Uriah is a third grader who loves to look at the stars. One night before going to sleep, his mother comes in and tells him that he shines like the stars in the sky. But when Uriah wakes up, the day takes a turn for the worst. He stops believing that he is like a star and wonders what makes him so special if he is just one in a million.

The main features of our book involve Mother Nature and the natural wonders of the world, especially the flowers, blooms, and scenes of many national parks.

We all face challenges and difficulties through life. When your handed those challenges without a choice you feel life through a whole different heart. You hold tight to what matters, forget what doesn't and always love strong. Feel through the heart of a boy who becomes a man while dealing with a heart defect.

Do I have to take a nap? Will Mommy remember to pick me up? Do I have to go again after the first day? Will my teacher be nice? These were some of Jay's questions and fears about starting kindergarten.

When I slept upstairs I would wake up and hear noises during the night. That’s when I got really scared of the dark. I was too scared to go downstairs to the bathroom so I wet the bed. I never used to wet the bed. Now I was wetting the bed all the time. What made me start doing that? I don’t remember wetting the bed before this. Did Thomas and I get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Did our mom get us up and take us to the bathroom? All I knew was that I was wetting the bed every night and Thomas was making fun of me for it. I was really scared of the dark now. I don’t know why I started being so afraid of the dark. What happened to make me be so afraid? This is a raw and powerful story of a woman who has suffered from multiple kinds of abuse and how it has affected every aspect of her life. She has gone through incest, childhood sexual abuse, and mental and verbal abuse. She begins by introducing you to her family and her story starts from there. She goes through her childhood, adult life, and up to the present. She is candid in the way she writes the story of her life. She tells you when and how the sexual abuse happened, how she felt about it at the time, and how it is still affecting her today. She was fifty five when she faced the abuse and started healing from the devastating effects it had on her life. She felt a need to tell her story and it took a lot of courage for her to disclose her life in such an open and honest way. Her story will give you hope and inspiration that you can heal at any age of your life.

Patunia, a cute preteen fashionista who is not afraid to show off her colorful style, prepares for school. In Patunia’s eyes, school is her fashion runway and not just a place to learn. She loves to captivate and astound an audience. Her only problem is that she always wears the same coat in which she seems to be outgrowing. A crisis arises with the coat, and Patunia becomes the center of attention. The other children begin to poke fun at her because of it. Patunia’s father soothes her, and later her mother comes home with a surprise solution.

In his memoir, Dr. George E. Allen looks back at a career spanning more than five decades of teaching music to Philadelphia students. Early on in life, he learned about many styles of music, and he took his love of the art to college, where he earned multiple degrees before joining the Philadelphia School District. There, he earned the respect of students, fellow music teachers, and music administrators. It wasn’t easy, but he did it his way and enjoyed positive results. He inspired the same type of dogged effort in his students, relying on a phrase that he placed at the beginning of all his syllabi: “It is better to know than to think you know.” He first heard that on the phone from Ellis Marsalis, the father of jazz musician Wynton and a well-known musician in his own right. Allen adopted the phrase as one of his own mantras, never allowing his students to say “I think” or “I can’t.” Whether you are someone who loves music, an education professional, or someone thinking about becoming a teacher, you can find inspiration in Allen’s love for music, education, and his students. It was time for me to begin serious work on writing about my experience as a music educator in Philadelphia because I did it differently with satisfying results.

These are works of art crafted by Christopher Brown with touches by Lil' Brandon.

WHAT CAN I DO TODAY? What a fun time the students always had when they first came into the classroom in the morning, before the late bell rang and they were in their seats. The art corner, workbench, and doll corner were always occupied, and little hands were always busy! The art book was always used, and materials were always displayed for the student from which to choose.

Scenes the Writer Shows {forty-one places a poem can go} is a collection of poems from travels and experiences. They describe situations and moments in life (mine or someone else’s) that were either positive or negative. A few poems deal with teenage angst and issues of personal experience either in my own or someone else’s life. “The Hustler,” for example, loosely mirrors my life and experience as a disabled person. It is a montage of my years living in Downtown Minneapolis, riding public transit and adapting to urban life. Word-play, meter and music used often to create images that will draw the reader into the poem. For example, in “Waxing on Flames,” I tried to create the image of a bonfire by a river with young scouts growing up as flames nurture them along: "We were young and at the mercy of our means and we flung ourselves Down upon the flames for what we knew felt right; I bridled from Those heated pains that boiled and tested me; and knelt down to Pray upon the iron grate while Moonlight splintered trees to shake Ripe, fierce winds I’d learned to hate;" My poems travel to England, to Scotland and Wales. They go to the Mid-east and to Norway. They go from my home in Minneapolis to New York and Tennessee.

An undocumented war takes place and a community is caught in the crossfire as Miami PD officer Lieutenant Naples and his partner sergeant Bragg go after a Drug Kingpin named Quinn. During this endless cycle of violence witness the cause and effect this has on the lives of four teenagers who have resorted to banditry in an attempt to make it out and live the American dream.

Still, an undocumented war is taking place; now an underworld figure named Chicano has risen with an iron fist over the entire city of Miami and is running an organized criminal secret society. His organizations cold blooded tactics have cost the lives of many innocent bystanders, Finally, the city of Miami Police department uses Detective Bragg to unleash operation green light; a relentless criminal apprehension program, but community leaders are also in an uproar about aggressive tactics of police and are upset about the rise in violence in their neighborhoods with no sign of peace in sight.

Every serious student of the Bible desires to understand the text, discover the biblical principles, and apply the truths to his or her life. This commentary is designed to help students, pastors, and Bible teachers understand James and Jude in a simple manner. Working from the popular New International Version (NIV), the author provides helpful commentary on the text verse by verse. This verse-by-verse commentary is different from others in two respects. First, it is brief while some commentaries are unnecessarily wordy and verbose. Second, it is Pentecostal in outlook. This implies that we generally adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and adopt a literalist approach to the interpretation of the Bible. James and Jude are letters from James and Jude respectively, who are half brothers of our Lord Jesus. The timeless truth that James presents is that believers must harmonize their faith and action. Our faith must be demonstrated in all situations of life—at home, at work, in church, in the neighborhood. Jude writes to warn believers about false teachers and their heresy. He calls on believers to contend for the apostolic faith.

I was inspired to write a book, for my son Ryan, to bring into his classroom during National Children's Dental Health Month, to teach his class about healthy habits for their teeth. I wanted to be able to have a fun way of teaching others that caring for your mouth, will benefit your body as well.

The book is a rendezvous with light—colors and life—through unique, creative, abstract art photography. It is about the spectrum of colors that surround us. The book is illuminated with splashes of colors, light representing love and respect for life. It contains permanent imprints from an artist’s mind, which captures events in her life. She creates images reflecting her emotions and invites the viewer to enter her creative mind and to use the light, colors as a relaxant in daily life. The book encourages self-communication with light as well as communication between the employer and employee, between students and educators, family members, friends, and even complete strangers in the flooded waiting rooms, airports, etc. They all share the need of light—colors, relaxation, and stress relief. In this way, the book is also educative. The images are translation of soul, more powerful than reality. The creative photography, unaltered after capture, reveals aspect of nature not obvious to the naked eye. This art photography creates vision of sheer beauty, of poetry and fantasy. This is the reason why the book promises to be a source of much pleasure and inspiration.