Breaking Vases powerfully and vividly captures the rich heritage of one woman's Middle East, along with its brutal realities, which followed Dima Ghawi from her native Jordan to her adopted country, the United States. Brought up in a small, conservative Christian community in Amman, Dima learned to be quiet and subservient to her elders and to men. When she was just five, Dima's beloved grandmother warned that a woman's greatest responsibility was to preserve her image-one as fragile as a glass vase-and the honor of her family's reputation. Anything less was shameful. Yet her grandmother also planted a seed: the simple hope that Dima could graduate from college and become the first formally educated woman in her family. At nineteen, hoping to free herself from cultural constraints and her father's turbulent temper, she accepted a traditional marriage proposal from an older, affluent, and seemingly Western-minded jeweler. Newly married and in a state of naive love, she happily uprooted her life in Amman and moved with him to California. But San Diego's "Little Middle East" was not her American dream. She soon realized that her husband was more traditional and controlling than she had imagined. Changing her circumstances would be dangerous and require courage Dima had never known before. Nevertheless, she was determined to transform her destiny, even if it meant standing alone and facing life-threatening consequences. Her memoir captures the terrors and joys of escaping confinements, crossing continents, and daring to discover and create a bold identity and life purpose.

When death stages a performance at Carnegie Hall, Tecumseh Fox goes backstage to catch the killer who pulled the strings. Who stole the dead man's Stradivarius—only to send it back? And what about the deadly duet featuring a stolen Ming vase and an afternoon cocktail laced with cyanide? Throw in an accompanist who plays all the wrong notes, a jealous sister straight out of Italian opera, and a chorus of suspects with a cacophony of lies and alibis. Suddenly Fox has to step up the temp before the killer makes an encore—a sinister sonata composed in the key of murder. Introduction by Sister Carol Anne O'Marie “A top-flight detective story.”—The New York Times Book Review

A little dog struggles with fibbing in this pitch perfect picture book that simply, humorously, and honestly tells the truth about lying. Have you ever told a lie? A fib? A whopper? A falsehood? A fabrication? Well, when a little dog accidentally breaks a vase, he certainly does! He keeps shifting the blame: First he says it was an elephant, but no he meant a mouse. Wait a minute—did he say mouse? Make that a crow, a sheep, a hippo—anyone but him. Will his family discover what really happened? Jeffrey Turner’s signature style of simple words and strong, vivid graphics resonates with everyone who has ever struggled with admitting the truth!

"Award-winning novelist Phillip McMath has done something remarkable: he's written a vital roman a clef whose scope is both intimate and expansive. Here is the vivid, compelling, and true story of one woman's struggle to survive the Holocaust. Part memoir, part imagination, The Broken Vase is evidence of a masterful writer bringing together his allegiance to history and his talent for storytelling."---Andrea Hollander Budy, author of House Without a Dreamer, The Other Life, and Woman in the Painting. "This is a riveting account, told with great power and empathy, of a young girl ripped from her family and hounded across a continent by the agents of history's most monstrous project. It is also a witness to how individual courage and will can overcome a seemingly unconquerable fanaticism. Miriam Kellerman's unshakable refusal to surrender will inspire everyone whose freedom is at risk."---Judge Morris S. Arnold, author of Unequal Laws Unto a Savage Race, Colonial Arkansas, and The Rumble of a Distant Drum "Master storyteller Phillip McMath, building on research by Emily Lewis, presents in The Broken Vase a riveting, true story of brutality and survival. McMath's alchemy transforms these facts of a broken life and a broken world into an intimate account of chaos, love, despair, and one woman's hope."---Jo McDougall, author of Dirt, Satisfied with Havoc, and other poetry books Born to middle-class parents in July 1924 in Czernowitz, North Bukovina, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), Miriam Kellerman grows up in an atmosphere of culture and privilege that is interrupted when her country is invaded---first by Stalin in July 1940, then by Hitler in June 1941. Fearing for their lives, Jews like her begin to flee into the Soviet Union to escape the German advance. Separated from her parents, Deborah and Max, and later from her fiance, Isaac, Miriam finds herself alone and on foot, trudging ever eastward. The Broken Vase is a compelling narrative of her incredible struggle to stay alive as World War II rages. A roman a clef ("novel with a key," or novel based on real life), The Broken Vase was written in close collaboration with Holocaust survivor Penina Krupitsky, who became the fictional Miriam Kellerman. This is a story of indomitable will and courage and a tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit. With the help of the World Jewish Organization, Krupitsky emigrated from the Soviet Union with her family to the United States. She now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband, children, and grandchildren and remains active in Holocaust remembrance organizations around the world. Krupitsky says that she wants The Broken Vase "to help young people and become an inspiration to them. It will teach them how to build a world of love and not of hatred."