Hard Place

In this seminal resource, Dr. Kiaras Gharabaghi identifies an underlying absence of unifying theory and practice in Canada's child and youth residential care and treatment services. By drawing on organizational examples from across Canada, Gharabaghi exposes how the historical dynamics of mediocrity and complacency have led to inadequate standards and practices within the system. More assuredly, this resource exposes readers to alternative ways of re-imagining a system that is designed from a space of care, healing, and growth that promotes autonomy for all young people. This well-timed resource offers the child and youth services community a positive, constructive, and revolutionary framework for residential care and treatment that is fundamentally based on a partnership between caregivers and young people, their families, neighbourhoods, and communities. Dr. Gharabaghi’s sophisticated and provocative analysis of the system’s key issues is an essential resource for students, practitioners, and educators in the field of child and youth care and in the human services more broadly.

One of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told -- Aron Ralston's searing account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of bravery brought him home. It started out as a simple hike in the Utah canyonlands on a warm Saturday afternoon. For Aron Ralston, a twenty-seven-year-old mountaineer and outdoorsman, a walk into the remote Blue John Canyon was a chance to get a break from a winter of solo climbing Colorado's highest and toughest peaks. He'd earned this weekend vacation, and though he met two charming women along the way, by early afternoon he finally found himself in his element: alone, with just the beauty of the natural world all around him. It was 2:41 P.M. Eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow slot canyon, Aron was climbing down off a wedged boulder when the rock suddenly, and terrifyingly, came loose. Before he could get out of the way, the falling stone pinned his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall. And so began six days of hell for Aron Ralston. With scant water and little food, no jacket for the painfully cold nights, and the terrible knowledge that he'd told no one where he was headed, he found himself facing a lingering death -- trapped by an 800-pound boulder 100 feet down in the bottom of a canyon. As he eliminated his escape options one by one through the days, Aron faced the full horror of his predicament: By the time any possible search and rescue effort would begin, he'd most probably have died of dehydration, if a flash flood didn't drown him before that. What does one do in the face of almost certain death? Using the video camera from his pack, Aron began recording his grateful good-byes to his family and friends all over the country, thinking back over a life filled with adventure, and documenting a last will and testament with the hope that someone would find it. (For their part, his family and friends had instigated a major search for Aron, the amazing details of which are also documented here for the first time.) The knowledge of their love kept Aron Ralston alive, until a divine inspiration on Thursday morning solved the riddle of the boulder. Aron then committed the most extreme act imaginable to save himself. Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- a brilliantly written, funny, honest, inspiring, and downright astonishing report from the line where death meets life -- will surely take its place in the annals of classic adventure stories.

As the U.S.S. "Enterprise" searches a distant nebula for a missing starship, the crew discovers a long-forgotten colony of humans that is fighting a civil war over whether or not imagination should be legal--Novelist

You know the story: God told Abraham he would become a great nation. Then he told him to sacrifice his own (and only) son, Isaac. Abraham obeyed God and was about to kill Isaac—when God intervened. This is a classic 'between a rock and a hard place' situation. So how was Abraham able to obey in the face of losing it all? Or to bring it closer to home—what would you have done? In this powerful book, Tony Evans reveals what to do when your love for God is tested. According to Evans, “When you don’t know God, or when you either forget or dismiss what is true about Him, then you don’t know how to respond…” Moving through passages in both the Old and New Testaments, Evans makes a powerful case for obedient living as the key to an abundant life.

“Puns and playfulness reign supreme” as a demoness learns that big birds of a feather don’t flock together in the New York Times–bestselling Xanth series (The Toronto Star). Seeking a solution to a perplexing personal problem, the delectable Demoness Metria asks for help from the wise Magician Humfrey. But before he will help her, she must perform a perilous mission: Rove the length and breadth of Xanth in search of a suitable jury for the trial of Roxanne Roc, a notably noble and virtuous bird charged with a most improbable offense. Exciting, exhilarating, and brimming with hilarious high jinks, Roc and a Hard Place is Xanth at its most enchanting. “[A] lighthearted series . . . many outlandish characters, adventures, jokes and plays on words.” —Publishers Weekly

Autobiography of Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield.

After five years in prison, AJ Gurney one of Detroit's legendary wheelmen and the ladies favorite bad boy is free, and he's decided it's time to go straight. But during a simple visit to the bank, AJ is recognized by two violent bank robbers, and they demand AJ be their driver. To ensure his compliance, they take a young female hostage. Unfortunately, she just happens to be the daughter of a Russian crime lord. AJ now finds himself pursued by the police and hunted by every asset of the Russian mob. Without a doubt, he's in a very hard place. Collects THE HARD PLACE #1-5

This gripping novel draws the reader into the chaotic, exasperating, and at times humorous world of Lucy, a mother of three, the oldest of whom has severe autism. Nine-year-old Hollie's erratic and often destructive behavior is putting a strain on Lucy's marriage and beginning to negatively affect her younger children. In trying to secure the best possible educational situation for her daughter, Lucy must choose between sending her daughter away to a boarding school where she has the best chance to learn and keeping her at home with her family, but where she will make very little progress. While faced with this decision that places Lucy between the proverbial rock and a hard place, she meets Joel, a man who has offered to help her secure the money she needs to hire specialists for Hollie's due process hearing. Lucy is now not only forced to make the most difficult decision of her daughter's young life but the most difficult decision of her own life as well. She must choose between an affair with a man who makes her feel alive and her faltering marriage and family.