After harsh early years, Pip, an orphan growing up in Victorian England, is given the means to become a gentleman by an unknown benefactor and learns that outward appearances can be deceiving.

A poor girl delights in her coat of many colors, made by her mother from rags, because despite the ridicule of the other children she knows the coat was made with love.

A journalist describes the years she worked in low-paying domestic work under wealthy employers, contrasting the privileges of the upper-middle class to the realities of the overworked laborers supporting them. Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, took classes online...

This story is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a penetrating look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who hated anything to do with domesticity. The Walls children learned to...

Three days before Christmas, in the freezing slums of London's East End, thirteen-year-old Gracie Phipps and eight-year-old Minnie Maude Mudway join together in a search for Charlie, the donkey who belonged to Minnie Maude's Uncle Alf. Gracie is shocked to learn that only the day before, someone brutally murdered Uncle Alf and made off with his rag-and-bones cart and the beloved beast who pulled it.

Now a grown man returning from Europe as a successful painter, Seth Quinn is settle down on Maryland's Easter Shore. Still a lot has changed in St. Christopher - and the most ingriguing change of all is the presence of Dru Whitcomb Banks. But a secret Seth's kept hidden for years threatens to explode, destroying his new life and his new love.

"A story about a homeless boy and his imaginary friend that proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary"-- Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent. And not much for food, either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan... again. Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken, and he's imaginary. He's been gone for four years, but has come...

Phillip Quinn has done everything to make his life seem perfect. With his career on the fast track and a condo overlooking the Inner Harbor, his life on the street is firmly in the past. But one look at Seth and he's reminded of the boy he once was. Now a grown man returning from Europe as a successful painter, Seth Quinn is settling down on Maryland's Eastern Shore, surrounded once again by Cam, Ethan, and Phil, their wives and children, all the...

"The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability....