14 results for "Children"

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

Skloot, Rebecca
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of--From publisher description.
Broadway Paperbacks 2011-03-08 381 pages

The council of dads: a story of family, friendship & learning how to live

Feiler, Bruce
The inspiring story that touched people all over the world, The Council of Dads is the life-changing portrait of a group of friends who offer wisdom, humor, and guidance for how to live our lives with meaning and joy. Faced with one of life's greatest challenges, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler reached out to six men who helped shape him and asked each one for a piece of advice for his daughters: how to live, how to travel, how to question, how to dream. Feiler gathered their life lessons, along with a few of his own—"Always Learn to Juggle on the Side of a Hill," "Hug the Monster," "Take a Walk with a Turtle"—into a heartwarming, deeply enriching book that has inspired readers everywhere to start their own Councils of Moms or Dads. Full of warmth and wisdom, The Council of Dads is a singular story that offers lessons for us all—helping us draw closer to our friends, be more resourceful as parents, and celebrate what's important in our lives.
Harper Perennial 2011-05-17 246 pages

Blindsided

Cohen, Richard M.
Richard Cohen, a veteran writer, producer and distinguished journalist, has lived with multiple sclerosis for over 25 years. Recently diagnosed again with colon cancer, Cohen describes his lifelong struggle with multiple sclerosis, his first bout with colon cancer, a loving marriage to Meredith Viera, the effect of illness on raising children, and the nature of denial and resilience, all told with grace, humour, and lyrical prose. Cohen chronicles and celebrates a life brimming over with accomplishment, adversity and personal endeavour and his story has struck a chord with readers nation–wide. He has been interviewed by Barbara Walters for a nearly hour–long segment that ran on 20/20, he also appeared on wife Viera's program, The View and is scheduled for Charlie Rose, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and the Paula Zahn Show, among others. Blindsided also received outstanding print attention and People magazine has run a first serial piece. Autobiographical at its roots, reportorial and expansive, Blindsided builds on Cohen's story as a task aimed at emotional well–being, if not survival, pursued in sober tones that explore coping to its most redemptive and complex levels. Despite his extreme circumstances, Cohen's is a common struggle, recognisable as an integral part of humanity, and one which he explores with varying amounts of diligence, respect, personal revelation and humour.
HarperCollins 2005-02-01 272 pages

The quiet boy

Winters, Ben H.
"In 2008, a cheerful ambulance-chasing lawyer named Jay Shenk persuades the grieving Keener family to sue a private LA hospital. Their son Wesley has been transformed by a routine surgery into a kind of golem, absent all normal functioning or personality, walking in endless empty circles around his hospital room. In 2019, Shenk - still in practice but a shell of his former self - is hired to defend Wesley Keener's father when he is charged with murder . . . the murder, as it turns out, of the expert witness from the 2008 hospital case. Shenk's adopted son, a fragile teenager in 2008, is a wayward adult, though he may find his purpose when he investigates what really happened to the murdered witness. Two thrilling trials braid together, medical malpractice and murder, jostling us back and forth in time. The Quiet Boy is a book full of mysteries, not only about the death of a brilliant scientist, not only about the outcome of the medical malpractice suit, but about the relationship between children and their parents, between the past and the present, between truth and lies. At the center of it all is Wesley Keener, endlessly walking, staring empty-eyed, in whose quiet, hollow body may lie the fate of humankind."--Publisher.
Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company 2021-05 438 pages

My Bonnie: how dementia stole the love of my life

Suchet, John
Earlier this year John Suchet revealed that his beautiful 67-year-old wife Bonnie, the love of his life, is suffering from Dementia. During the past three years he has gone from lover to carer, and he has found his new job exceptionally tough. In this moving and bitterly honest account, the newsreader reveals his loneliness and his despair. For John, it was love at first sight. For many years he had admired Bonnie from afar, hoping and dreaming one day she would feel the same way. Nearly a decade after they first met, their passionate and romantic love affair began. They married in 1985, head over heels in love, and have enjoyed more than 20 years of love and laughter. Both had been married before (she had two children and he had three) but both felt, the day they married, they finally joined their other half. In March 2004, John began to notice strange quirks in Bonnie's behavior. She underwent her first set of neurological tests in March 2005, which brought back no definite results. Then, in February 2006, following a second set of tests, she was diagnosed with Dementia. For three years John personally cared for his beloved wife, keeping her condition secret from all but family and close friends. But in the middle of September this year, more than 26 years after his life with Bonnie began, John made the agonizing decision to move his wife to a full-time care home. Written in passionate and vivid prose that captures both the warmth of the good times and the utter despair of the bad times, John weaves together a series of moving and heartfelt stories.
HarperCollins 2010 311 pages

New beginnings: the triumphs of 120 cancer survivors

Aron, Bill
"100 Inspirational Stories and Beautiful, Uplifting Photos of Survivors. "You have cancer" are three of the most terrifying words a person can hear, and our culture does little to ease the fear. New Beginnings: 100 Cancer Survivors follows one hundred survivors who discovered that those words were the start of a new beginning, not an end to their lives. New Beginnings is a collection of narratives and energetic photographic portraits of men, women, children, and families that inspire and provide hope for anyone diagnosed with cancer as well as for their families and friends. The survivors vary in age, ethnicity, and diagnosis, but they all share the ability to turn a diagnosis of cancer into a positive force in their lives. Coming from all walks of life, survivors include Sally Craigen, who beat two different cancers three decades apart but who never let it stop her from enjoying life; Rabbi William Cutter, who had already survived three heart attacks by the time he faced down prostate cancer on two occasions; Sophia Colby, diagnosed with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis at fifteen months of age, who has survived more in her ten years than many people do in their entire lives; and professional basketball player Coby Karl, who hasn't let two bouts from thyroid cancer stop him from chasing his dreams; and ninety-six others. This is a project by and for cancer survivors: their words, Bill Aron's photographs, in collaboration with their ideas and sensibilities. This is their book"--
Skyhorse Publishing 2015 255 pages

Waiting for Daisy: the true story of one couple's quest to have a baby

Orenstein, Peggy
Waiting for Daisy is about doing all the thinsg you swore you'd never do to get something you hadn't even been sure you wanted. It's a real-life journey of loss, love, anger and redemption. Told with raw candour and a rare wit that marks Waiting for Daisy as a future classic, Peggy Orenstein's story begins when she tells her new husband that she's not certain she ever wants to be a mother. It ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to have a baby. Along the way she visits an ex-boyfriend who now has fifteen children, encounters 'parasite singles' in Tokyo (women who are rejecting marriage and motherhood in favour of shopping sprees and foreign travel), and shares stories with women survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The world's professional women are only now beginning to become aware of the risks and realities of 'having it all', and Orenstein's poignant saga unfolds as infertility is developing scarily into a boom industry, with many thousands of women a year seeking treatment.
Bloomsbury 2008 224 pages

Loners: the life path of unusual children

Wolff, Sula
`Loners is destined to be a clinical classic... I wish I had had Loners to read when I began my career... I commend this book to all those starting out on their mental health careers as an insightful portrait of an important condition and as a standard of clarity and brevity for their own research and writing. I commend it as well to mature clinicians whose understanding will be sharpened by studying its contents. This monograph demonstrates the importance of careful clinical longitudinal observation and incisive thought for the provision of appropriate psychiatric care for
Routledge 1995 192 pages

Coming of age

Mendes, Valerie
When her mother is killed in a riding accident, nine-year-old Amy is left mute and traumatised. She was there - but she cannot remember what happened and she is haunted by a nightmare that she cannot fully explain. Gradually her voice returns, but not her memory. Her relationship with her father deepens as she grows older, and she resigns herself to living with the blanks. As long as she has her dad, she can cope with anything. Then six years later, as Amy turns sixteen and a new woman enters her father's life, the chance discovery of a hidden postcard gives her the vital clue she needs to uncover the truth about the past. It takes her to Italy, to a man she has never met. Was he her mother's lover - or her killer? The threads of the past lead inexorably back to the present and, as they gradually allow her to remember those horrific moments she thought forever buried, finally - and in more ways than one - Amy comes of age.
Simon & Schuster 2004-07-01 232 pages

Ellie

Goldstein, Ellie
This empowering and up-lifting picture book by Ellie Goldstein will inspire young children to be free to become whoever they are. Ellie is a powerful story about determination to overcome challenges despite the assumptions of others. "I know I can do a lot!" When Ellie Goldstein was born with Down's Syndrome, doctors claimed she could do nothing. Today, she's a supermodel, gracing the covers of Vogue and Glamour, dancing and speaking up for others. This is the story of her 'can do' attitude and determination from the day of her birth to life as an internationally famous fashion model. Her story encourages children to know that they are each special and to overcome the challenges of life's set backs and frustrations and be seen. Told she would never walk, Ellie has danced in productions for the Royal Opera House. Told she would never learn; she's gained a college education. And told she would never talk; Ellie uses her voice as a disabled model to speak up for other people with Down's Syndrome, and to transform the face of fashion. Everyone is different but no matter who you are, you are free to be whoever you were made to be.
Starshine Books 2024-09-20 32 pages