In her father’s Peruvian family, Marie Arana was taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother’s American family she learned to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. Arana shuttled easily between these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her family to the United States did she come to understand that she was a hybrid American whose cultural identity was split in half. Coming to terms with this split is at the heart of this graceful, beautifully realized portrait of a child who “was a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica.” Here are two vastly different landscapes: Peru—earthquake-prone, charged with ghosts of history and mythology—and the sprawling prairie lands of Wyoming. In these rich terrains resides a colorful cast of family members who bring Arana’s historia to life...her proud grandfather who one day simply stopped coming down the stairs; her dazzling grandmother, “clicking through the house as if she were making her way onstage.” But most important are Arana’s parents: he a brilliant engineer, she a gifted musician. For more than half a century these two passionate, strong-willed people struggled to overcome the bicultural tensions in their marriage and, finally, to prevail.

In this revised edition of Worlds of Childhood, six prominent authors of classic books for young people search their own childhood for the sources of their inspiration and discover a common theme: to enter the worlds that children inhabit, a writer must know the magic word - honesty.

Is there really such a thing as a “good divorce”? Determined to uncover the truth, Elizabeth Marquardt—herself a child of divorce—conducted, with Professor Norval Glenn, a pioneering national study of children of divorce, surveying 1,500 young adults from both divorced and intact families between 2001 and 2003. In Between Two Worlds, she weaves the findings of that study together with powerful, unsentimental stories of the childhoods of young people from divorced families. The hard truth, she says, is that while divorce is sometimes necessary, even amicable divorces sow lasting inner conflict in the lives of children. When a family breaks in two, children who stay in touch with both parents must travel between two worlds, trying alone to reconcile their parents’ often strikingly different beliefs, values, and ways of living. Authoritative, beautifully written, and alive with the voices of men and women whose lives were changed by divorce, Marquardt’s book is essential reading for anyone who grew up “between two worlds.” “Makes a persuasive case against the culture of casual divorce.” —Washington Post “A poignant narrative of her own experience . . . Marquardt says she and other young adults who grew up in the divorce explosion of the 1970s and 1980s are still dealing with wounds that they could never talk about with their parents.”—Chicago Tribune

True love is ever entwined with a higher calling. The majestic Sand “Kum” and the mysterious Sea “Deniz” are immortal lovers, protectors, guardians of the path of Good “Taqwa” against Evil “Fujur”. Since the beginning of mankind, they have been relentlessly watching and aligning the path of true lovers across parallel lives. Özcan Güne?, a young boy with simple desires finds himself on a path conflicting that of his identity. His longing for his soulmate from his dreams grows over the years. Junaid, an unfortunate lad from the war-torn Syrian land, sees his fortunes take a turn when destiny crosses his path with a kind Imam, who offers him education and a better life. Hannah, a Mumbai girl, seeks the love of her life in a faraway land, heeding to the call from her dreams she embarks on a journey to find him, in Turkey. Returning to his home in Syria to be with his family, Junaid meets Bahr (Sea), an orphaned girl, falls in love and marries her albeit through fortunate circumstances and the kindness of many. Soon, the pain of displacement, the vulgarity of loss of life through war, and the suffering of the innocent at the sleeves of ego tear their lives apart. Maryam, the child with magical powers, is fated to change all their lives. She is the nucleus that connects the past and the present. How did she come into Özcan’s life and what is her connection to Hannah? Travel through the portal of Deniz in high tide across parallel lives. Karmic debt follows the protagonists as the war between Fujur and Taqwa brews at the shores of Dalyan and the mystery of the countless grains of sand is revealed. Take this journey to mystical places, sights of historic ruin, swim in the lyrical flow of poetry and much more. Child of Two Worlds is the second book in the Sand & Sea Series.

More than ever, the economic health of a country depends upon the skills, knowledge, and capacities of its people. How does a person acquire these human assets and how can we promote their development? Securing the Future assembles an interdisciplinary team of scholars to investigate the full range of factors—pediatric, psychological, social, and economic—that bear on a child's development into a well-adjusted, economically productive member of society. A central purpose of the volume is to identify sound interventions that will boost human assets, particularly among the disadvantaged. The book provides a comprehensive evaluation of current initiatives and offers a wealth of new suggestions for effective public and private investments in child development. While children from affluent, highly educated families have good quality child care and an expensive education provided for them, children from poor families make do with informal child care and a public school system that does not always meet their needs. How might we best redress this growing imbalance? The contributors to this volume recommend policies that treat academic attainment together with psychological development and social adjustment. Mentoring programs, for example, promote better school performance by first fostering a young person's motivation to learn. Investments made early in life, such as preschool education, are shown to have the greatest impact on later learning for the least cost. In their focus upon children, however, the authors do not neglect the important links between generations. Poverty and inequality harm the development of parents and children alike. Interventions that empower parents to fight for better services and better schools are also of great benefit to their children. Securing the Future shows how investments in child development are both a means to an end and an end in themselves. They benefit the child directly and they also help that child contribute to the well-being of society. This book points us toward more effective strategies for promoting the economic success and the social cohesion of future generations. A Volume in the Ford Foundation Series on Asset Building