How can low-income, non-English-speaking parents become advocates, leaders, and role models in their children’s schools?A Cord of Three Strands offers a close study of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, a grassroots organization on the northwest side of Chicago, whose work on parent engagement has drawn national attention. The author identifies three elements—induction, integration, and investment—that together capture the dynamic and developmental nature of successful parent engagement. Writing with both optimism and urgency, author Soo Hong offers richly detailed portraits of parents’ experiences and addresses the complex and sometime conflicting relationships among school, family, and community.

The Bluebeard fairy tale retold. . . . When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram’s beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected letter. An invitation—on fine ivory paper, in bold black handwriting—from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving her humble childhood home for the astonishingly lavish Wyndriven Abbey, in the heart of Mississippi. Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, it’s as if, thread by thread, a silken net is tightening around her. And as she gathers stories and catches whispers of his former wives—all with hair as red as her own—in the forgotten corners of the abbey, Sophie knows she’s trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac’s intoxicating world. Glowing strands of romance, mystery, and suspense are woven into this breathtaking debut—a thrilling retelling of the “Bluebeard” fairy tale.

The bestselling author of Soul Coaching “Discovering and releasing the energy cords that don’t empower you is a voyage of letting go . . . and stepping into the flow of life.” Native shamanic traditions tell us that there are cords, strands, threads, and filaments of energy that flow to and through us, connecting us to everyone and everything in the Universe. Some energy strands make us feelvibrant and alive. Others deplete and weaken us. Most of us are unaware of these energy strands, but they are extremely powerful forces that surround us every day. In her latest book, Energy Strands, Denise Linn shows you how to release the cords that bind you and strengthen the ones that heal you. She shares methods she’s personally practiced over the years to help you achieve peaceand balance in your life, including how to: • discover attachments to family, friends, lovers, past-lives, and pets • cut energy strands with toxic people and unhealthy relationships • activate specific techniques to protect and shield your energy field • use space clearing methods to create harmony in your home Energy Strands explores the connection between the chakras, breath, meditation, visualization, sound healing, and more. Using a variety of tools, including dowsing, smudging, singing bowls, crystals, and much, much more, you’ll begin to renew your energy, replenish your inner sources, and magnify the cords that empower you.

Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

This book was written to help you to understand and to discuss fiction with your children. The ideas presented here are based on the knowledge that there can be great joy in reading, and that good literature can enrich anyone's life. Of course, there is value in solitary reading, but the enjoyment that can be found in stories is greater if it can be shared with others. There are models here of conversations with young readers as a way of showing how reading experiences can be enjoyed by both the young readers and their teachers.

In the first book of the epic Strand Novels, a victimized young woman sets out to avenge the wrongs committed against her and her elven protectors In the mid-fourteenth century, when the lands of Adria are replete with violence and intolerance, plot and counterplot, Miriam—an uncommonly gifted healer—is accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition, imprisoned, and tortured. After escaping, she is assaulted by Roger, baron of Aurverelle, who violates her and then leaves her for dead. Her salvation appears in the form of Varden, an Elf of Malvern Forest, whose magic first heals her, then provides her with the strength and stature she requires to pursue her revenge against those who have so grievously wronged her. Thus begins Miriam’s battle against her past, against her present, and even, in the end, against herself. Grand in scope and firmly grounded in the history of medieval Europe, Strands of Starlight is an engrossing and adventure-packed story of defeat and redemption, vengeance and compassion, and the power of a single individual to change the fates of countless others. Strands of Starlight is the first book of the Strand Novels, which continue with Maze of Moonlight and Shroud of Shadow.

He had raped and killed a young girl, and the ten vigilantes sentenced him with a rope. After his death, they each took a piece of the hanging rope--the ten strands the only link between them and their victim--a connection that would haunt their dreams and terrorize their souls.