I was born in England but have also lived in Germany and Switzerland. I’m not – and never have been – an elite sportsperson, but I'm fascinated by the sporting world and in particular, how young people who are into sports cope with the pressures of growing up and dealing with the successes and failures of sports. I love playing sports and watching it, in particular the Olympics and Paralympics, because of the drama, the tension, the soaring highs of winning, and the miserable lows of losing. The books that I've chosen hooked me in and kept me turning their pages because they’re gripping stories with irresistible (sporty) characters in inspiring settings.
I would recommend Unstoppableto children (boys and girls) aged about 10 – 14 years old. Roxy and Kaine are twins – she plays tennis, he plays football, and they have a troubled home life. I remember that being a teenager is difficult enough, with all the confusion, uncertainty, and pressure it brings, but in this book you also throw in elite sport, knife crime, ambitious parents, and sibling rivalry. It’s the kind of book you might give to your son or daughter and you wouldn’t see them again until they’ve finished it. Should be called Unputdownable.
Joanna Faber is the daughter of Adele Faber, a pioneer of the internationally acclaimed best-selling How To Talk series that has helped millions of parents worldwide. Joanna joined forces with her childhood friend Julie King to provide support for parents and educators of the 21st century. Each draws on her own experiences – Joanna as a bilingual teacher in West Harlem, Julie as a specialist in helping parents of children on the autism spectrum – to lead workshops and speak to parent groups, teachers, doctors, and librarians worldwide, including online sessions to support parents during Covid lockdowns and afterwards. Together, Joanna and Julie have written two best-selling How To Talk books.
The most frustrating and sometimes enraging moments for me as a parent have been when one of my kids hurts the feelings (or the body) of another. Why can’t they just get along??
This book will tell you why! And also, what you can do about it. It’s chock full of humorous and relatable true stories that will give you insights and solutions for your own family.
Already best-selling authors with How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish turned their minds to the battle of the siblings. Parents themselves, they were determined to figure out how to help their children get along. The result was Siblings Without Rivalry. This wise, groundbreaking book gives parents the practical tools they need to cope with conflict, encourage cooperation, reduce competition, and make it possible for children to experience the joys of their special relationship. With humor and understanding-much gained from raising their own children-Faber and Mazlish explain how and…
A fine book. Set in alternate reality modern(ish) times with TVs, aircraft etc but with the power in the hands of clans that have personal combat magics that make them the dominant force in the setting.
Constantly engaging with a great portrait of "crime family" dynamics in a non-western setting. Shades of The Godfather and other Mafia tales, but also very much its own thing.
The jade-based magic system is both simple and interesting.
I wasn't particularly moved on an emotional level but the story with exciting, entertaining, and had lots of fascinating detail both on the small scale (street fights, family arguments, training school scenes) and the large (nations vying for power, government vs clan interactions etc). And the story has great potential to expand.
This will have to be a brief review - finished the book while sitting up all night with my daughter in A&E. But definitely…
'An epic drama reminiscent of the best classic Hong Kong gangster films but set in a fantasy metropolis so gritty and well-imagined that you'll forget you're reading a book' KEN LIU
'Gripping!' ANN LECKIE, author of Ancillary Justice and The Raven Tower
'Lee's astute worldbuilding raises the stakes for her vivid and tautly-described action scenes' SCOTT LYNCH, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora
*****Shortlisted for the Nebula Awards, the Locus Awards, the Aurora Awards, the Sunburst Awards and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month*****
I have been publishing speculative fiction for over thirty years and the Beatrice Beecham Young Adult series since 2005. During this time, my appetite for quality fiction has never waned and, as readers will see from the recommended titles here, my reading is broad and spans not only entertaining, escapist fiction, but also that which has a profound message to tell. As a mentor for the Horror Writers Association (HWA) I have used my experience and passion for writing to help other writers develop and hone their craft and was humbled to be a recipient of the ‘HWA Mentor of the Year Award’ in 2023. In short, I know what makes a good story!
Bacon is a masterful storyteller known for creating surreal and obtuse landscapes and characters.
Broken Paradise is an intriguing tale of deception and sibling rivalry, featuring gods and magi, who engage in a cat-and-mouse battle beneath the oceans of the world. The primary message of the book leaves the reader questioning the strength of families, be that the power of unity, or its propensity for self-destruction.
The protagonist is Samaki—the goddess of water—who must divide herself into four parts to escape the wrath of her murderous brother. As Samaki hides, so she must learn to protect herself, growing and honing her powers under the tutorage of Mae, the enigmatic owner of her submersible home.
After falling out with her brothers, Samaki the goddess of water flees to Earth where she must mask her trace by splitting into a quadruplet of magi.A quadruplet is perfect, but all things are never equal. Dissonance arises when the magus Umozi breaks the quadruplet.Only the newness of a child magus can restore balance and save a broken paradise-with the help of a goddess mother.
I am a writer who has written an assortment of over a hundred and seventy different articles, poems, and books. I worked for thirty five years as a psychologist and my late wife, Rosie Larner, was a social worker and lecturer. We have both dealt with cases of domestic abuse and have recognised the extent of the problem worldwide and the misery that it causes. We offer these tales under the pen-name of Rosy Stewart to show the diversity of the problems and to bring hope to the sufferers with the hope of resolution of each case to reach a wider audience.
This is told in the voice of a young girl living in a household of domestic violence in the 1960s in UK.
She is regarded as presenting difficulties for her parents right from the beginning with her difficult birth. It is written in short scenes and excerpts from her childhood. She adores her mother, but she is sexually assaulted by one of her mother’s boyfriends. The writing of this is realistic as seen by an innocent four-year-old girl.
When the mother marries another boyfriend the family dynamics change from being kind at first to much stricter. It is clear that the little girl will develop psychological problems in later life.
Cursed by her grandmother and trapped in domestic violence in 1960s Britain, Evelyn must find a way to protect her five young daughters. Aware that her firstborn, Kim, is doomed to repeat her own disastrous life choices, Evelyn places her in the care of one of her admirers to protect her from her fate.
Meanwhile, her daughter Bess carries a deep-rooted sense of shame and guilt that her birth nearly killed her beloved mother. Subjected to sexual abuse, she tries to make sense of her feelings and her place within the secretive family she grows up in, desperately seeking love…
I never stopped reading children’s books and started writing my own when I hit the age of 40. I gravitate toward crisp drawing styles and illustrations that bring out the magic in the everyday. These books are a few of my favorites.
An ordinary elevator turns into a magical transport device in this lushly illustrated story of two siblings who learn to enjoy each other's company while living in a big apartment building. The lift in question not only shows them the magic of other places, but the little joys of the ordinary as well.
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Lift
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This book is for kids age
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What is this book about?
From the award-winning and bestselling creators of Drawn Together comes the fantastic tale of a magical elevator that will lift your spirits--and press all the right buttons!
Iris loves to push the elevator buttons in her apartment building, but when it's time to share the fun with a new member of the family, she's pretty put out. That is, until the sudden appearance of a mysterious new button opens up entire realms of possibility, places where she can escape and explore on her own. But when she's forced to choose between going at it alone or letting her little brother…
As a practicing psychologist for the past twenty years, I have treated hundreds of children and teens who have behavior problems, as well as provided help for parents who want to improve their parenting skills. Central to many, if not most, of the problems I see revolve around poor communication. Many parents don’t know how to effectively communicate about certain issues, which often causes even more problems with their children. However, when parents learn how to approach their children without reacting in frustration and anger, I’ve witnessed amazing improvement in both behavior and the parent-child relationship.
Dr. Phelan strikes a home run with his 1-2-3 Magic program for disciplining children, by teaching parents how to use calm communication as opposed to that infused with frustration. The strength of his approach centers on getting toddlers to listen by using mild language and consistency, while refraining from exhibiting the strong emotions that often accompany attempts to reign in negative behavior. Phelan’s approach encourages parents to refrain from reactive communication, by replacing it with a much more effective method of redirecting little ones away from negative behavior. If you want to increase your toddler’s compliance, give 1-2-3 Magic a try. You may think counting doesn’t work, but done correctly, it can add up to amazing results!
"Everywhere you go, you keep overhearing other moms say to their misbehaving children, 'That's one. That's two. That's three.' And then you watch in disbelief as their kid actually stops!" - PopSugar Moms Are you the parent of a strong-willed child? Is bedtime a nightly battle? Are you looking to get your kids to behave without yelling? Whether you have a toddler, preschooler, or school-aged child, this parenting book can help you create a calm, happy home. "Phelan's method has a proven track record of ending the negotiations and getting kids back on track...1-2-3 {Magic} is the gold standard of…
I lived an isolated and sometimes nomadic adolescence. My struggling single mother had untreated paranoid schizophrenia and believed herself to be a prophet. The world, as she saw it, was a strange and scary place, and she raised me and my sister to believe as she did. But being an avid reader and artist, I would escape into my own fantasy worlds to find hope and meaning. Now, as an adult, I use my art and writing to make sense of trauma, and I hope my stories can inspire and empower the people who read them.
A powerful memoir of first love and moving past religious trauma. Craig’s journey as a young evangelical who wants to be an artist was incredibly relatable to me and helped me feel brave enough to give voice to some of my own secret pains in my graphic novel.
The black and white ink work throughout the book is exquisite, and the honesty of the story is brave and moving.
"Quaint, meditative and sometimes dreamy, blankets will take you straight back to your first kiss." --The Guardian
Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.
Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of…
I love prickly children. I was one myself, and I’ve quite a few of them in my family. I’ve also worked with desperate families over the years, children who are out of control, parents feeling overwhelmed, nobody knowing what to do to find the calm and loving core of connection we all yearn for. I feel the suffering these authors document—the child’s sense of being misunderstood and punished unfairly, and the parent’s desperation. So, when I read a book that offers intelligent and caring solutions driven by science, compassion, and experience, I share it with everyone who will listen. I’m delighted to have a chance here to do that.
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka has been working with parents of difficult children for decades now, except she doesn’t think of the kids that way. Instead of ‘difficult,’ she says, we should learn to think of these kids as ‘spirited.’ When we want to describe our kids as irritable, negative, demanding, and strong-willed, she recommends that we admire their sensitivity, insight, confidence, and insistence on getting what they need. This book is packed with practical ideas for creating a peaceful and loving home environment, and for helping parents learn to soothe their own reactions to behavior that might otherwise be experienced as aggravating, trouble-making, embarrassing, and provocative.
Now in a new updated version, Kurcinka offers parents the most up-to-date research, effective strategies and real life stories for: managing intensity - not just the kids, but parents too; getting the sleep every family needs and deserves; choosing their battles; helping children to hear their instructions; assisting children in getting along with siblings and peers; and, being successful in school and at home. Spirited children possess traits we value in adults, yet find challenging in children. Studies now show that these children are 'wired' to be more reactive to the world around them. The solution, rather than medication or…
As a child, finding reality both overwhelming and boring, I was drawn to movies. My father, a New York City disc jockey also at odds with reality, had contacts at a sixteen-millimeter movie rental company. He often brought films home, shown in a makeshift screening room he set up in our basement. Singin’ in the Rain, the classic musical, made a great impression there. Its funny first scene at a movie premiere featured a pompous star’s ennobling account of his early days, comically contradicted by the tacky, scrounging, painfully undignified truth. What lay behind Hollywood's glamor, smiles, and success soon became as interesting to me as what was on the screen.
It lacks the film version’s famous, freakish appeal, including Bette Davis's wild, classic performance. Yet Henry Farrell’s horror novel about a weird, washed-up child star and her wheelchair-bound sister powerfully captures the lazy, languid midday atmosphere of Los Angeles, in which a person’s career and sanity can dry up in the sun.
The literary classic that inspired the iconic film - the story of two sisters and the hell they made their home.
Once an acclaimed child star of vaudeville, Baby Jane Hudson performed for adoring crowds before a move to Hollywood thrust her sister, Blanche, into the spotlight. As Blanche's film career took off, a resentful Jane watched from the shadows as her own career faded into obscurity - until a tragic accident changed everything.
Now, years later, the two sisters live in a decaying mansion, isolated from the outside world. Crippled by the accident, Blanche is helpless under the control…
