The Turtle Boy

This is a powerful story of hope and friendship, perfect for fans of Wonder and The Goldfish Boy. Exploring self-image, family and grief, this book will make you laugh and cry. Twelve-year-old Will likes two things: turtles and the local nature reserve. Everything else is a nightmare, because Will has a facial difference that has earned him an unfortunate nickname. But when Will’s Bar Mitzvah community service project introduces him to RJ, a boy who is confined to a hospital room, Will discovers they both have strength to lend the other and that life is too short to live in a shell.

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and the first book in the Timmy Quinn series. School is out and summer has begun. For eleven year old Timmy Quinn and his best friend Pete Marshall, the dreary town of Delaware, Ohio becomes a place of magic, hidden treasure and discovery. But on the day they encounter a strange young boy sitting on the bank of Myers Pond a pond playground rumor says may hide turtles the size of Buicks everything changes. For it soon becomes apparent that dark secrets abound in the little community, secrets which come cupped in the hands of the dead, and in a heartbeat, Timmy and Pete's summer of wonder becomes a season of terror, betrayal and murder. (Contains strong language and graphic violence.) This edition includes an excerpt from THE HIDES, the second book in the Timmy Quinn series, and an interview with the author.

A boy and a turtle who share a friendship learn to relax together.

A small boy with a very long name is challenged by his grandmother to find out her real name.

As he cruises the Galapagos Islands in the company of his daughter, aged seven, and his father, aged seventy-three, Paul Quarrington ponders questions great and small. Equal parts memoir, travel book and good old-fashioned yarn, The Boy on the Back of the Turtle is a funny, poignant look at the mysteries of our universe.

Free speech is a myth. Technically we're allowed to say what we want and won't get arrested for it, but we constantly have to self-censor our speech, including our political opinions, for many reasons. You're allowed to express some opinions, so long as they're the right opinions. But if you lose your ability to pay your bills as a result of your honest and open speech, then you're not really free. A handful of social justice warriors in Silicon Valley are able to decide what we can and cannot talk about, and when we can't openly express controversial opinions in the public square, then we have lost our democracy. I was a high school history teacher for 11 years and during that time I learned the hard way that my opinions were the wrong opinions. After getting an unpaid suspension for starting a blog called AidanFromWorcester.com, which expressed opinions on issues that the school did not approve of, I decided to create an anonymous blog that would act as the voice of the people - Turtleboy Sports. Turtleboy started as a hobby but has grown to a website with millions of monthly followers and is now my business. I hire bloggers who pen under nom de plumes because anonymity gives people the freedom to express opinions that many others agree with, but are afraid to say out loud out for fear of consequences. Turtleboy is popular and has grown so quickly because we say what many other people are thinking. I left teaching in November of 2014 after a blogger from Buffalo wrote a libelous blog about me, alleging that I sexually assaulted a woman in front of 60,000 people at a Patriots-Bills game. The blogger was successfully sued for libel, but so many of my students read it that it became impossible to teach anymore. After the school received hundreds of calls and death threats they offered me a full year's salary to walk away quietly. I took the money and used is to turn Turtleboy from a hobby into a business. Turtleboy has broken major stories that the mainstream media couldn't because we have better sources. We've exposed corruption involving the Massacchusetts State Police and politicians that led to the resignation of the 4 highest-ranking members of the MSP. The blog has helped expose contractors and con-artists, drug dealing state troopers, brought criminals to justice, shut down a death factory of a puppy mill, reformed school districts, and exposed insurance fraud, non-profit fraud, sexual abuse, food stamp fraud, fake hate crimes, and many other stories that the mainstream media would never touch. When I left teaching I felt liberated and free for the first time, but because our bloggers are unapologetic, brutally honest, we get a lot of pushback. We entertain by not only reporting news, but by using language that some might find unsavory. As a result outside forces have used various methods to try to silence the blog. Turtleboy has been the subject of countless boycotts. I've been unsuccessfully sued for libel many times; including by a former advertiser who was upset the blog didn't endorse him for Mayor. I've gotten too many death threats to count, had "fuck you" keyed into the hood of my car, and been angrily confronted in restaurants. I've had a Facebook page with 112,000 followers removed for wishing people a Merry Christmas, and had 32 business pages taken down since. The blog has been blacklisted by Google AdSense, and my house and phone are permanently banned from creating Twitter accounts. All of these things have combined to cost my business hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a couple years. But they will never stop Turtleboy because I refuse to censor and give up the rights that our Founding Fathers sacrificed their lives for because people who disagree with us use fear, intimidation, and economic warfare to silence us. When we self-censor we don't contribute to public discourse in the public square, and in doing so we lose our democracy.This is the story of Turtleboy.

Praised by the Horn Book as “both quiet and exhilarating,” this novel by the acclaimed poet and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye follows Aref Al-Amri as he says goodbye to everything and everyone he loves in his hometown of Muscat, Oman, as his family prepares to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan. This book was awarded a 2015 Middle East Book Award, was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association, and includes extra material by the author. Aref Al-Amri does not want to leave Oman. He does not want to leave his elementary school, his friends, or his beloved grandfather, Siddi. He does not want to live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his parents will go to graduate school. His mother is desperate for him to pack his suitcase, but he refuses. Finally, she calls Siddi for help. But rather than pack, Aref and Siddi go on a series of adventures. They visit the camp of a thousand stars deep in the desert, they sleep on Siddi's roof, they fish in the Gulf of Oman and dream about going to India, and they travel to the nature reserve to watch the sea turtles. At each stop, Siddi finds a small stone that he later slips into Aref's suitcase—mementos of home. Naomi Shihab Nye's warmth, attention to detail, and belief in the power of empathy and connection shines from every page. Features black-and-white spot art and decorations by Betsy Peterschmidt.

Children love to visualize or imagine filling their bodies with the colors of the rainbow. This effective stress-management technique also known as guided imagery is widely accepted and used by both traditional and holistic communities. These gentle but powerful visualization techniques stimulates the imagination. Visualization can have a positive impact on your health, creativity and performance. It can lower stress and anxiety levels and is used to control anger. This technique can have a positive impact on your child’s overall health, creativity and performance. Creative imagery is also used to help patients heal faster with less pain and has been considered a healing tool in virtually all of the world’s cultures. The colorful imagery in this story quiets the mind and relaxes the body so your child can manage stress and fall asleep peacefully. Relax with colors!