Catfish Cowboy Mr Turtle

Catfish Cowboy is a story about a catfish that lived in a deep water hole until he was befriended by a curious turtle who challenged him to jump out of the water one day. To the turtle's surprise the catfish had a personality and luck that would marvel any creature, man, or beast. The catfish couldn't wait to see what the real or dry world was all about. All he had ever experienced was the water hole.

Some people called them Cane & Able, but to Justin they were just Dad and Abe, two of the greatest men in his life... Remember how you felt when you were learning how to drive? You were nervous. You were scared. Your heart raced and your mouth was dry. You were so afraid of failure, you almost called it quits. It's the summer of '59 and young Justin Cane is learning to drive the family farm truck. Able Johnson, his father's longtime, trusted black farmhand becomes his mentor and teacher. Life, as Justin knew it to be, was about to change forever when the two unlikely traveling companions are confronted with the wonder of God's creations and the cruelty of life when they take to the open road.

Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

It was first in my thoughts for these writings to be viewed by my children and grand children. But I was compelled to set my memories, experiences, thoughts, hopes, and dreams for all youth of todays fast world. If you were raised in rural back woods, do not forget the beauty of the landscape and all living things that mother nature has blessed upon you. If you were raised in or near the city, make yourself a promise to visit rural America. Climb our mountains, explore our fields and streams, smell the vegetation, study our wildlife and you will become complete. When you think you are at the end of your rope, look to yourself for strength and guidance. You may be the wisest counselor you know.

A Vietnamese American returns to the land of his birth in a memoir of the consequences of war and the divide that still separates Asian Americans from the dominant culture

One of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays in recent Broadway history, August; Osage County a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest - and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed.

I watched the river from dawn 'til dusk, from season to season, year to year, and I found myself moving inward and evolving with it. The river, fluid in its motion and flexible in its moods, instructed me in the current of life, that I might navigate it safely without undue resistance and thus without tiring. The river's song informed me that I was a vital but momentary passing, like everything borne on its current, from birth to maturity to death to memory to birth again in some other form-an atom in a water lily, a catfish, or a tiger beetle. Its mixing of the two ingredients, silt and water, taught me that creation and extinction are no more than seemingly opposite sides of the same dynamic-change-that manifests itself through the irreversible novelty of eternal becoming. But, the most valuable lesson of all was that obstacles are temporary and can be transcended with patience, persistence, and the accrual of insight.