177 results for "Children"

Trial by Fire A Novel

Danielle Steel
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this inspiring novel from bestselling author Danielle Steel, the life of a Parisian woman changes in a heartbeat when she’s trapped by wildfires in Napa Valley. Born to a French mother and American father, graceful Dahlia de Beaumont has been sole owner and CEO of the venerable family perfume business based in Paris since her early twenties, following the death of her parents. For twenty-five years, after losing her young skier husband in an avalanche, her life has centered on running Lambert Perfumes and being a devoted single mother to her four now-adult children: indecisive Charles, volatile Alexa, kind-hearted business visionary Delphine, and dreamy artist Emma. Now fifty-six, she has an “arrangement” with a married French man but has been questioning that relationship. Dahlia comes to San Francisco on a routine business trip to check on her stores in the States. But shortly after her arrival, brush fires ignite in Napa Valley. Watching the sweeping devastation on the news, Dahlia is moved to help. But doing so will bring unforeseen consequences that endanger not only her life, but her entire future. Forced to remain in San Francisco in the aftermath, she will make unexpected connections while also fighting to protect all she has worked for. What Dahlia learns will provide a new perspective of her life, forever changing what really matters to her and what comes next for her journey. With this uplifting novel, Danielle Steel beautifully dramatizes how life’s unforeseen challenges can sow the seeds for growth and a fresh chance at love—if one is willing to take the risk.
Random House 2025-08-26 352 pages

World War Z: an oral story of the Zombie War

Brooks, Max
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched firsthand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Duckworth 2006 342 pages

Fuck, Now There Are Two of You (Go the Fuck to Sleep #3)

Mansbach, Adam
The third installment in Adam Mansbach's international best-selling Go the Fuck to Sleep series addresses, with radical honesty, the family implosion that occurs when a second child arrives “If you’re a fan of both Larry David and profane children’s book parodies, don’t even try to curb your f*cking enthusiasm.” ―Kirkus Reviews Adam Mansbach famously gave voice to two of parenting’s primal struggles in Go the Fuck to Sleep and You Have to Fucking Eat―the often-imitated, never-duplicated pair of New York Times best sellers that ushered in a new era of radical honesty in humor books for parents. But what could possibly be left? Parents―new, old, expectant, and grand―of multiple children already knew the answer. Adam discovered it for himself by having two more kids, less than two years apart. Fuck, Now There Are Two of You is a loving monologue about the new addition to the family, addressed to a big sibling and shot through with Adam’s trademark profane truth-telling. Gorgeously illustrated and chock-full of unspoken sentiments channeled directly from the brains of parents worldwide, Fuck, Now There Are Two of You articulates all the fears and frustrations attendant to the simple, math-defying fact that two is a million more kids than one. As you probably know by now, you shouldn’t read it to a child. Full color illustrations throughout
Akashic Books 2019-10-01 32 pages

Bittersweet

Steel, Danielle
In Bittersweet , Danielle Steel has written a novel for our times, a story of choices and new beginnings. India Taylor lived in a world of manicured lawns and neatly maintained calendars: a merry-go-round of Little League, piano lessons, and Cape Cod summer vacations. With four wonderful children, India believed in commitment and sacrifice, just as she believed in Doug, the man she married 17 years before. For India, this was the promise she made, the life she had chosen--not the award-winning career as a photojournalist she once had. It was a choice she had never truly regretted. Until she begins to regret it with all her heart. India couldn't pinpoint the exact moment. Perhaps it was the last time her agent called, begging her to take an assignment Doug insisted she turn down. Or perhaps it was when Doug told her he thought of her as a companion and someone to take care of their kids, and not much more. At that moment, the price of the sacrifices she'd made began to seem high. And then, she met Paul Ward. A Wall Street tycoon married to a bestselling author, Paul lived life on his own terms, traveling the world on his own yacht. India hadn't planned to become Paul's friend. Anything more was unthinkable. Yet talking to Paul was so easy. India could share her dreams with him, and offer comfort when Paul suffers a heartbreak of his own. And while Paul urges India to reclaim her career, Doug is adamantly against it, determined to keep her tied to the home. But with Paul's encouragement, India slowly, painfully, begins to break free, and find herself again. Rediscovering her creativity and her courage, India uses Paul like a beacon on the horizon, sharing intimate phone conversations with a man half a world away, a man who never stops reminding her of all that is possible for her. India is changing, and nothing in her life will ever be the same again. Not her marriage. Not her friendship with Paul. And when India is presented with an irresistible opportunity, she makes a heart-wrenching decision, leaving a safe, familiar place-and the people she loves there-to move into the terror of the unknown. Bittersweet is her story, a story of freedom, of having dreams and making choices to find them. With unerring insight, Danielle Steel has created a moving portrait of a woman who dares to embark on a new adventure and the man who helps her get there. Her painful, exhilarating journey inspires us all.
Dell 2000-02-29 448 pages

Dating game

Steel, Danielle
In her 57th bestselling novel, Danielle Steel brilliantly chronicles the roller-coaster ride of dating the second time around—and tells a captivating story of the surprises one woman encounters when she’s thrust into the terrifying, exhilarating world of the Dating Game . Paris Armstrong never saw it coming. With two grown children and a lovely home in Connecticut, Paris was happy with her marriage, her family, her life. So when her husband of twenty-four years said they needed to talk, Paris couldn’ t imagine what he was about to say. “I want a divorce,” Peter tells her. Just like that, the husband she adored had dumped her for a younger woman. And just like that, Peter and his thirty-one-year-old lover had made their plans for their future, leaving Paris to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Within days, Peter was gone. And Paris was left to figure out how she intended to get through the next day, let alone the rest of her life. The task could not have been more painful. First came the tears. Then the excruciating attempts by well-meaning friends to “fix her up” with men who paled in comparison to Peter. Worse yet, she still loved him. Finally, Paris realized she was in a fight for her very survival. Drastic measures were called for. Even her shrink agreed. It was time to move—as far away as possible, just after Peter remarried. Paris had never felt, or been, more alone. Saying good-bye to the world she knew and loved, Paris heads west, to San Francisco, and discovers being single in a world full of men who were too young, too old, too married, or too good to be true. For Paris, the list seemed endless...the charming commitment-phobe...the drunken Neanderthal...the young Frenchman—so adorably sexy she almost forgot about his age, and did, for a while. With her dating track record veering between disappointing and disastrous, and her daughter now engaged to a man Paris’s age, Paris finally comes to the conclusion that romance is not in her future. That’s when her small circle of offbeat, loving friends becomes more important than ever before. And a decision Paris makes only for herself changes her life once more. The secret, she discovers finally, is in finding the gifts in life’s unexpected twists and turns, and turning despair into freedom and loss into joy. In a poignant, wickedly funny novel about getting dumped and getting over it, about tackling life with both courage and laughter, Danielle Steel explores what it means to start over, whether you wanted to or not, and finding something better than you had before.
Delacorte Press 2003-03-04 370 pages

A Mother's Love A Novel

Danielle Steel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A devoted mother outrunning a troubled childhood and adapting to an empty nest is tested in ways she never expected in this suspenseful novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel. On the occasion of her daughter Valerie’s wedding and her upcoming fiftieth birthday, bestselling author Halley Holbrook finds herself reflecting. Raising twins Valerie and Olivia is her proudest accomplishment. Halley has been able to give them the loving and safe home she never had, having survived a childhood so traumatic she’s never talked about it with her girls. Long ago, Halley decided to live in the sunlight of the present, not the dark shadows of the past. After Valerie moves to Los Angeles with her producer husband, and Olivia follows to remain close to her sister, Halley is empty-nesting in her Fifth Avenue apartment. Facing her first holiday alone in years, she books a trip to Paris. On the flight over, she meets charming Bart Warner, and the two become fast friends. Halley hasn’t dated since her partner died three years ago, yet she quickly begins to feel more like herself. But when a cunning thief makes off with her handbag and then begins to harass her, it reawakens old ghosts from her past. Vowing not to be a victim, and with Bart’s help, she chooses a bold course of action. The moving story of a woman determined to give her daughters what she never had—a mother’s love—Danielle Steel’s gripping novel is a story of emotional resilience and truly letting go.
Random House 2025-06-24 336 pages

Why Johnny Can't Read and What You Can Do about It

Rudolf Flesch
This is the book that revolutionized the teaching of reading to children in America. Up until this time, since 1930, virtually all children in America had learned to read from the book "Dick and Jane." As this book demonstrated, Dick and Jane had unnatural dialogue and was not interesting to children. In order to get the children to learn to read, materials had to be introduced that the children would find interesting. On page 6-7 of this book, the author condemns, "those series of horrible, stupid, emasculated, pointless, tasteless little readers, the stuff and gruff about Dick and Jane." It became widely acknowledged that "this was the book that killed Dick and Jane." After these conclusions were widely acknowledged, Dick and Jane had to be taken out and shot. Spot was sent to the pound. Millions of Dick and Jane books were sent to the recycle bin. As a result, the original Dick and Jane books are a rare collector's today. Why Johnny Can't Read is an angry book by an aroused parent. It is addressed to the thousands of bewildered parents whose normally intelligent youngsters can't read well enough to do their school work. Dr. Flesch has visited classrooms, talked to students, teachers and parents, worked his way through a mountain of books and articles and examined study materials. "Johnny can't read," Dr. Flesch concludes, "for the simple reason that nobody ever showed him how." The American System of teaching children to read was no longer the traditional alphabetic-phonetic method. Since 1925 most children had been forced to memorize entire words one after another like Chinese characters - a process which ends in disorderly guesswork. Failing to learn how to sound out words letter by letter, the child never mastered the mechanics of reading. Dr. Flesch provides a cure in this book. Why Johnny Can't Read contains complete material and instructions for teaching children to read at home. Here are step-by-step directions, simple phonetic drills, which can be used for beginners or youngsters whose reading ability hasn't kept pace with their development in other fields. Parents who apply these wise and proven methods can give their children invaluable aid. It has 74 pages of phonetic lists, 9 charts of block and script letters.
Ishi Press International 2015-03-19 234 pages

I survived the Dust Bowl, 1935

Tarshis, Lauren
"The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was the worst environmental disaster in American history, a time when 'black blizzards' of dust, some hundreds of miles wide, swept across the southern plains. Hundreds of people were killed. Thousands of farms were buried. Millions of refugees fled starvation and sickness in the plains only to face hatred and prejudice in California. ... The thrilling story of an eleven-year-old boy who risks his life to save his family and friends during the worst dust storm of all, an event that would become known as 'Black Sunday.' Includes a section of nonfiction back matter with more facts and photos about the real-life event." -- Provided by publisher.
Scholastic 2025-10-07 99 pages

Chopsticks (The Spoon Series (2))

Rosenthal, Amy Krouse
Meet Chopsticks! They've been best friends forever. But one day, this inseparable pair comes to a fork in the road. And for the very first time, they have to figure out how to function apart. From New York Times best-selling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal and rising artistic talent Scott Magoon, this witty and inventive tale celebrates both independence and the unbreakable bonds of friendship.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers 2012-04-03 40 pages

Marble Hall Murders

Horowitz, Anthony
"Diabolically clever."--New York Times "Horowitz dazzles with the brilliant third entry in his Susan Ryeland series . . . . [He is] is at the top of his game here, linking past and present in a virtuoso finale worthy of Agatha Christie."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryeland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England. Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she was murdered--by poison. To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring. The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother's death inside the book. Desperately, Susan tries to prevent Eliot from putting himself in harm's way--but his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. Another murder follows . . . and suddenly Susan finds herself to be the number one suspect. Once again, the real and the fictional worlds have become dangerously entangled. And if Susan doesn't solve the mystery of Pünd's Last Case, she could well be its next victim.
HARPER PERENNIAL 2026-03-24 592 pages

Long Island compromise: a novel

Brodesser-Akner, Taffy
"In 1983, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of Long Island, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse for wear, and the family begins the hard work of trying to move on with their lives and resume their prized places in the saga of the American dream, coming to understand that though their money may have been what put them in danger, it is also what guaranteed them their safety in the end. But forty years later, when Carl's mother dies and the family comes home to mourn her, it becomes clear that nobody ever really got over anything. Carl's wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband's emotional health. Their three grown children are each a mess: Nathan cannot seem to advance at his law firm and may have made a terrible investment with his trust fund; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything-substance, foodstuff, women-in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she is not a product of the family's pathology that she comes to define it. Then there's Carl himself, the prickly, still-terrified father, who has been secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping for years, and the unthinkable act he commits that will alter the family's path forever"--
Random House 2024 444 pages

House rules: a novel

Picoult, Jodi
When your son can’t look you in the eye . . . does that mean he’s guilty? Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject—forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he’s always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he’s usually right. But when Jacob’s small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Jacob’s behaviors are hallmark Asperger’s, but they look a lot like guilt to the local police. Suddenly the Hunt family, who only want to fit in, are directly in the spotlight. For Jacob’s mother, Emma, it’s a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, Theo, it’s another indication why nothing is normal because of Jacob. And over this small family, the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?
Atria Books 2010-11-09 532 pages

Skylight Confessions

Hoffman, Alice
Writing at the height of her powers, Alice Hoffman conjures three generations of a family haunted by love.Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn's polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together even when it is clear they are bound to bring each other grief. Their difficult marriage leads them and their children to a house made of glass in the Connecticut countryside, to the avenues of Manhattan, and to the blue waters of Long Island Sound. Glass breaks, love hurts, and families make their own rules. Ultimately, it falls to their grandson, Will, to solve the emotional puzzle of his family and of his own identity. This special Scholastic edition contains additional pages, including a Reading Group Guide & Discussion Questions.
Little Brown & Co. 2007 262 pages