Blue Sky Dream

In Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America’s Fall from Grace, award-winner David Beers offers a powerful, personal vision of the rise and fall of the American middle class. Here is a dazzling literary chronicle of a family, a people, and a nation: the “blue sky tribe” of ever-optimistic middle-class Americans who believed in something called the American Dream, then woke up one day to discover it was gone. Blue Sky Dream is a book incredibly rich in ideas, in ways of seeing the recent past with stunning clarity. David Beers explores issues that define our times—downsizing, middle-class anxiety, the profound anger with government, the sense that something has gone awry with the United States—with such skill, personal immediacy, and compassion that readers will see their own histories in his prose. Blue Sky Dream can rightly be called a communal memoir, because in telling his family’s tale—growing tensions and disillusionment in their suburban paradise, a son rejecting his parents’ values, one sudden and inexplicable moment of violence—Beers tells the story of his people, the blue sky tribe “who imagined ourselves to be living the inevitable future, and are very surprised today to discover we were but a strange and aberrant moment that is now receding into history.”

The world ended in 1964 and was reborn in 1974. Oscar lives in Terratoria, a city run by the NFT (New Fathers of Terratoria), who enforce the religion of Zyrelism and hunt down nonconformers. Living in a precarious balance between starvation, drugs, and death, Oscar manages to survive. Until the day he finds himself outside the NFT's protection, thrown into a wasteland destroyed by nuclear war, famines, fanatics and mercenaries. And then he begins to ask himself; is the watchful eye of Zyrel really as bad as he had always thought?

It's 1942: Tomi Itano, 12, is a second-generation Japanese American who lives in California with her family on their strawberry farm. Although her parents came from Japan and her grandparents still live there, Tomi considers herself an American. She doesn't speak Japanese and has never been to Japan. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, things change. No Japs Allowed signs hang in store windows and Tomi's family is ostracized. Things get much worse. Suspected as a spy, Tomi's father is taken away. The rest of the Itano family is sent to an internment camp in Colorado. Many other Japanese American families face a similar fate. Tomi becomes bitter, wondering how her country could treat her and her family like the enemy. What does she need to do to prove she is an honorable American? Sandra Dallas shines a light on a dark period of American history in this story of a young Japanese American girl caught up in the prejudices and World War II.

A boy’s nomadic life in Mongolia is under threat in a novel that “captures the mountains, valleys and steppes in all their surpassing beauty and brutality” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, a young shepherd boy comes of age, tending his family’s flocks on the mountain steppes and knowing little of the world beyond the surrounding peaks. But his nomadic way of life is increasingly disrupted by modernity. This confrontation comes in stages. First, his older siblings leave the family yurt to attend a distant boarding school. Then the boy’s grandmother dies, and with her his connection to the old ways. But perhaps the greatest tragedy strikes when his dog, Arsylang—“all that was left to me”—ingests poison set out by the boy’s father to protect his herd from wolves. “Why is it so?” Dshurukawaa cries out in despair to the Heavenly Blue Sky, to be answered only by the wind. Rooted in the oral traditions of the Tuvan people, The Blue Sky weaves the timeless story of a boy poised on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold. “Thrilling. . . . Tschinag makes it easy for his readers to fall into the beautiful rhythms of the Tuvans’ daily life.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “In this pristine and concentrated tale of miraculous survival and anguished loss, Tschinag evokes the nurturing warmth of a family within the circular embrace of a yurt as an ancient way of life lived in harmony with nature becomes endangered.” —Booklist

This 150-page dream journal features: 144 pages for dream journal writing and interpretation 3 pages per dream - plenty of room for each dream journal entry Drawing space for each dream 6" x 9" size - big enough for your writing and small enough to put on your nightstand or take with you A "This dream journal belongs to" page where you can enter your name and other information if you wish Black and white interior with white paper with which you can write with your favorite pens or pencils A fun and simple cover you or a lucky recipient are sure to love! A matte-finish cover for a professional yet fun texture and appearance This is a detailed dream journal with space to write date, time and dream title as well as your dreams' descriptions and any interpretations you may have for them. Helpful lists within each journal entry make it easier to describe your dream! This dream journal also makes a great gift if you know someone who would benefit writing about and analyzing his or her dreams. When you can write about your dreams, you can work with them to analyze and problem solve. Use this dream journal to write down your dreams, nightmares, symbols, details, your "why" questions and more. Buy your guided dream journal now.

“Entrepreneurs live each day of their journey feeling uncomfortable, and if they don’t feel uncomfortable, they know it’s time to grow.” In Get Uncomfortable or Change Course, Kelvin Abrams helps new and aspiring entrepreneurs learn what it takes to run a small business, providing them with tips and tricks to achieve their goals. Through a variety of amusing and insightful anecdotes, Kelvin explores getting creative in the face of change, writing a solid business plan, and much more. From making sacrifices to shifting your mindset, Kelvin covers it all with valuable exercises for the reader to do along the way. Kelvin has fifteen years of experience running his own businesses, which has given him lots of stories to share. Being a black business owner has not always been easy, but with hard work, tenacity, strength, and heart, Kelvin has created businesses that not only generate revenue, but create community. Down-to-earth and insightful, Get Uncomfortable or Change Course is a useful companion for anyone looking to start a business and set themselves up for ongoing success.

A warm and unforgettable portrait of a family letting go of the known world to encounter an unfamiliar one filled with rich possibilities and new understandings. Bruce Kirkby had fallen into a pattern of looking mindlessly at his phone for hours, flipping between emails and social media, ignoring his children and wife and everything alive in his world, when a thought struck him. This wasn't living; this wasn't him. This moment of clarity started a chain reaction which ended with a grand plan: he was going to take his wife and two young sons, jump on a freighter and head for the Himalaya. In Blue Sky Kingdom, we follow Bruce and his family's remarkable three months journey, where they would end up living amongst the Lamas of Zanskar Valley, a forgotten appendage of the ancient Tibetan empire, and one of the last places on earth where Himalayan Buddhism is still practiced freely in its original setting. Richly evocative, Blue Sky Kingdom explores the themes of modern distraction and the loss of ancient wisdom coupled with Bruce coming to terms with his elder son's diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum. Despite the natural wonders all around them at times, Bruce's experience will strike a chord with any parent—from rushing to catch a train with the whole family to the wonderment and beauty that comes with experience the world anew with your children.

Buildings, bridges, and books don't exist without the workers who are often invisible in the final product, as this joyous and profound picture book reveals from acclaimed author of The Christmas Boot Lisa Wheeler and New York Times bestselling illustrator of Love Loren Long All across this great big world, jobs are getting done by many hands in many lands. It takes much more than ONE. Gorgeously written and illustrated, this is an eye-opening exploration of the many types of work that go into building our world--from the making of a bridge to a wind farm, an amusement park, and even the very picture book that you are reading. An architect may dream up the plans for a house, but someone has to actually work the saws and pound the nails. This book is a thank-you to the skilled women and men who work tirelessly to see our dreams brought to life.