Darby's Polka Dots and Pretties takes Darby and his little l'agon friend, K'Orac, on a special adventure that celebrates his mother. On their way to the meadow of pretties, K'Orac chases a light bug through the forest, leading Darby to the discovery of the beautiful glowing green pretty. Wanting to make his mother the best wrap of pretties he has ever given her, Darby picks a few of the glowing pretties and puts them into the wrap with the pink and purple pretties from the meadow. Darby returns to the village a changed m'ite. What happens next leads Darby to find confidence in himself and be proud of the small differences in who he is.

"Darby's first-person narrative is frank and immediate . . . expressing what it's like for an ordinary white kid who suddenly discovers evil — and courage — where she lives." — BOOKLIST "From my back porch, I can see where my best friend lives. Evette’s tenant house sits on my daddy’s property . . . but on account of her being black and me being white, she hardly ever comes in my house, and I don’t go in hers. My daddy says that’s just the way it is." Darby Carmichael thinks her best friend is probably the smartest person she knows, even though, as Mama says, Evette’s school uses worn-out books and crumbly chalk. Whenever they can, Darby and Evette shoot off into the woods beyond the farm to play at being fancy ladies and schoolteachers. One thing Darby has never dreamed of being - not until Evette suggests it - is a newspaper girl who writes down the truth for all to read. In no time, and with more than a little assistance from Evette, Darby and her column in the Bennettsville Times are famous in town and beyond. But is Marlboro County, South Carolina, circa 1926, ready for the truth its youngest reporter has to tell?

It's never too late to put your best foot forward From the outside, Reagan "Rae" Doucet has it all: a coveted career in Washington, DC, a tight circle of friends and a shoe closet to die for. When one of her crew falls ill, however, Rae is done playing it safe. The talented but unfulfilled writer makes a "risk list" to revamp her life. But forgiving her ex, Jake Saunders, might be one risk too many... From Harlequin Special Edition: Believe in love. Overcome obstacles. Find happiness. The Friendship Chronicles Book 1: The Shoe Diaries

“An indispensable text for understanding educational racial injustice and contributing to initiatives to mitigate it.” —Educational Theory American students vary in educational achievement, but white students in general typically have better test scores and grades than black students. Why is this the case, and what can school leaders do about it? In The Color of Mind, Derrick Darby and John L. Rury answer these pressing questions and show that we cannot make further progress in closing the achievement gap until we understand its racist origins. Telling the story of what they call the Color of Mind—the idea that there are racial differences in intelligence, character, and behavior—they show how philosophers, such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and American statesman Thomas Jefferson, contributed to the construction of this pernicious idea, how it influenced the nature of schooling and student achievement, and how voices of dissent such as Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and W.E.B. Du Bois debunked the Color of Mind and worked to undo its adverse impacts. Rejecting the view that racial differences in educational achievement are a product of innate or cultural differences, Darby and Rury uncover the historical interplay between ideas about race and American schooling, to show clearly that the racial achievement gap has been socially and institutionally constructed. School leaders striving to bring justice and dignity to American schools today must work to root out the systemic manifestations of these ideas within schools, while still doing what they can to mitigate the negative effects of poverty, segregation, inequality, and other external factors that adversely affect student achievement. While we can’t expect schools alone to solve these vexing social problems, we must demand that they address the injustices associated with how we track, discipline, and deal with special education that reinforce long-standing racist ideas. That is the only way to expel the Color of Mind from schools, close the racial achievement gap, and afford all children the dignity they deserve.

Darby Kane thrills with this twisty domestic suspense novel that asks one central question: shouldn't a dead husband stay dead? Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it’s discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth…. With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She’s definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it’s gone.

Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit — and often explicit — in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.

Informed by psychology and neuroscience, Cavanagh argues that in order to capture students' attention, harness their working memory, bolster their long-term retention, and enhance their motivation, educators should consider the emotional impact of their teaching style and course design.