Half Broke Horses by Jeannette WallsJeannette Walls's The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly). Now she brings us the story of her grandmother -- told in a voice so authentic and compelling that the book is destined to become an instant classic. "Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, in Jeannette Walls's magnificent, true-life novel based on her no-nonsense, resourceful, hard working, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, all alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane, and, with her husband, ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle. Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. It will transfix readers everywhere.
ISBN: 1416586288
Publication Date: 2009-10-06
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My Orange Duffel Bag by Sam Bracken; Echo GarrettAbandoned at age 15, Sam Bracken battled homelessness, poverty, and abuse to successfully earn a full-ride football scholarship to the Georgia Institute of Technology. When he left for college, everything he owned fit in an orange duffel bag. Now, in this award-winning illustrated memoir and road map to personal transformation, Sam shares his story as well as everything he's learned about overcoming the odds and radically changing his life so that you can create positive, lasting change of your own. With My Orange Duffel Bag, you'll have the inspiration, motivation, and tools to realize your potential and achieve your dreams. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch'v=Z2r366n3rKE&feature=youtu.be My Orange Duffel Bag Award Highlights: 2011 Outstanding Book of the Year in Young Adult/Children's from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the first self-published book in the organization's 60-year history to win an award. 2011 Merit Award for Editorial Design from HOW Magazine 2011 Benjamin Franklin Book Award Silver Medalist in both Self Help and Juvenile/Young Adult Nonfiction categories from the Independent Book Publishers Association 2011 IPPY Gold Medal from Independent Publishers Book Awards for Most Outstanding Design out of 4,000 entries from 14 countries 2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards Winner in these two categories: New Non-Fiction and Young Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN: 0307984885
Publication Date: 2012-06-12
Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son by Kevin JenningsLong before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-LGBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his elementary school days in the conservative South, where "faggot" became more familiar to him than his own name. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Sonis that rare memoir that is both a riveting personal story and an inside account of a critical chapter in our recent history. Creating safe schools for all youth is now a central part of the progressive agenda in American education-and Kevin Jennings is at the forefront of that fight. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Sonearned an A- in Entertainment Weekly, was featured in Salonand The Advocate, and was called "a great read" by People.