The day Oscar turns six months old, Mum, Dad and Millie decide to celebrate. They take coat-hanger fairy wings, three tuna sandwiches and a chocolate cake with half a candle, and set off across the city for a picnic on Bellevue Hill. Once there, all the other people in the park join in for a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" in this warm, gentle story of a family celebration on an urban, autumn day.

This is a book about Oscar J. Kincheloe whose life was tragically cut short at age 33 from COVID-19. He lived an extraordinary life impacting hundreds of children and parents in his approximate decade-long career in children’s theater. This book covers his remarkable life from his adoption to the last eight years of his career at LifeStage Theatre in Grapevine, Texas. Much of the book includes powerful testimonies from children and adults alike on how much Oscar meant to them, the impact he had on them, and what a great role model he was. He brought so much joy to many people with his indefatigable zest for life and a hearty laugh and his booming voice that inspired his students. Oscar’s was a life well-lived. He made everyone he came in contact with a better person.

Presents some of the best science fiction short stories written in 2015.

When the young Swedish-descended Alexandra Bergson inherits her father's farm in Nebraska, she must transform the land from a wind-swept prairie landscape into a thriving enterprise. She dedicates herself completely to the land—at the cost of great sacrifices. O Pioneers! [1913] is Willa Cather's great masterpiece about American pioneers, where the land is as important a character as the people who cultivate it. WILLA CATHER [1873-1947] was an American author. After studying at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a teacher and journalist. Cather's novels often focus on settlers in the USA with a particular emphasis on female pioneers. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel One of Ours, and in 1943, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

ACOSTA is a story about the entire Acosta family, but especially about Oscar Acosta, the feisty pitching coach who first turned around the Chicago Cubs and then the Texas Rangers followed by a minors Yankees team, before dying in an auto accident in the Dominican at age 49. The parents of Oscar and his sister Yolanda were immigrants who came to the U.S. from Mexico to work on other people's ranches in southeastern New Mexico. That Oscar, who everyone assumed would follow in his father's footsteps, should be discovered in high school and make his way up the ranks in professional baseball is a fascinating story in itself. But in addition to a central thread about Oscar, there is also the story of his father, who, after years of poverty, succumbed to a temptation that would have shattered a less loving family, and Yolanda, who chose to forgive the perpetrator of a heinous crime in order to avoid a lifetime of negativity and despair.