Author Dr. Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, a Puerto Rican child of migrant farm workers, defied family, tradition, and expectations to reach the highest ranks of academia and overcome monumental obstacles to create LEAP Academy, one of the nations best charter schools. In The Miracle on Cooper Street, Bonilla-Santiago shares the challenges and obstacles, potential resources, and support of fellow professionals that moved LEAP Academy from a small charter school in 1997 to its top position today. She describes and analyzes the establishment and accomplishments of LEAP Academy in one of Americas poorest and most violent cities, Camden, New Jersey. Bonilla-Santiago also shares the story of her personal and professional struggles as a Latina from an impoverished and working-class background, surviving and fighting for respect in an academic world that many times did not value racial or ethnic diversity. Those experiences forged a dream of transforming a poor urban community through education. The Miracle on Cooper Street narrates an inspiring account that shows how one determined individual can make a profound difference in the lives of at-risk children and their communities. It presents a working model for charter schools, while at the same time admitting that LEAP is a work in progress. Most of all, it describes an inspiring institution that has seen many young people break the cycle of poverty, graduate from high school, succeed in college, and go on to live productive lives.

"Author Dr. Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, a Puerto Rican child of migrant farm workers, defied family, tradition, and expectations to reach the highest ranks of academia and overcome monumental obstacles to create LEAP Academy, one of the nation's best charter schools. In this book, she shares the challenges and obstacles, potential resources, and support of fellow professionals that moved LEAP Academy from a small charter school in 1997 to its top position today. She describes and analyzes the establishment and accomplishments of LEAP Academy in one of America's poorest and most violent cities, Camden, New Jersey. [She] also shares the story of her personal and professional struggles as a Latina from an impoverished and working-class background, surviving and fighting for respect in an academic world that many times did not value racial or ethnic diversity. Those experiences forged a dream of transforming a poor urban community through education. [This book] presents a working model for charter schools, while at the same time admitting that LEAP is a work in progress. Most of all, it describes an inspiring institution that has seen many young people break the cycle of poverty, graduate from high school, succeed in college, and go on to live productive lives."--Back cover.

It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the eleven-year-old daughter of America's most-distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment – starvation – whittles her down to forty-five pounds skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases – a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition and fistfights. In a race against time and a ravaging disease, Elizabeth becomes one of the first diabetics to receive insulin injections – all while its discoverers and a little known pharmaceutical company struggle to make it available to the rest of the world. Relive the heartwarming true story of the discovery of insulin as it's never been told before. Written with authentic detail and suspense, and featuring walk-ons by William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Eli Lilly himself, among many others.

Adam Taliaferro had it all: smarts, an easy-going personality, and incomparable athletic ability. None of that seemed to matter, however, on that fateful September day when his father was given startling news: Do not expect your son to walk. Ever. Since that numbing day, Taliaferro, the Penn State freshman cornerback who was paralyzed after he tackled an Ohio State running back, has defied the odds. Before he had spinal-fusion surgery, he made a vow to his mother: "Mom, I'm not going out like this." Three months later, he walked out of a Philadelphia hospital on crutches, determined to complete his amazing recovery, making the name "Adam Taliaferro" synonymous with courage and perseverance.

An in-depth look at the Washington Post from a Pulitzer Prize–nominated Post veteran. Morning Miracle definitively answers the question “Do newspapers still matter?” with a resounding yes. What The Kingdom and the Power did for the New York Times, Morning Miracle will do for the Washington Post. A reporter for more than forty years, Dave Kindred takes you inside the heart of the legendary newspaper and offers a unique opportunity to see what it really takes to produce world-class journalism every day. Granted unprecedented access to every nook and cranny of the paper, including candid exchanges with its most celebrated journalists, such as Bob Woodward, Sally Quinn, David Broder, and former executive editor Ben Bradlee (who gave the book its title), Kindred provides a no-holds-barred look at the twenty-first-century newsroom. As it becomes more difficult to maintain journalistic integrity, stay relevant in the age of blogs, and meet Wall Street’s demands for profits, the newspaper—more than any other medium—also shoulders the tremendous responsibility of acting as a watchdog for democracy. Perhaps no one sums up the overwhelming challenges that face the Post and its power to endure better than the author himself: “It is still a miracle that you can put 700 overcaffeinated misfits in a newsroom, on deadline, adrenaline running, secrets to spill, and before midnight a messenger delivers a smoking-hot city edition to Don Graham’s manse in Georgetown.”

The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality. For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball. Yet Sexton argues that one is actually a pathway to the other. Baseball as a Road to God is about touching that something that lies beyond logical understanding. Sexton illuminates the surprisingly large number of mutual concepts shared between baseball and religion: faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, and even sacredness among many others. Structured like a game and filled with riveting accounts of baseball’s most historic moments, Baseball as Road to God will enthrall baseball fans whatever their religious beliefs may be. In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Sexton elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to enlightenment.