Download or read book We Were Once a Family written by Roxanna Asgarian and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle for Nonfiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Washington Post best nonfiction book of 2023 | Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction “A riveting indictment of the child welfare system . . . [A] bracing gut punch of a book.” —Robert Kolker, The Washington Post “[A] moving and superbly reported book.” —Jessica Winter, The New Yorker “A harrowing account . . . [and] a powerful critique of [the] foster care system . . . We Were Once a Family is a wrenching book.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice | One of Publishers Weekly's best nonfiction books of 2023 The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system. On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and multiple children at the bottom of a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family’s loving facade was an alleged pattern of abuse and neglect that had been ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved west. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew all too little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children. Immersive journalism of the highest order, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of precarious lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian sought out the children’s birth families and put them at the center of the story. We follow the lives of the Harts’ adopted children and their birth parents, and the machinations of the state agency that sent the children far away. Asgarian’s reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as young people of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families.
Download or read book Once We Were Sisters written by Sheila Kohler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BEST NEW BOOKS “A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC “An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death. “A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates
Download or read book Once We Were Slaves written by Laura Arnold Leibman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-12 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An obsessive genealogist and descendent of one of the most prominent Jewish families since the American Revolution, Blanche Moses firmly believed her maternal ancestors were Sephardic grandees. Yet she found herself at a dead end when it came to her grandmother's maternal line. Using family heirlooms to unlock the mystery of Moses's ancestors, Once We Were Slaves overturns the reclusive heiress's assumptions about her family history to reveal that her grandmother and great-uncle, Sarah and Isaac Brandon, actually began their lives as poor Christian slaves in Barbados. Tracing the siblings' extraordinary journey throughout the Atlantic World, Leibman examines artifacts they left behind in Barbados, Suriname, London, Philadelphia, and, finally, New York, to show how Sarah and Isaac were able to transform themselves and their lives, becoming free, wealthy, Jewish, and--at times--white. While their affluence made them unusual, their story mirrors that of the largely forgotten population of mixed African and Jewish ancestry that constituted as much as ten percent of the Jewish communities in which the siblings lived, and sheds new light on the fluidity of race--as well as on the role of religion in racial shift--in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Download or read book The Family written by Naomi Krupitsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.
Download or read book Family of Liars written by E. Lockhart and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The addictive prequel to the TikTok phenomenon We Were Liars: the story of another summer, another generation—and the secrets that will haunt them for decades to come. "I anticipated that at some point a shocking twist would come. And, wow, does it ever." —The New York Times "A perfect beach read." —The Boston Globe A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow. A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes. Welcome back to the Sinclair family. They were always liars.
Download or read book Once Upon a Family written by Amanda Rawson Hill and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would you wish for? This middle-grade novel exploring what it means to become a blended family is perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead's The List of Things That Will Not Change. 12-year-old Winnie feels stuck. She's alone in a new town with a mom who doesn't seem to notice how miserable Winnie's new stepbrother and stepfather make her. One night, when Winnie makes a hasty wish, she nearly gets sideswiped by an odd bird, leading her to a strange oak tree with even stranger glowing leaves. Investigating the tree, Winnie discovers a nest of golden eggs with wishes inscribed on the shells. After Winnie accidentally breaks two of the eggs, the wishes come true. Winnie sneaks back to the tree to try to grant her own wishes. But when she realizes the wishes are coming true in unexpected and terrible ways, Winnie must find a way to fix everything. . . . .
Download or read book Torn Apart written by Dorothy Roberts and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning scholar exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system and calls for radical change Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a “family policing system” that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation. Black children are disproportionately likely to be torn from their families and placed in foster care, driving many to juvenile detention and imprisonment. The only way to stop the destruction caused by family policing, Torn Apart argues, is to abolish the child welfare system and liberate Black communities.
Download or read book We Were the Lucky Ones written by Georgia Hunter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller with more than 1 million copies sold worldwide | Soon to be a Hulu limited series starring Joey King and Logan Lerman Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds. “Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn't be more timely.” —Glamour It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.
Download or read book Before We Were Yours written by Lisa Wingate and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.
Download or read book Before We Were Free written by Julia Alvarez and published by Laurel Leaf. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government’s secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo’s dictatorship. Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind. From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl’s struggle to be free.
Download or read book When Your Family s Lost a Loved One written by David Guthrie and published by Focus on the Family Pub. This book was released on 2008 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A couple who has faced the bitter task of burying two of their three children explores the family dynamics involved when a loved one dies, showing how grief can pull a family closer together rather than tearing it apart. Original.
Download or read book Shattered Bonds written by Dorothy Roberts and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2002-12-25 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shattered Bonds is a stirring account of a worsening American social crisis--the disproportionate representation of black children in the U.S. foster care system and its effects on black communities and the country as a whole. Tying the origins and impact of this disparity to racial injustice, Dorothy Roberts contends that child-welfare policy reflects a political choice to address startling rates of black child poverty by punishing parents instead of tackling poverty's societal roots. Using conversations with mothers battling the Chicago child-welfare system for custody of their children, along with national data, Roberts levels a powerful indictment of racial disparities in foster care and tells a moving story of the women and children who earn our respect in their fight to keep their families intact.
Download or read book Once We Were Brothers written by Ronald H. Balson and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust. "A novel of survival, justice and redemption...riveting." —Chicago Tribune, on Once We Were Brothers Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice. Solomon persuades attorney Catherine Lockhart to take his case, revealing that the true Piatek was abandoned as a child and raised by Solomon's own family only to betray them during the Nazi occupation. But has Solomon accused the right man? Once We Were Brothers is Ronald H. Balson's compelling tale of two boys and a family who struggle to survive in war-torn Poland, and a young love that struggles to endure the unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust. Two lives, two worlds, and sixty years converge in an explosive race to redemption that makes for a moving and powerful tale of love, survival, and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit.
Download or read book Fatal Invention written by Dorothy Roberts and published by New Press/ORIM. This book was released on 2011-06-14 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive, groundbreaking book that examines how a biological concept of race is a myth that promotes inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era. Though the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. This groundbreaking book by legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of race as a biological concept—revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases—continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era. Named one of the ten best black nonfiction books 2011 by AFRO.com, Fatal Invention offers a timely and “provocative analysis” (Nature) of race, science, and politics that “is consistently lucid . . . alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “Everyone concerned about social justice in America should read this powerful book.” —Anthony D. Romero, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union “A terribly important book on how the ‘fatal invention’ has terrifying effects in the post-genomic, ‘post-racial’ era.” —Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of sociology, Duke University, and author of Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States “Fatal Invention is a triumph! Race has always been an ill-defined amalgam of medical and cultural bias, thinly overlaid with the trappings of contemporary scientific thought. And no one has peeled back the layers of assumption and deception as lucidly as Dorothy Roberts.” —Harriet A. Washington, author of and Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself
Download or read book The Wrong Family written by Tarryn Fisher and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Never Never, co-written with Colleen Hoover! From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Wives comes another twisted psychological thriller guaranteed to turn your world upside down—an instant bestseller! Have you ever been wrong about someone? Juno was wrong about Winnie Crouch. Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son—the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore. Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel… She shouldn’t get involved. She really shouldn’t. But this could be her chance to make a few things right. Because if you thought Juno didn’t have a secret of her own, then you were wrong about her, too. From the wickedly dark mind of bestselling author Tarryn Fisher, The Wrong Family is a taut new thriller that’s riddled with twists in all the right places. “The Wrong Family is your new obsession. It’s full of twists you’ll never see coming and you’ll be breathless until the end. Trust me: you’ve never read anything like this.”—Colleen Hoover, #1 New York Times bestselling author How far will one twin go to uncover where her “good half” has gone? Find out in Good Half Gone, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Tarryn Fisher’s next riveting suspense novel! Looking for more great reads by Tarryn Fisher? Don't miss: Never Never The Wives An Honest Lie
Download or read book Once We Were Here written by Christopher Cosmos and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As World War II intrudes upon their home, three young friends risk everything for freedom, love, and a chance at a better life. On October 28th, 1940, Mussolini provides Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas with an ultimatum: either allow Axis forces to occupy their country, or face war, and Greece's response is swift. "Oxi!" they say. "No!" In a small village nestled against the radiant waters of the Aegean Sea, we find Alexei, the son of a local fisherman, and his best friend Costa, who were both born on the same night eighteen years earlier and have been like brothers ever since, though now, like all the other young men in their village and throughout Greece, they will leave their homes to bravely fight for their country. But before they go, Alexei asks Philia, the girl that he's loved his entire life, to marry him, which sets into motion the events which will change the lives of these three and their family and friends forever, and begins an epic and unforgettable story of courage, survival, sacrifice, the strength of the human spirit, and of a love and friendship that will echo across time and generations. A spellbinding novel and sweeping romance that performs the remarkable feat of creating action-packed scenes, characters that we care deeply about, and revealing in vivid detail the untold true story of how Greece helped the Allies to win World War II, Once We Were Here is an unforgettable tale that pays tribute to the brave men and women who fought and gave everything for their country, for each other, and for freedom.
Download or read book What I Carry written by Jennifer Longo and published by Ember. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A deeply touching story about survival, hope, and love." --Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author A powerful and heartwarming look at a teen girl about to age out of the foster care system. Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage. Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything--or anyone--that could get in her way. Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.
