At every stage of education, sexual harassment is common, and often considered a rite of passage for young people. It’s not unusual for a girl to hear “Hey, Shorty!” on a daily basis, as she walks down the hall or comes into the school yard, followed by a sexual innuendo, insult, come-on, or assault. But when teenagers are asked whether they experience this in their own lives, most of them say it’s not happening. Girls for Gender Equity, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, has developed a model for teens to teach one another about sexual harassment. How do you define it? How does it affect your self-esteem? What do you do in response? Why is it so normalized in schools, and how can we as a society begin to address these causes? Geared toward students, parents, teachers, policy makers, and activists, this book is an excellent model for building awareness and creating change in any community.

A killer for hire Sonny OBrien takes a contract from the New England crime organization. OBrien is the only contractor that can get to the target their Mafia killers were unable to succeed. The hit takes place in Boston in the nineteen fiftys. Sonny needs help because of a young D.A is determined to bring his state witness to court alive and has the target heavily guarded in one of Boston sleaziest hotels. Sonny calls an old friend Jimmy (The Book) for some information, knowing the feds would have Salvatore (Two Finger) Maglini phones tapped. Jimmy gives Sonny the information he needs and invites OBrien to a restaurant. He hears what Jimmys has been planning for months to have all the Irish gangs into one strong effective one. So the Irish could compete with the Italian mob in the North End. Jimmy tells Sonny it would be a favor to him if attend the meeting at Callahans garage. Sonny finds Mookie Noonan and representatives of the independent gangs are in agreement to be under one umbrella. Sonny joins the gang as their contractor. It was after that is when the bodies started to pile up in Boston.

Me ‘N’ Shorty Leave the present world behind as you step into an extraordinary tale of two seventeen year olds, in this sweeping novel set against a United States that had been plunged into despair by the Great Depression. The year was 1936, young Will Shaine’s world had revolved around his beloved parents and the magnificent thoroughbred horses that they’d raised and trained on the family’s horse farm. But now the death of his parents had left him alone in the world. He sat in the now quiet solitude of his home; the mantel clock seemed to be ticking away the seconds of his life, when he came to a life changing decision. He would sell the family property and go west to California. Out of respect for the hard work his family had invested in their horse farm, Will was determined not to squander, what would be his only inheritance. He placed the money in a money belt and would take it west. James Lotus Duke II, otherwise known as Shorty, left his family’s farm in Tennessee after a final physical confrontation with his alcoholic abusive father. His father told him to get off the property and never come back. Shorty hit the road with 17 years of emotional scars. Would his intelligence and wild sense of humor be enough to overcome his father’s voice that haunts his mind and tells him he’ll never be any good, and the ultimate dream crushing echo, “I wish you were never born.” Timely, as if an unseen force recognizes their needs, Will and Shorty are joined together for their passage across the continent. As they walk, hitch rides and hop trains, reality dictates that they grow up fast. They had no idea of what awaited them on the road. They find themselves exposed to the extremes of enormous wealth and to hobo camps and Hoovervilles, where people are struggling to get enough to eat. They cross paths with many colorful characters; some good, some bad, and some unhinged from reality. The worst of the worst lead them into dark life-threatening suspense, where seventeen year olds should not have to go. As they work their way across America they are also exposed to honest people with dreams of prosperity and goodness. It doesn’t take long before Will and Shorty meet and fall in love with two American girls. Their relationships are so intense that they believe they will last forever. But like so many in times past, they feel a responsibility to establish a secure situation for their loved ones. Soon they find themselves back on the road aching with sweet sorrow from being separated from their girls, but with a renewed sense of purpose. The love of a distressed and troubled racehorse will lead them in a direction they did not expect, as pure adventure and life threatening situations continue to challenge them. Is young love strong enough to pull them through?

I was born Oct. 04, 1936 in the small town of Lafayette, Louisiana in the heart of the Cajun Culture. I am of French, Spanish and Native American Heritage. At seventeen years of age I began to travel the world while aboard ship in the US Navy at the end of the Korean War. I spent my enlistment time aboard the USS Cape Esperance for three years and one year on shore duty. During this time I saw many wonderful and also dreadful things that remain in my thoughts to this day. I received an honorable discharge and went to work in the Oil/Gas Industry in 1958. This novel is based on multiple events that impacted my life many years ago. Most of the characters are real, only their names have been changed. All locations, streets, highways and byways are still there and I have traveled them all. Though I am not a published author I feel that I have put pen to paper in a manner that can be enjoyed by the reader. Some of the characters are portrayed as I remember them and others have been brought to life as I see them. Having lived in some of the cities I know the people and their lifestyles, and to portray them in a written sense was challenging, but most enjoyable. Now at the worldly age of seventy one I still remain faithful to my work in the same industry and some of what I saw in all my travels I have written about in Letters to the Editor and were published in The Banner Press. So, now Midaris has come into your life. I hope the avid reader of books will find this a book to enjoy and who knows, maybe it did happen as told. Robert Alexandre

Adolf Nagel interrupts the rape of his sixteen year-old fiancé by killing the son of the most influential man in Hocking County, Ohio. Escaping certain death, Adolf and Oskar McGill, his childhood friend, flee westward. Only seventeen, they embark on a perilous journey - including not only nature, but scalp-minded Indians and blood-thirsty desperados. They are drawn to the Rocky Mountains and the wild herds of mustangs in the Wyoming Territory, joined by a giant of a man from Minnesota, and a scrap of a horse wrangler from Texas, to create a horse ranch in this untamed land. As pioneers settling this new frontier, they would lead generations of the Nagel family to achieve their dreams.

The Poacher’s Daughter is an extraordinary story of betrayal and redemption, set within an uncompromising landscape of raw brutality and unimaginable beauty. It is a novel you won’t soon forget. In 1885 young Rose Edwards is widowed by Montana vigilantes who hang her husband for an alleged theft, then burn her Yellowstone Valley cabin to the ground as a warning for her and others of her kind to quit the territory. Penniless and illiterate, yet fiercely independent, Rose begins a two-year odyssey to revisit the land of her childhood, a land she once traveled with her father, an itinerant robe trader among the Assiniboines and Blackfeet. But the old ways of the hunter and trapper are disappearing as Europeans flood the ranges with vast herds of cattle. With an aging roan gelding named Albert as her closest friend, Rose becomes a reluctant hero of an indigenous population, both native and white, as she stubbornly pushes back against the invading aristocracy.