The Joy Of Growing Up

Growing up is a challenging, exciting, and satisfying journey. This book takes you through that journey, giving you the tools you need to navigate it successfully. It shows you how responsibility, chosen carefully and taken on willingly, brings freedom and fulfilment. It gives models for growing up in the twenty-first century.

Written by an international expert on the effects of media on children, The Death of Childhood provides a fascinating—and sobering—look at what it means to grow up in America today. Following in the footsteps of Neil Postman, Marie Winn, and Mary Pipher, this riveting and heart-breaking book is an obituary to childhood, exploring its origins and tracing its progress to what could be its bitter end in the early 21st century—if we don’t act now to resuscitate it. No longer are we raising children in the idyllic world that many of today’s grandparents and parents remember—a world filled with kick-the-can, unsupervised bike adventures and dog-walking, and the freedom to explore. Now, thanks to the Internet, new technology, and social networking, the complexion of childhood has changed and there are no adult “secrets” anymore—the answer to every question exists a fingertip’s reach away in cyberspace. It’s not just technology and media that are changing, childhood is also suffering the effects of underfunded schools, inattentive parents, a plethora of guns, and a hostile society. Despite all of that, this book shows that there is hope, and offers solutions to restore the charm and innocence of childhood.

This contemporary YA novel is perfect for fans of Mark Smith and Vikki Wakefield, and tackles grief, belonging and mental illness.

In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, acclaimed novelist David Chariandy's latest is an intimate and profoundly beautiful meditation on the politics of race today. When a moment of quietly ignored bigotry prompted his three-year-old daughter to ask "what happened?" David Chariandy began wondering how to discuss with his children the politics of race. A decade later, in a newly heated era of both struggle and divisions, he writes a letter to his now thirteen-year-old daughter. David is the son of Black and South Asian migrants from Trinidad, and he draws upon his personal and ancestral past, including the legacies of slavery, indenture, and immigration, as well as the experiences of growing up a visible minority within the land of one's birth. In sharing with his daughter his own story, he hopes to help cultivate within her a sense of identity and responsibility that balances the painful truths of the past and present with hopeful possibilities for the future.

How do I best facilitate conversations on climate change with people from a different generation - or political background - than my own? In Growing Up in the Grassroots: Finding Unity in Climate Activism Across Generations, Joy Reeves seeks to answer this question and more as she delves into the intergenerational and partisan misunderstandings she witnesses regularly in her environmental science and policy career. This book brings together the stories of people and groups from all walks of life, including: Chlöe Swarbrick - a New Zealand parliamentarian and millennial, who challenged older politicians on climate action and inadvertently sparked an online movement. Bob Inglis - a 61-year-old Republican politician and father who radically changed his views on climate change while maintaining his Republican beliefs. "The Raging Grannies" - a troupe of elderly activists across the globe that you may stumble across singing hilarious protest songs...but otherwise defy the "little old lady" stereotype. Even in a world that is polarized by political party and generational differences, there are vast opportunities for older and younger generations to find common ground and move forward collaboratively on climate change. Delve into the history and future of climate activism with Growing Up in the Grassroots.

Winner, Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award of the Section on Children and Youth, given by the American Sociological Association Finalist for the 2021 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems Latinx children navigating identity, citizenship, and belonging in a divided America An estimated sixty million people in the United States are of Latinx descent, with youth under the age of eighteen making up two-thirds of this swiftly growing demographic. In Growing Up Latinx, Jesica Siham Fernández explores the lives of Latinx youth as they grapple with their social and political identities from an early age, and pursue a sense of belonging in their schools and communities as they face an increasingly hostile political climate. Drawing on interviews with nine-to-twelve-year-olds, Fernández gives us rare insight into how Latinx youth understand their own citizenship and bravely forge opportunities to be seen, to be heard, and to belong. With a compassionate eye, she shows us how they strive to identify, and ultimately redefine, what it means to come of age—and fight for their rights—in a country that does not always recognize them. Fernández follows Latinx youth as they navigate family, school, community, and country ties, richly detailing their hopes and dreams as they begin to advocate for their right to be treated as citizens in full. Growing Up Latinx invites us to witness the inspiring power of young people as they develop and make heard their political voices, broadening our understanding of citizenship.

Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

An edgy and ambitious debut by a powerful new voice in contemporary literary fiction Monday, Kierk wakes up. Once a rising star in neuroscience, Kierk Suren is now homeless, broken by his all-consuming quest to find a scientific theory of consciousness. But when he’s offered a spot in a prestigious postdoctoral program, he decides to rejoin society and vows not to self-destruct again. Instead of focusing on his work, however, Kierk becomes obsessed with another project—investigating the sudden and suspicious death of a colleague. As his search for truth brings him closer to Carmen Green, another postdoc, their list of suspects grows, along with the sense that something sinister may be happening all around them. The Revelations, not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive, challenging and disarming. Bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today, The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and its cyclically dreamlike structure pushes the boundaries of literary fiction. Erik Hoel has crafted a stunning debut of rare power—an intense look at cutting-edge science, consciousness, and human connection.