Thirty Girls

Thirty Girls
Author: Susan Minot
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 038535052X

The long-awaited novel from the best-selling, award-winning author of Evening is a literary tour de force set in war-torn Africa. Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities, who is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her center after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways. With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and its horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.

Thirty Girls

Thirty Girls
Author: Susan Minot
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2015-03-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307279316

A New York Times Notable Book An Economist Best Book of the Year Esther Akello is one of thirty Ugandan teenage girls abducted from a Catholic boarding school by rebel bandits. Held captive by the Lord’s Resistance Army, Esther is forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities. She struggles to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane Wood is a sensual, idealistic American writer who is traveling across Africa, hoping to give a voice to young people like Esther and to find her own center. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves the stories of these two astonishing young women who, as they confront displacement and heartbreak, are hurtled inexorably closer to one another. With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa’s struggles and beauty, Susan Minot gives us her most brilliant novel yet.

Girls Who Green the World

Girls Who Green the World
Author: Diana Kapp
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0593484347

Part biography, part guidebook to the contemporary environmental movement, this book is the perfect gift for future and current activists and changemakers! Girls Who Green the World features the inspiring stories of 34 revolutionaries fighting for our future! An inspired collection of profiles, featuring environmental changemakers, social entrepreneurs, visionaries and activists. Journalist Diana Kapp has crisscrossed this country writing for and about empowered girls, girls who expect to be leaders, founders and inventors. This book takes it a step further. It says to girls: while you’re striving to be CEOs and world leaders, consider solving the biggest challenge of our lifetime, too—because you can do both at the same time, and here are 34 women doing just that.

Thirty Talks Weird Love

Thirty Talks Weird Love
Author: Alessandra Narváez Varela
Publisher:
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2021
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 9781947627482

A 13-year-old girl growing up in Mexico is visited by her 30-year-old future self in this powerful Young Adult novel in verse about accepting yourself. Out of nowhere, a lady comes up to Anamaría and says she's her, from the future. But Anamaría's thirteen, she knows better than to talk to some weirdo stranger. Girls need to be careful, especially in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico--it's the 90's and fear is overtaking her beloved city as cases of kidnapped girls and women become alarmingly common. This thirty-year-old "future" lady doesn't seem to be dangerous but she won't stop bothering her, switching between cheesy Hallmark advice about being kind to yourself, and some mysterious talk about saving a girl. Anamaría definitely doesn't need any saving, she's doing just fine. She works hard at her strict, grade-obsessed middle school--so hard that she hardly gets any sleep; so hard that the stress makes her snap not just at mean girls but even her own (few) friends; so hard that when she does sleep she dreams about dying--but she just wants to do the best she can so she can grow up to be successful. Maybe Thirty's right, maybe she's not supposed to be so exhausted with her life, but how can she ask for help when her city is mourning the much bigger tragedy of its stolen girls? This thought-provoking, moving verse novel will lead adult and young adult readers alike to vital discussions on important topics--like dealing with depression and how to recognize this in yourself and others--through the accessible voice of a thirteen-year-old girl. Alessandra Narváez Varela was born and raised in Ciudad Juárez, México. She earned a B.S. in Biology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso, where she now teaches. This is her debut novel.

What My Mother Gave Me

What My Mother Gave Me
Author: Elizabeth Benedict
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1616202688

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists. Whether a gift was meant to keep a daughter warm, put a roof over her head, instruct her in the ways of womanhood, encourage her talents, or just remind her of a mother’s love, each story gets to the heart of a relationship. Rita Dove remembers the box of nail polish that inspired her to paint her nails in the wild stripes and polka dots she wears to this day. Lisa See writes about the gift of writing from her mother, Carolyn See. Cecilia Muñoz remembers both the wok her mother gave her and a lifetime of home-cooked family meals. Judith Hillman Paterson revisits the year of sobriety her mother bequeathed to her when Paterson was nine, the year before her mother died of alcoholism. Abigail Pogrebin writes about her middle-aged bat mitzvah, for which her mother provided flowers after a lifetime of guilt for skipping her daughter’s religious education. Margo Jefferson writes about her mother’s gold dress from the posh department store where they could finally shop as black women. Collectively, the pieces have a force that feels as elemental as the tides: outpourings of lightness and darkness; joy and grief; mother love and daughter love; mother love and daughter rage. In these stirring words we find that every gift, ?no matter how modest, tells the story of a powerful bond. As Elizabeth Benedict points out in her introduction, “whether we are mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, or cherished friends, we may not know for quite some time which presents will matter the most."

Teen Trailblazers

Teen Trailblazers
Author: Jennifer Calvert
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1250200210

True stories of young women who made a big difference! From authors to activists, painters to politicians, inventors to icons, these inspiring teenagers are proof that girls can change the world. Joan of Arc. Anne Frank. Cleopatra. Pocahontas. Mary Shelley. Many of these heroines are well-known. But have you heard of Sybil Ludington, a 16-year-old daughter of an American colonel who rode twice as far as the far better-remembered Paul Revere to warn the militia that the British army was invading? This fascinating book, Teen Trailblazers, features 30 young women who accomplished remarkable things before their twentieth birthdays. Visually compelling with original illustrations, this book will inspire the next generation of strong, fearless women.

The Lost Girls

The Lost Girls
Author: John Glatt
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2015-04-14
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1250036372

New York Times bestselling crime writer John Glatt tells the true story behind the kidnappings and long-overdue rescue of three women found in a Cleveland basement. The Lost Girls tells the truly amazing story of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who were kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten in a Cleveland house for over a decade by Ariel Castro, and their amazing escape in May 2013, which made headlines all over the world. The book has an exclusive interview and photographs of Ariel Castro's secret fiancé, who spent many romantic nights in his house of horror, without realizing he had bound and chained captives just a few feet away. There are also revealing interviews with several Castro family members, musician friends and several neighbors who witnessed the dramatic rescue.

Glamour: 30 Years of Women Who Have Reshaped the World

Glamour: 30 Years of Women Who Have Reshaped the World
Author: Glamour Magazine
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1647002893

Showcasing three decades of Glamour’s Women of the Year, this book is a record of the ceiling-shattering achievements that have reshaped our world, and a manual for success for the women of today—and tomorrow For over 80 years, Glamour has been the preeminent female empowerment title in America. From Glamour’s origin as the magazine “for the girl with a job” to today, strong, ambitious women have always taken center stage, and no place more so than at Glamour’s annual Women of the Year Awards. Launched in 1990, the annual awards have become a 30-year living, breathing history, mapping out the evolution of women’s power across the worlds of film, politics, sports, activism, and more. Many of the names are familiar. We’ve grown up with Billie Jean King, Madonna, Nora Ephron, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Titans of change like Michelle Obama and Malala Yousafzai have rocked our world in lasting ways. Stars such as Reese Witherspoon, Ava DuVernay, Julianne Moore, Lupita Nyong’o, and Ashley Graham have used their global influence to shift the needle in filmmaking, reproductive rights, criminal justice, and representation. Other names you may not know so well include women who have transformed the futures of school children in local communities, and teens who organized millions to fight against gun violence. Glamour: 30 Years of Women Who Have Reshaped the World touches on some of the most culturally important moments of our recent history. Additionally, it includes original content from Shonda Rhimes, Diane von Furstenberg, Arianna Huffington, and more to inspire future generations. Most importantly, the book offers inspiration and service, reminding today’s women and girls that, in the words of 2015 Women of the Year honoree Reese Witherspoon, ambition is not a dirty word.

The Thirty Names of Night

The Thirty Names of Night
Author: Zeyn Joukhadar
Publisher: Atria Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-11-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982121491

Winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award—Barbara Gittings Literature Award Named Best Book of the Year by Bustle Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The Millions, Electric Literature, and HuffPost ​The author of the “vivid and urgent…important and timely” (The New York Times Book Review) debut The Map of Salt and Stars returns with this remarkably moving and lyrical novel following three generations of Syrian Americans who are linked by a mysterious species of bird and the truths they carry close to their hearts. Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush). The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria. One night, he enters the abandoned community house and finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z, who dedicated her career to painting the birds of North America. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that both his mother and Laila Z encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. In fact, Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s—and his grandmother’s—in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his own community that he never knew. Realizing that he isn’t and has never been alone, he has the courage to officially claim a new name: Nadir, an Arabic name meaning rare. As unprecedented numbers of birds are mysteriously drawn to the New York City skies, Nadir enlists the help of his family and friends to unravel what happened to Laila Z and the rare bird his mother died trying to save. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. Featuring Zeyn Joukhadar’s signature “magical and heart-wrenching” (The Christian Science Monitor) storytelling, The Thirty Names of Night is a timely exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.

Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2008-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429927844

From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.