Veronica Daughter

An examination of the datafication of family life--in particular, the construction of our children into data subjects. Our families are being turned into data, as the digital traces we leave are shared, sold, and commodified. Children are datafied even before birth, with pregnancy apps and social media postings, and then tracked through babyhood with learning apps, smart home devices, and medical records. If we want to understand the emergence of the datafied citizen, Veronica Barassi argues, we should look at the first generation of datafied natives: our children. In Child Data Citizen, she examines the construction of children into data subjects, describing how their personal information is collected, archived, sold, and aggregated into unique profiles that can follow them across a lifetime.

2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award: Silver for Memoir 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards: Finalist 2017 Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite for Memoir 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards: Memoir Finalist 2016 Readers' Favorite:Silver Medal for Non-fiction Memoir New York Public Library Top Pick Summer 2017 When Barbara Bracht's mother disappears, she is left a confused child whose blue-collar father is intent upon erasing any memory of her mother. Forced to keep the secret of her mother's existence from her younger brother, Barbara struggles to keep from being crushed under the weight of family secrets as she comes of age and tries to educate herself, despite her father's stance against women's education. The story is not only of loss and resilience, but one showing the power of literature—from Little Orphan Annie to Prince Valiant to the incomparable Nancy Drew—to offer hope where there is little. Told with true literary sensibility, this captivating memoir asks us to consider what it is that parents owe their children, and how far a child need go to make things right for her family.

This collection of work by the Nigerian-born writer Ogali, includes short fiction, plays, and journalistic essays. Written in English, the pieces remain rooted in the traditional values of Ogali's native culture. Common to many of them is a strong humanism and a critique of Western individualism.

Sometimes raw, always vivid and forthright, this is the life story of Veronica Jones, a witness in the murder trial of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. She saw two other men run from the scene of the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner—she was a witness for Mumia ́s innocence. Unbeknownst to anyone but her younger sister, Veronica’s life was also entwined with Faulkner’s. Before she could testify, police detectives threatened her with 10-15 years in prison and separation from her young children if she did not falsely name Mumia as the shooter. At Mumia ́s trial she recanted her original and true witness statement and denied that she saw anyone run from the scene. This gave the prosecution evidence for conviction. In 1996 when Veronica courageously came forward to redeem herself and correct a fourteen year old lie, notorious Judge Albert Sabo, “king of death row,” and the prosecution retaliated and had her handcuffed and arrested off the witness stand! With intimidation tactics like this in an open courtroom, one can only imagine what happens behind closed doors.... This story of a courageous women also contains a Forward and Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal and a Legal Afterword by attorney Rachel Wolkenstein on the legal significance of Veronica’s testimony.

During the course of its three seasons, Veronica Mars captured the attention of fans and academics alike. The 12 scholarly essays in this collection examine the show's most compelling elements. Topics covered include vintage television, the search for the mother, fatherhood, the show's connection to classical Greek paradigms, the anti-hero's journey, rape narrative and meaning, and television fandom. Collectively, these essays reveal how a teen television show--equal parts noir, romance, social realism and father-daughter drama--became a worthy subject for scholarly study.

Today’s unprecedented migration of people around the globe in search of work has had a widespread and troubling result: the separation of families. In The Scattered Family, Cati Coe offers a sophisticated examination of this phenomenon among Ghanaians living in Ghana and abroad. Challenging oversimplified concepts of globalization as a wholly unchecked force, she details the diverse and creative ways Ghanaian families have adapted long-standing familial practices to a contemporary, global setting. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, Coe uncovers a rich and dynamic set of familial concepts, habits, relationships, and expectations—what she calls repertoires—that have developed over time, through previous encounters with global capitalism. Separated immigrant families, she demonstrates, use these repertoires to help themselves navigate immigration law, the lack of child care, and a host of other problems, as well as to help raise children and maintain relationships the best way they know how. Examining this complex interplay between the local and global, Coe ultimately argues for a rethinking of what family itself means.

In the village of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina, six teenagers - two boys and four girls - began to report seeing visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the summer of 1981. Since then, millions of people have made pilgrimages to this remote mountain village, where the messages of Mary give hope and comfort to those who are needy, suffering, or searching. "After nearly 24 years of daily appearances to these children - all of whom are now adults, married and with children of their own - the fruits of conversion continue to serve as a testament to their initial claim," writes Weible. "Not surprisingly, the most dramatic of these conversions are those of young people, beginning with the visionaries themselves." A Child Shall Lead Them is a collection of such stories and anecdotes from Medjugorje. They cover a full range of emotions, trials, and miracles; from heartbreak to intense happiness. In all of them there is solid proof of what happens when a heart is converted to that of a child: a return to innocence, and an openness and receptivity to faith. Each chapter ends with a monthly message given by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Medjugorje. Click here to listen to an interview with Wayne Weible

Veronica Roth published her first book at the age of twenty-one and had the pleasure of seeing it quickly become a best-seller. Her dystopian trilogy about Tris Prior has made Roth a favorite with fans around the world. It inspired a series of hit movies and helped feed the current appetite for YA novels with strong female protagonists and tense, exciting plots. Readers will learn about Roth’s childhood and college years, how she got published, and where she gets some of the ideas for her novels. A treat for her many fans!