With more than twenty years of hands-on leadership experience in federal, state, and local government, Gary De Carolis, President, Center for Community Leadership, is a leading authority in creating community-based systems of services and supports for children with disabilities and their families. His new book, A View from the Balcony, is a source of unique insight into leading, planning, and implementing effective systems change. You will: ? Learn from real-world examples how to design, build, and administer a system of care. ? Realize the vital role of parent organizations in all aspects of systems of care. ? Understand the theory and practice of effective leadership in systems of care. ? Discover how you can make a real difference in your community.

A true story of three young men who came from a small town are given the opportunity to open a store in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. A Head Shop. They've never owned or managed a store before. Two of them work full time in a tool and die shop and the third one is a senior in high school. See how they started in 1969 working together building a thriving business that surprised even their closest friends. It was a different time many things in the world were changing and they had to change with them. Navigating through the competitive business world and at the same time managing their personal lives. Starting in their hometown of Lansdowne the story moves to Terminal Square in Upper Darby where they sub rent a loft, they named The Balcony. It was not easy, many obstacles came their way. Since they were a Head Shop, they were aware many believed they were selling drugs. Overcoming their personal problems became the hard part. Running the business came surprisingly easier. You would have thought the partying, drug use, a stolen car, a buyout, bootleg albums, marriages, the FBI, women, death, two new neighboring malls, additions, a move, a divorce, bootleg tee shirts, would have brought them down, but they didn't. The Balcony survived nineteen years. Nineteen years is a long time when you are working. The three main characters find out owning your own business is a 24/7 job. Like many things in life, they started together with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Many fads came and went but the store was always up to date on all the new trends. The store became so popular customers would drive from New Jersey and Delaware to shop there. It was the beginning of the Woodstock nation. The music, drugs and sex were happening like never before and these three were ready to take it on. Many newsworthy events happened during the life of The Balcony. The reopening of the Tower Theater revised the music scene in Upper Darby bringing memorable acts to town. David Bowie played a whole week of shows to promote one of his albums. Bob Marley made a rare appearance and actually sent one of his crew to come in and ask if Bob could come in to shop. Bob and some of his band including his little brother and son came and spent over an hour shopping before the show started. Money was being made as the three partners started to disagree and find fault with each other. This is the story of how it happened from the very beginning to the end. It answers so many of the questions that have been asked since The Balcony closed its doors in 1988.

In this theological work, readers are seated in a metaphorical balcony as a counter melody is composed within America’s operatic tradition. By using imaginary opera glasses, readers are invited to critically view American society and history. The most popular folk songs of white Southerners, Western settlers, and Northern elites were composed from chords of colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, hegemony, and xenophobia—forms of anthropological poverty. These songs were, and remain, the most discordant melodies heard by indigenous and enslaved persons in America. Indicting the “church” for its complicity in these oppressions, this work offers the reader a historical glimpse at the philosophical and religious underpinnings of systemic racism. A new healing hermeneutic, the balcony hermeneutic, enables the reader to view, critique, assess, correct, and reverse the devastating consequences of anthropological poverty. By taking a “reversed gaze” of traditional Western Eurocentric systems of knowledge production, through theomusicology, this work privileges the voices of indigenous scholars—philosophers, anthropologists, theologians, and performers—to sing a new song as we correct negative narratives and lyrics through resistance operatic performances.

WINNER OF THE SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FIRST FICTION FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS What if our homes could tell the stories of others who lived there before us? To those who have ventured past it over the years, this small estate in a village outside Paris has always seemed calm and poised. But should you open the gates and enter inside, you will find rooms which have become the silent witnesses to a century of human drama: from the young American au pair developing a crush on her brilliant employer to the ex-courtesan shocking the servants, and the Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo to the housewife who begins an affair while renovating her downstairs. The stories of those who have lived within the estate have been many and varied. But as the years unfold, their lives inevitably come to haunt the same spaces and intertwine, creating a rich tapestry of the relationships, life-altering choices, and fleeting moments which have kept the house alive through the last hundred years. . . 'Sweeping, suspenseful, rich with surprises and eerie atmosphere' Jennifer Egan

“Castrillón offers riotous sprouting life through soft forms, stylized shapes, and bright colors.” —Publishers Weekly “Elegant...A charmingly verdant tale in classic style.” —Kirkus Reviews “Lovely...delightful.” —School Library Journal From internationally acclaimed illustrator Melissa Castrillon comes a magical story of how a girl’s garden in her new home changes her life and the lives of people all around her. When a little girl moves from her home to an apartment in the city, she takes her pretty plants with her and one by one they grow and bloom and change both her world and the world all around her as she makes a new friend. When your heart is open, the world is full of possibilities.

A stand-alone companion to the successful Tasting the Sky, this memoir further examines the author's childhood in Palestine.

Joyce Landorf Heatherley writes insightfully about the gift and ministry of affirmation and those people in the balcony who shout words of encouragement to us and spur us on to be what God intends for us.