The Strawberry Field Girls

PRE-ORDER THE STRAWBERRY FIELD GIRLS AT WAR, THE NEW HEARTWARMING SAGA FROM KAREN KICKSON, COMING JUNE 2024! The strawberry harvest is finally ready. The delicious fruit make up the main source of income for the small hamlet of Strawbridge. Good friends Leah, Alice and Dora are ready to spend their summer months working in Isaac Whitworth’s farm. But when Leah takes a fancy to young farm hand Harry and Alice catches the eye of the curate’s son the two girls find themselves falling fast. This leaves Dora on the outside, struggling with the weight of being here family’s sole breadwinner and caring for her sickly father. But the summer months are long and the surprises are far from over…

A brand new wartime saga, perfect for fans of Rosie Goodwin and Val Wood Summer, 1916 Despite the misery of war in the air, some things in the small hamlet of Strawbridge remain unchanged. The strawberry harvest is nearly ready and friends Leah, Alice and Dora still have each other. Before the war, the three women had found a tentative happiness but now war has torn their lives apart. Each woman must learn to live with their new life at war, dealing with the absence of their loved ones and finding courage in the hardest of times…

The Newbery Medal–winning childhood classic of life on a Florida farm—part of the Regional series from the author of the Mr. Small picture books. Birdie and her family are trying to build a farm in Florida. But it’s not easy with the heat, droughts, and cold snaps—and neighbors that don’t believe in fences. But Birdie won’t give up on her dream of strawberries, and her family won’t let those Slaters drive them from their home! This Newberry Medal–winning novel presents a realistic picture of life on the Florida frontier. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Lenski including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

A heartwarming saga of secrets, friendships and wartime spirit at the height of World War 2. For fans of Daisy Styles, Sheila Newberry and Lyn Andrews A young German girl finds friendship, camaraderie and even love while working on Hampshire's south coast ferries - but will her new friends desert her if her nationality comes to light? 'A gripping story packed with darkness and light, love and friendship, greed and betrayal' Lancashire Evening Post on The Factory Girls Vee Smith is 22 when she starts work on Gosport's ferries, taking a job left vacant by the men gone off to war. She soon makes friends with the other women workers, and together they enjoy nights out dancing in Gosport - keeping their spirits up despite the hard work, rationing and heavy bombing. Vee even feels herself falling for Sam, the skipper of the ferry and her unhappily married boss. But Vee has a secret: her real name is Violetta Schmidt, and she is half-German. If her true nationality is discovered, she and her mother could find themselves interned as enemy aliens - if their German-hating neighbours, or worse, Eddie, the man Vee ran away from after he got her false papers, don't hurt them first. Will Vee be able to keep her secret safe, and find some peace with Sam and her friends even in the midst of war?

A wartime family saga, perfect for fans of Rosie Goodwin and Val Wood Shaftesbury, 1936. Mansfield House Hotel has been a refuge for Emily ever since she was orphaned at the age of 16. Not only did they give her employment as a chambermaid, but it’s also where she met her fiancé Tom. When theatre agent Roland stays at the hotel and hears Emily singing, he is determined to take her away to Bristol and make her a star. But knowing she'd never leave her fiancé, he hatches a plan to get Emily away from Tom. Six years later, Emily has made a name for herself as 'The Bristol Songbird'. Her love for Tom is still as strong as ever, but she's not heard from him since that fateful night so long ago. And with the world enveloped in a war, it seems unlikely the two will ever meet again. Will Emily and Tom ever find their way back to one another? Or will the war – and Roland – succeed in keeping them apart? Praise for Karen Dickson: ‘A compelling saga that will hold you fast from the first page to the last. Loved it’ VAL WOOD, author of The Lonely Wife 'This rollercoaster of a novel draws you in from the first page… I devoured this in one sitting and look forward to more from this author. In short a gem of a read' FIONA FORD, author of Wartime at Liberty's 'A delight to read... Lily Hayter is a wonderful heroine whose resilience and integrity shine through as she struggles to claim a life of her choosing and find a family. At the heart of the story is a warmth and humanity that makes it a truly uplifting read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was sorry when I reached the end because I wanted to linger in Dickson’s world. I eagerly await more from Karen Dickson' VICKI BEEBY, author of The Ops Room Girls ‘An exciting, fresh and talented new voice – a five-star read!’ CAROL RIVERS, author of Molly’s Christmas Orphans 'The characters in this novel are so believable that I cared deeply about them from the first chapter. A heartfelt, hopeful account of one young woman’s fight to keep her child safe when all the odds are against her. Atmospheric and beautifully written' JAN CASEY, author of The Women of Waterloo Bridge

This work examines Homer's artistic accomplishments. It focuses not only on his use of various media, but also on the suites of works on the same subject that reflect the artist's modern practice of thinking and working serially and thematically.

Childhood in America has changed, and not for the better. From day care for babies, to the exhausting array of activities for children, to the storm of lurid and violent shows now deemed appropriate for the young, to the expectation that teenagers build resumes, childhood has been thoroughly redefined. Anne R. Pierce argues that this radical re-definition has been embraced with remarkably little discussion about what children, by nature, need. Pierce submits that we have latched onto opinions about childrearing that are potentially harmful to children. If traditions are choices to be embraced or abandoned at our discretion, and adult self-fulfillment is a primary determinant in those choices, the fundamentals of the well-wrought childhood are easily forgotten. Steeped in intellectual permissiveness, we have convinced ourselves that parental substitutes are as good as parents themselves at caring for children, that the concepts of nurture and of the maternal are archaic and irrelevant, that more lessons and sports are better than less and that the earlier one embarks upon them the better, and that innocence and knowledge are less important than worldly attitudes and competitive skills. Understanding and challenging the theories and agendas behind childrearing trends is a pressing need, and the subject of this book. Pierce takes an honest look at the evidence on the effects of daycare and of hyper-structuring children. She gives voice to the many intelligent and estimable educators, child-development experts, researchers, and social commentators who are ignored because their conclusions are hard to bear. Equally important, Pierce says, is attention to that inner tug of love and conscience, which many of us have been programmed to ignore.Modern American children are expected to adjust and to understand as adults would the complexities and vicissitudes of public as opposed to private life. For them, childhood is fast becoming a distant memory. Could it be that America's thrust forward leaves children without a solid foundation upon which to grow? This is the sobering question asked, and answered, in this challenging book.