Other books that might interest you

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  ¡Ándale Prieta! - A Love Letter...

  Yasmín Ramírez

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  When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what “prieta” means—“dark” or “the dark one”—their eyes pop open and a small gasp escapes. … How do I tell them that now, even after the cruelty of children, “Prieta” means love? That each time “Prieta” fell from my grandmother’s lips, I learned to love my dark skin. My Ita called me Prieta. When she died, she took the name with her. 
   
  Yasmín Ramírez spent her twenties feeling lost—working an intensely taxing retail job and turning to bars for comfort. When her beloved grandmother dies, she comes home to El Paso, Texas, where people know how to spell her accented name. As she pulls her life together, she finds comfort in celebrating her Ita, a resilient matriarch who was far from the stereotypical domestic abuelita. Yasmín remembers Ita wistfully singing old Mexican rancheras, her mastectomy scar, the hours they spent watching boxing matches at a dive bar, and of course, Ita’s lesson on how to ball a fist for a good punch. Interviewing her mom and older  
  sister, Yasmín learns even more about why her Ita was so tough—the abusive men, the lost pregnancies, and the toil of almost literally back-breaking jobs. In time, the writer finds her grandmother calling her forth to live with the same bravery and tenacity: “¡Ándale, Prieta!”

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  Kid on the Go! - Memoir of My...

  Neill McKee

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  Kid on the Go! is Neill McKee's third work of creative nonfiction. It's a standalone prequel to his award-winning Finding Myself in Borneo. In this new book, McKee takes readers on a journey through his childhood, adolescence, and teenage years from the mid-40s to the mid-60s, in the small, then industrially-polluted town of Elmira, Ontario, Canada-one of the centers of production for Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. McKee's vivid descriptions, dialogue are a study of how a young boy learned to play and work, fish and hunt, avoid dangers, cope with death, deal with bullies, and to build or restore "escape" vehicles. You may laugh out loud as the author recalls his exploding hormones, attraction to girls, rebellion against authority, and survival of 1960s' "rock & roll" culture-emerging on the other side as a youth leader. After leaving Elmira, McKee describes his intensely searching university years, trying to decide which career path to follow. Except for a revealing postscript, the story ends when he accepts a volunteer teaching position on the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia.

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  Black Hearts and Painted Guns -...

  Kelly Eads, Daniel S. Morgan

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  “Will give readers a feeling for what it was like to fight in the Global War on Terror and the kind of young people who stepped forward to do it.” —On Point: The Journal of Army HistoryKelly Eads joined the 101st Airborne Division soon after 9/eleven, his experience reflecting the patriotism and commitment of so many young men and women who responded to the attack. He deployed to Iraq twice with the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment.Early in their deployment to Iraq, the 2nd Battalion brought the fight directly to the enemy by setting up patrol bases in the local areas where they lived and operated. Soon they built a reputation for themselves, becoming known to the enemy as the Black Hearts—The 502nd had been distinguished on the battlefield by black hearts on their helmets since World War II. Their Scout Platoon became known as Painted Guns due to their practice of camouflaging their rifles.During Eads’ deployments, the battalion would experience thousands of Improvised Explosive Devices and firefights. They would spend countless hours in blistering 120-degree desert heat, controlling roads and preventing enemy freedom of movement; and would dedicate months to hunting enemy mortar teams and terror cells.With the help of Dan Morgan, an Infantry officer who deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan as a commander and operations officer, Eads takes the reader on a rollercoaster of combat experiences during the hunt for the most violent terrorist in Iraq, Abū Muṣʻab Zarqāwī, bringing to life the painstaking and horrid details of combat in a sectarian war. He tells the story of the soldiers’ camaraderie, built through adversity, and the love of family that sustained them.

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  When Broken Glass Floats -...

  Chanrithy Him

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  "A gut-wrenching story told with honesty, restraint, and dignity." —Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting 
   
   
   
  Chanrithy Him felt compelled to tell of surviving life under the Khmer Rouge in a way "worthy of the suffering which I endured as a child." 
   
   
   
  In a mesmerizing story, Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the "killing fields." She gives us a child's-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy's family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America. 
   
   
   
  A Finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.

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  I Dream He Talks to Me - A...

  Anonymous

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  From a Grammy-nominated musician comes a lyrical testament to love and resilience through the lens of parenting her young son, who has nonverbal autism. When Allison’s son, John Henry, stopped using his growing vocabulary just before his second birthday, she knew in her bones that something was shifting. In the years since his autism diagnosis, Allison and John Henry have embarked on an intense journey filled with the adventure, joy, heartbreak, confusion, and powerful love lessons that are the hallmarks of a quest for understanding.In I Dream He Talks to Me, Allison details the meltdowns and the moments of grace, and how the mundane expectations of a parent turn into extraordinary achievements. The saying goes, “If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism”; no two stories are alike, and yet there are universal truths that apply to all parent-child relationships. With gorgeous prose, Allison shares her and John Henry’s experience while also creating a riveting narrative that will speak to anyone who parents—and who has questioned their own ability to do so. An exploration of resilience and compassion—both for ourselves and for others—I Dream He Talks to Me is also a moving meditation on our place in the world and how we get there; what words mean, what they don’t; and, ultimately, how we truly express ourselves and truly know those whom we love.

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  The Murder of Maggie Hume - Cold...

  Blaine L. Pardoe, Victoria Hester

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  One brutal murder. Two possible suspects. And a "fascinating . . . puzzling case" that divided a Michigan community (Lansing State Journal). 
   
   
    
  In the summer of 1982, the body of twenty-year-old Maggie Hume was found under a pile of blankets in the closet of her apartment. A Catholic school girl and daughter of a local football coach, Maggie had been raped and strangled. It was the only active murder investigation in Battle Creek, Michigan, suggesting the case would be an easy victory for authorities. Plus, they already had two persons of interest on watch. 
   
   
    
  Maggie's neighbor, Michael Ronning, confessed to the crime. Yet it was Maggie's boyfriend, Jay Carter, who failed the polygraph, and whose account of his whereabouts on the night of the murder kept changing. Unfortunately, the Calhoun County Prosecutor's Office and Battle Creek Police Department couldn't agree on whom to charge. And the city soon took sides. 
   
   
    
  Cracking open three decades of never-before-seen evidence, this real-life whodunit exposes the dark secrets and tragic infighting that turned the murder of Maggie Hume into an unwinnable contest of wills, egos, politics, and the law—a contest that, to this day, isn't over.

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