Friends broaden our children’s horizons, share their joys and secrets, and accompany them on their journeys into ever wider worlds. But friends can also gossip and betray, tease and exclude. Children can cause untold suffering, not only for their peers but for parents as well. In this wise and insightful book, psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., and children’s book author Catherine O’Neill Grace, illuminate the crucial and often hidden role that friendship plays in the lives of children from birth through adolescence. Drawing on fascinating new research as well as their own extensive experience in schools, Thompson and Grace demonstrate that children’s friendships begin early–in infancy–and run exceptionally deep in intensity and loyalty. As children grow, their friendships become more complex and layered but also more emotionally fraught, marked by both extraordinary intimacy and bewildering cruelty. As parents, we watch, and often live through vicariously, the tumult that our children experience as they encounter the “cool” crowd, shifting alliances, bullies, and disloyal best friends. Best Friends, Worst Enemies brings to life the drama of childhood relationships, guiding parents to a deeper understanding of the motives and meanings of social behavior. Here you will find penetrating discussions of the difference between friendship and popularity, how boys and girls deal in unique ways with intimacy and commitment, whether all kids need a best friend, why cliques form and what you can do about them. Filled with anecdotes that ring amazingly true to life, Best Friends, Worst Enemies probes the magic and the heartbreak that all children experience with their friends. Parents, teachers, counselors–indeed anyone who cares about children–will find this an eye-opening and wonderfully affirming book.

Thirteen-year-old Holly's relationship with her best friend Andie is threatened when they both fall for Jared, the new boy in the seventh grade and a fellow Christian.

Yikes! As if being the new girl isn't bad enough, Charlotte just made the biggest cafeteria blunder in the history of Abigail Adams Junior High. There's no way that Katani, Avery, and Maeve will want anything to do with her now. Can a mysterious landlady, a romantic evening gone wrong, and a cryptic key to nowhere help four very different girls become the best of friends? Or will they remain worst enemies forever?

The first in-depth look at the marine hero who has become one of the most beloved and admired men in America today: Secretary of Defense James Mattis. In the hyper-partisan political atmosphere of 2017, General James Mattis astonishingly received nearly unanimous bipartisan support for his nomination for Secretary of Defense. What is it about Mattis that generates such respect and appreciation across the political spectrum? In this illuminating biography, Jim Proser takes readers through the general’s illustrious career, featuring firsthand accounts of his running some of the most significant military engagements in recent American history. Readers will understand what it feels like to work for, and fight alongside, this remarkable figure. Mattis is a devout student of history and an erudite reader, revered by rank-and-file Marines, officers, academics, politicians, and civilians alike. In 2003, he shared a message in his “Eve of Battle Speech” with the men and women under his command in the 1st Marine Division, outlining their responsibilities. Emphasizing the importance of the mission and the goal to act with honor, Mattis ended with the motto he had adapted from another great figure, Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla: “Demonstrate to the world that there is ‘No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy’ than a US Marine.” Chronicling how Mattis’s martial and personal values have elevated him to the highest levels of personal success and earned him the trust of a nation, Proser proves that America is stronger because of the secretary’s service and his example. “A concise, fast-moving story of the battle career of the introspective and fiery General James Mattis, one of America’s most intriguing and gifted military figures of the postwar era. From this lively portrait, Proser’s Mattis emerges as our generation’s composite of George S. Patton and Omar Bradley.” —Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars

Step into picture-perfect Wilshire, home to some of the most privileged people in the world, where one woman's desperate act could bring the precariously balanced social order crashing down... Wilshire, Connecticut, the gilded enclave of Manhattan's prosperous elite, appears to be a vision of suburban tranquility: the mansions are tastefully designed, the lawns are expertly manicured, and the streets are as hushed as the complexities in the residents' lives. While Wilshire's husbands battle each other in the financial world, their wives manage their estates and raise the next elite generation. Some women are envied, some respected, and others simply tolerated. But regardless of where they stand, each woman is defined by the world she inhabits and bound by the unyielding social structure that surrounds her. Rosalyn Barlow, the most envied woman in Wilshire, is waging a battle of social manipulation to silence the scandalous gossip that threatens her daughter's reputation while her self-made billionaire husband grows more and more distant in his young retirement. But for fourteen year-old Caitlin Barlow, navigating life as a teenager in a culture of wealth and sexual promiscuity has become far more perilous than either of her parents knows. Newcomer Sarah Livingston has nothing but disdain for everyone and everything around her and a growing terror at having another child in a world she's come to resent. As she is pulled into the Barlow family's storm, the walls begin to close in around her marriage and the life she once thought she wanted. And for Jacqueline Halstead, who's just discovered her husband is under investigation for fraud surrounding his hedge fund, saving her family from total ruin means doing the unthinkable - and shaking the Barlow family, Wilshire's insular community, and herself to the core.

Life Is Never Mainly About Love and Marriage. So Learn to Live and Date for More. Many of you grew up assuming that marriage would meet all of your needs and unlock God's purposes for you. But God has far more planned for you than your future marriage. Not Yet Married is not about waiting quietly in the corner of the world for God to bring you "the one," but about inspiring you to live and date for more now. If you follow Jesus, the search for a spouse is no longer a pursuit of the perfect person, but a pursuit of more of God. He will likely write a love story for you different than the one you would write for yourself, but that's because he loves you and knows how to write a better story. This book was written to help you find real hope, happiness, and purpose in your not-yet-married life.