True Love Grows in Brooklyn

True Love Grows in Brooklyn
Author: Frances Ruocco
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2010-06-08
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1450232914

Fran has promised to help her granddaughter with a term paper comparing the differences between living in the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. As she writes, Fran can’t help but recall the memories of her life and of the events that shaped who she is. True Love Grows in Brooklyn narrates Fran’s life journey through the changing political and social tides of the twentieth century. She was born and raised in Brooklyn during World War II. This memoir follows her carefree childhood days visiting New York fixtures such as Coney Island, Ebbets Field, and Wolf’s Pond in Staten Island. It tells of her meeting Frank, the love of her life, and of their marriage and powerful relationship. It relates her internal struggles balancing her working life and her motherhood, raising six children. And this story addresses her grief when Frank passes in 1982, just eight days before their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Fran tells of living thirty-three years after the death of her beloved husband, knowing that their love will never die and some day she will be reunited in heaven.

True Love

True Love
Author: Sarah Gerard
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062937421

A Glamour Best Book of 2020 • A Bustle Best Books of 2020 • Winner of an Audiofile Earphones Award • An Entertainment Weekly 30 Hottest Book of the Summer • A Refinery29 25 Book You’ll Want To Read This Summer Selection • A Chicago Review of Books 10 Must-Read Books of the Month • A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Shondaland 15 Hot Books for Summer One of today’s most provocative literary writers—the author of the critically-acclaimed Sunshine State and the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award finalist Binary Star—captures the confused state of modern romance and the egos that inflate it in a dark comedy about a woman's search for acceptance, identity, and financial security in the rise of Trump. Nina is a struggling writer, a college drop-out, a liar, and a cheater. More than anything she wants love. She deserves it. From the burned-out suburbs of Florida to the anonymous squalor of New York City, she eats through an incestuous cast of characters in search of it: her mother, a narcissistic lesbian living in a nudist polycule; Odessa, a single mom with even worse taste in men than Nina; Seth, an artist whose latest show is comprised of three Tupperware containers full of trash; Brian, whose roller-coaster affair with Nina is the most stable “relationship” in his life; and Aaron, an aspiring filmmaker living at home with his parents, with whom Nina begins to write her magnum opus. Nina’s quest for fulfillment is at once darkly comedic, acerbically acute, and painfully human—a scathing critique of contemporary society, and a tender examination of our anguished yearning for connection in an era defined by detachment.

Betty Smith: Life of the Author of a Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith: Life of the Author of a Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Author: Valerie Raleigh Yow
Publisher: Independent Author
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2010-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780982720707

Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" captured the imagination of readers in 1943. In the first published biography of Smith, the real-life stories behind the heroes in her novel are told.

The Redemption of Bobby Love

The Redemption of Bobby Love
Author: Bobby Love
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2021
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0358566053

The inspiring, dramatic, and heartwarming true account of an escaped convict and his wife of thirty-five plus years who never knew his secret, which captured the imaginations of millions on Humans of New York. Bobby and Cheryl Love were living in Brooklyn, happily married for decades, when the FBI and NYPD appeared at their door and demanded to know from Bobby, in front of his shocked wife and children: "What is your name? No, what's your real name?" Bobby's thirty-eight-year secret was out. As a Black child in the Jim Crow South, Bobby found himself in legal trouble before his 14th birthday. Sparked by the desperation he felt in the face of limited options and the pull of the streets, Bobby became a master thief. He soon found himself facing a thirty-year prison sentence. But Bobby was smarter than his jailers. He escaped, fled to New York, changed his name, and started a new life as "Bobby Love." During that time, he worked multiple jobs to support his wife and their growing family, coached Little League, attended church, took his kids to Disneyland, and led an otherwise normal life. Then it all came crashing down. With the drama of a jailbreak story and the incredible tension of a life lived in hiding, The Redemption of Bobby Love is an unbelievable but true account of building a life from scratch, the pain of festering secrets in marriage, and the unbreakable bonds of faith and love that keep a family together.

When Books Went to War

When Books Went to War
Author: Molly Guptill Manning
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0544535170

This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today). When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. “A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly

Student Ministry that Matters

Student Ministry that Matters
Author: Ben Trueblood
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433644509

Is your student ministry healthy? This is a question every student minister has asked. It’s a question that brings both anger and tears. You are growing in numbers, but something just didn’t feel right. It doesn't feel healthy. This is the “there must be more to student ministry than this” moment. Regardless of your ministry context, church size, denomination, or years of experience, it is possible for you to have a healthy student ministry. The three elements, explained by author Ben Trueblood, will lead you to that very thing. Student Ministry that Matters gives you and your leaders a framework to answer this question, "Is my student ministry healthy?" and help you highlight areas of improvement as you seek to lead a student ministry focused on health.

The Second Mrs. Hockaday

The Second Mrs. Hockaday
Author: Susan Rivers
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616205814

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE “Taut, almost unbearable suspense . . . This galvanizing historical portrait of courage, determination, and abiding love mesmerizes and shocks.” —Booklist (starred review) “All I had known for certain when I came around the hen house that first evening in July and saw my husband trudging into the yard after lifetimes spent away from us, a borrowed bag in his hand and the shadow of grief on his face, was that he had to be protected at all costs from knowing what had happened in his absence. I did not believe he could survive it.” When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride is left to care for her husband’s three-hundred-acre farm and infant son. Placidia, a mere teenager herself living far from her family and completely unprepared to run a farm or raise a child, must endure the darkest days of the war on her own. By the time Major Hockaday returns two years later, Placidia is bound for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence and murdering it. What really transpired in the two years he was away? Inspired by a true incident, this saga conjures the era with uncanny immediacy. Amid the desperation of wartime, Placidia sees the social order of her Southern homeland unravel as her views on race and family are transformed. A love story, a story of racial divide, and a story of the South as it fell in the war, The Second Mrs. Hockaday reveals how that generation--and the next--began to see their world anew.

Ordinary Hazards

Ordinary Hazards
Author: Nikki Grimes
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1635925622

Michael L. Printz Honor Book Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book Boston Globe/Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for Teens Six Starred Reviews—★Booklist ★BCCB ★The Horn Book ★Publishers Weekly ★School Library Connection ★Shelf Awareness A Booklist Best Book for Youth * A BCCB Blue Ribbon * A Horn Book Fanfare Book * A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book * Recommended on NPR's "Morning Edition" by Kwame Alexander "This powerful story, told with the music of poetry and the blade of truth, will help your heart grow."–Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and Shout "[A] testimony and a triumph."–Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

All the Things We Do in the Dark

All the Things We Do in the Dark
Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062852612

Sadie meets Girl in Pieces in this dark, emotional thriller by acclaimed author Saundra Mitchell. Something happened to Ava. The curving scar on her face is proof. Ava would rather keep that something hidden—buried deep in her heart and her soul. But in the woods on the outskirts of town, the traces of someone else’s secrets lie frozen, awaiting Ava’s discovery—and what Ava finds threatens to topple the carefully constructed wall of normalcy that she’s spent years building around her. Secrets leave scars. But when the secret in question is not your own—do you ignore the truth and walk away? Or do you uncover it from its shallow grave and let it reopen old wounds—wounds that have finally begun to heal?