That Stubborn Seed Of Hope

A collection of gripping short stories themed around fear and hope written by internationally acclaimed children’s author Brian Falkner. A boy helps his sister disguise her birthmark on her first day of school. A seventeen-year-old awakens to find himself trapped in an elderly body. A teenage girl discovers her boyfriend has a life-threatening virus the day after they share their first kiss. A high school student tries to communicate to his hospitalised brother who is in a vegetative state. Brian Falkner serves up bite-sized tales of fear – fear of rejection, fear of dying, fear of disease, fear of the unknown, fear of exclusion, fear of being caught and fear of embarrassment – showing how that stubborn seed of hope hungers our darkest moments.

It is 2174 and Earth is a barren desert. All of humanity lives under a bubble that protects mankind from the sun’s deadly rays. A communist government controls everything. Strict laws forbid sports, television, and gatherings of more than five people. Life is one of mere existence. Yenej, who has been born into this dismal world. Is a young man who has been given an extraordinary opportunity. After being trained to understand the world in a way few people have ever considered, Yenej is sent back in time. Knowing, when he arrives in Iowa City Ia., that you can’t force people to change. He sets out to lead people to a new understanding of life. He begins teaching of the unity of all things. Will the seeds of hope he plants, in his lessons of love, unity, and respect, change today’s world and transform the future world he knows into a beautiful place? A Seed of Hope shares the thoughtful story of a gifted young man who is given an extraordinary opportunity to warn others about a bleak future that only they have the power to change.

Without denying the gravity of the problems of feeding the earth's population while conserving its natural resources, Seeds of Resistance, Seeds of Hope reminds us that there are many positive movements and developments, especially at the grass-roots level, that demonstrate the power of opposition and optimism.

The author is 96. He was an educator for 33 years, retiring in 1984. As you read the book, you will sense that the 'speaker' is still a teacher who is not only telling you a story, but also cautioning you about what lies ahead as you too face the inevitable challenges associated with aging, how to deal with them, and how being fit helped him survive major difficulties. The Diary of a Dying Man is a perfect example of the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. In fact, much of what happened to the author is unbelievable. Basically, it's about a survivor, a man who is naively generous to a fault. Despite the traumas his generosity causes, he feels that, in each instance, he did the right thing. While the book has a happy ending, be prepared to shed some tears along the way.

Nurturing the Seed of Hope: A Green Strategy for Liberation

In Crossover Fiction, Sandra L. Beckett explores the global trend of crossover literature and explains how it is transforming literary canons, concepts of readership, the status of authors, the publishing industry, and bookselling practices. This study will have significant relevance across disciplines, as scholars in literary studies, media and cultural studies, visual arts, education, psychology, and sociology examine the increasingly blurred borderlines between adults and young people in contemporary society, notably with regard to their consumption of popular culture.