9-12 yrs.

Presents advice, backed with studies and the author's own experience as a family counselor, for parents navigating the difficult waters of adolescence.

A City within a City examines the civil rights movement in the North by concentrating on the struggles for equality in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Historian Todd Robinson studies the issues surrounding school integration and bureaucratic reforms as well as the role of black youth activism to detail the diversity of black resistance. He focuses on respectability within the African American community as a way of understanding how the movement was formed and held together. And he elucidates the oppositional role of northern conservatives regarding racial progress. A City within a City cogently argues that the post-war political reform championed by local Republicans transformed the city's racial geography, creating a racialized "city within a city," featuring a system of "managerial racism" designed to keep blacks in declining inner-city areas. As Robinson indicates, this bold, provocative framework for understanding race relations in Grand Rapids has broader implications for illuminating the twentieth-century African American urban experience in secondary cities.

DESCRIPTION This unique volume contains twenty-eight fascinating life stories of people -- many of whom went on to become famous -- who grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The coming-of-age stories in Thin Ice relate a range of experiences both good and bad, including happy memories and heartwarming recollections but also personal traumas, intergenerational and racial conflicts, the strictures of religious belief and practice, the joys and sorrows of young romance, and more. Above and beyond the stories of the more notable personalities -- Jim Harrison, Roger Wilkins, John Hockenberry, President Gerald Ford, Betty Ford, Al Green, Paul Schrader, William Brashler -- the book as a whole is chock-full of crisp, humorous, irreverent, and moving writing. Reinder Van Til and Gordon Olson have excerpted half of the pieces from previous publications, while they directly solicited the other half from active writers specifically for this book. The earliest stories go back to the 1830s and 1850s, and the most recent are a cluster of contemporary pieces that describe coming of age in the Grand Rapids of the 1960s through the 1980s. Together they paint a multifaceted, impressionistic portrait of a century and a half in the fair city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. All in all, Thin Ice is a nostalgic treasure for any Grand Rapidian and literary treasure for e v e r y one. Contributors Albert Baxter Charles E. Belknap A. J. Muste Arnold Gingrich David Cornel DeJong Gerald R. Ford Betty Ford Edward V. Gillis John Thompson Roger Wilkins Jim Harrison Glen Peterson Max Apple John Otterbacher Reinder Van Til Al Green Paul Schrader Robert VanderMolen William Brashler Sheri Venema Hank Meijer Charles Honey Tom Rademacher Levi Rickert John Hockenberry Laura Kasischke Kaye Longberg Bich Minh Nguyen

The Rapids is an exploration of manic depression (also known as bipolar disorder). With reflections on artists such as Carrie Fisher, Kanye West, Saul Bellow, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Spalding Gray, Sam Twyford-Moore takes readers on a literary and cultural tour of mania and what it means to live with a diagnosis of "bipolarity" in contemporary society. He also looks at the condition in our digital world, where someone’s manic episode can unfold live in real time, watched by millions. His own story, told unflinchingly, is shocking and sometimes darkly comic. It gives the book an edge that is not always comfortable but full of insight and empathy. Smart, lively, and well-researched, The Rapids manages to be both a wild ride and introspective at once, exploring a condition that touches thousands of people, directly or indirectly.

Beyond the Rapids is the true story of Ukrainian pastor Alexei Brynza and his wife, Valentina, who endured persecution in a culture that was hostile to their faith as they struggled to raise their four children as believers.From the Great Terror of the 1930s to the time when believing in Christ in no longer a crime, this close-knit Ukrainian family quietly persisted through the years, trusting God for everything. The Brynzas' children, forced to choose between God and the communist system, wrestled with temptations of ambition, popularity, love and wealth. For periods of their lives, one or more gave in. But God heard the faithful prayers of Alexei and Valentina, and eventually the Brynza family was able not only to survive while serving God, but to thrive. Their son-in-law, Igor Yaremchuk, adds his own testimony of coming to Christ with the help of miracles and atheistic propaganda.Beyond the Rapids is a story for believers everywhere. If you're concerned about the erosion of religious freedom, if you are discouraged because your children have wandered far from God, if you long to stand firm in your faith in all circumstances, the Brynzas' testimony of God's faithfulness will provide hope and inspiration as you are reminded afresh that God is with you, in every moment. As you sail through the torrents in your own life, God will meet you right where you are and guide you to the smooth water beyond the rapids.