hometown and a reluctant Bethany is called back to rural Iowa. Determined to pay her respects to her past while avoiding any emotional entanglements, she vows not to stay long. But the unexpected inheritance of five hundred acres of farmland and a startling turn of events in Chicago forces Bethany to come up with a new plan. Handsome farmhand Evan Price has taken care of the Quinn farm for years. When Bethany is left the land, Evan must fight her decisions to realize his dreams. But even as he disagrees with Bethany’s vision, Evan feels drawn to her and the pain she keeps so carefully locked away. For Bethany, making peace with her past and the God of her childhood doesn’t seem like the path to freedom. Is letting go the only way to new life, love and a peace that she’s not even sure exists?

People fear death. We don't know how to talk about it, especially to children, and we're afraid to bring it up for fear of making people sadder. Yet children, especially, have questions, and this incredibly gentle and surprisingly light story is full of both comfort and vividly imagined "answers." The first one gives the book its title: A boy hears the voice of his sister calling him one day, a sister he's never met because she died before he was born. The sister in the faded photograph on the wall. So that night he asks his mother what death is like and she tells him, "It's like dreaming, only bigger." That's lovely, but he still has questions, which it turns out his sister can answer! On a dreamy, carefree adventure they ride their bikes together, (not always on the ground), visiting places that were special to her when she was alive. And she talks to him in the older sister, teasing, straightforward, loving way that is exactly what he needs. (It turns out that death is not the only thing that can be Bigger Than a Dream.) Much, much more than bibliotherapy, this is a work of art that speaks with honesty and tenderness about one of life's great mysteries.

Dare to dream. Dare to fly higher. Dare to trust...dare to inspire! Dare to do what hasn't been done. Dare to be second to none! This inspirational picture book encourages children everywhere to dare to dream big, to help others, and speak out for what is right, but also take time for simple joys and to be comfortable in their own skin. Oh the Places You'll Go! for toddlers, Dare to Dream Big is full of messages about empowerment, encouragement, and the joy of daring to be the best person you can be. "A concise and rhythmic provocation to dreaming and daring."—Publishers Weekly

In this inspiring and provocative memoir about a young black man, Caylin Moore tells the against-all-odds story of his rise from racial injustice and cruel poverty in gang-ridden Los Angeles to academic success at the University of Oxford, with hope as his compass. A Dream to Big is for readers who want to … enjoy a compelling, true, hard-to-believe inspirational story; thoughtfully embrace a long-overdue conversation about equality and justice in America; and be inspired and find hope from a firsthand account of redemption through even the most painful life experiences. When Caylin Louis Moore was a young child, his mother gathered her three young children and fled an abusive marriage, landing in poverty in a heavily policed, gang-ridden community. When Moore’s mother suffered from health complications and a devastating experience in the hospital and his father was sentenced to life imprisonment, Moore was forced to enter adulthood prematurely. His hope was fueled by embracing his mother's steely faith in a brighter future. Moore skirted the gangs, the police, and the violence endemic to Compton to excel as a student and athlete, eventually reaching the pinnacles of academic achievement as a Rhodes Scholar. Moore's eye-opening, against-all-odds story reveals that there is no such thing as a dream too big.