A story set in the beginning of the 1990's of a young girl trying to figure out her place in her family, her new school, and the world. In the 90's middle schools had not developed yet, most places still had junior highs. As a Military brat Mari must move every 3-4 years. She is the middle child of a Puerto Rican family moving from Hawaii to New York. Her new school and age are leading her into adolescence, crushes, conflicts with family and friends, as well as confusion. Feeling out of place and awkward turns out to be a normal emotion for Mari as she embraces weirdness as a quirky character trait.

A long ago "accident." An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help, but doesn't know how. And a ghostly dybbuk, that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her. That is the setting for this suspenseful novel of a girl who seems to have lost everything, including her best friend Kayla, and a mother who was once vibrant and popular, but who now can’t always get out of bed in the morning. As tensions escalate in the Jewish community of Beacon with incidents of vandalism and a swastika carved into new concrete poured near the synagogue...so does the tension grow between Aviva and Kayla and the girls at their school, and so do the actions of the dybbuk grow worse. Could real harm be coming Aviva's way? And is it somehow related to the "accident" that took her father years ago? Aviva vs. the Dybbuk is a compelling, tender story about friendship and community, grief and healing, and one indomitable girl who somehow manages to connect them all.

Stay up-to-date in the continuing fight to assess and treat adolescent drug and alcohol abuse Adolescent Substance Abuse: New Frontiers in Assessment presents up-to-date research on the assessment, intervention, and treatment of alcohol and drug use behaviors in adolescents, using screening tools developed to accurately measure the extent and nature of the problem. This unique book provides evidence of how the field has matured over the past 20 years, highlighting the rapid growth in research with a focus on topics deserving of more study. Leading experts working in adolescent health and assessment examine treatment-oriented typologies, treatment matching, problem identification and referral, parent-report, self-report, and the compatibility of anonymous and confidential surveys. Recent advancements in the development and evaluation of research materials have led to vast improvements in the study of adolescent drug abuse. Counselors can now depend on user-friendly features and rigorous psychometric evidence in determining the important differences between adolescent and adult drug use; distinguishing between normative and severe-end drug use behaviors; detecting faking bad, faking good, and other sources of compromised self-reports; and developing a greater understanding of substance abuse disorders. Still, challenges remainthe validity of adolescent self-report tools is vital; there is a need for more precise identification of related psychosocial problems, and there is a lack of data of whether current assessment tools can identify distinct levels of a problem’s severity. Adolescent Substance Abuse works to meet those challenges. Adolescent Substance Abuse examines: how assessment can be used to identify treatment-oriented typologies to improve treatment matching how to use community readiness for drug abuse prevention how to use the psychometric data of a screening tool for problem identification urinalysis, parent report and self-report in working with American Indian youth parent-child concordance in assessment of substance use anonymous versus confidential survey formats in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States gender differences in measuring substance abuse and much more Adolescent Substance Abuse is an essential professional resource for counselors and researchers working in the field of adolescent health, particularly drug abuse.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The twentieth anniversary edition of the classic story of an incredible group of students and the teacher who inspired them, featuring updates on the students’ lives, new journal entries, and an introduction by Erin Gruwell Now a public television documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks—none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding. Her students began recording their thoughts and feelings in their own diaries, eventually dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers.” Consisting of powerful entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. In the two decades since its original publication, the book has sold more than one million copies and inspired a major motion picture Freedom Writers. And now, with this twentieth-anniversary edition, readers are brought up to date on the lives of the Freedom Writers, as they blend indispensable takes on social issues with uplifting stories of attending college—and watch their own children follow in their footsteps. The Freedom Writers Diary remains a vital read for anyone who believes in second chances.