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Women's work : a reckoning with home and help / by Stack, Megan K.,author.;
When Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew and her husband's job took them to Dehli, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made? Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees' homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they'd been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility--and on the cost to the children who were left behind. Women's Work is an unforgettable story of four women as well as an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege.
Subjects: Biographies.; Stack, Megan K.; Child care workers; Child care workers; Working mothers; Americans; Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Invisible boy : a memoir of self-discovery / by Mooney, Harrison,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A narrative that amplifies a voice rarely heard--that of the child at the centre of a transracial adoption--and a searing account of being raised by religious fundamentalists. Harrison Mooney was born to a West African mother and adopted as an infant by a white evangelical family. Growing up as a Black child, Harry's racial identity is mocked and derided, while at the same time he is made to participate in the fervour of his family's revivalist church. Confused and crushed by fundamentalist dogma and consistently abused for his colour, Harry must transition from child to young adult while navigating and surviving zealotry, paranoia and prejudice. After years of internalized anti-Blackness, Harry begins to redefine his terms and reconsider his history. His journey from white cult to Black consciousness culminates in a moving reunion with his biological mother, who waited twenty-five years for the chance to tell her son the truth: she wanted to keep him. This powerful memoir considers the controversial practice of transracial adoption from the perspective of families that are torn apart and children who are stripped of their culture, all in order to fill evangelical communities' demand for babies. Throughout this most timely tale of race, religion and displacement, Harrison Mooney's wry, evocative prose renders his deeply personal tale of identity accessible and light, giving us a Black coming-of-age narrative set in a world with little love for Black children."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Mooney, Harrison; Adoptees; Adoption; Black people; Black people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A place called home : a memoir / by Ambroz, David,author.;
"As a child, David Ambroz was raised homeless in New York City, the home of Wall Street and more than 100,000 homeless children. For David and his two siblings, their mother's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia sets them in motion for a life of poverty, violence and instability as they travel across New York and New England seeking shelter. For eleven years, home for David means living in train stations, subway cars, 24-hour diners, and wherever is safe and warm; bathing in public restrooms; and stealing food to quell his hunger. When he gets into foster care, it feels like salvation, but it soon proves to be just as unsafe for young people--more of his foster siblings are put on a prison pipeline than college-bound. Surmounting violence, continued poverty and physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his caregivers, David harnesses an inner grit to escape the inevitable outcome for kids like him. He takes shelter and finds hope on his own in libraries, schools, and in the occasional adult angel. Through hard work and unwavering resolve, he is able to get into Vassar College, the first significant step out from the yolk of poverty, and later graduates UCLA School of Law. This heart-wrenching and inspiring story about young people pulls back the curtain on homelessness and poverty in the lives of children and shines a pivotal light on generations of kids that have been systematically ignored and overlooked. A Place Called Home is both David's powerful personal account through the lens of a child surviving it daily. And as the go-to child welfare advocate for the Obama administration and major U.S. companies, A Place Called Home is a beckoning call to our national conscience to move from pity to action"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Ambroz, David.; Foster children; Homeless children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How to raise a healthy gamer : end power struggles, break bad screen habits, and transform your relationship with your kids / by Kanojia, Alok,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When it comes to family rules around video games, most parents are at a loss. How much should I let them play? is always a parent's first question, but when their child becomes irritable, rude, or seemingly directionless, the question becomes more urgent: Help! How do I get them to be interested in anything else?! Known as "Dr. K" to his millions of followers, the former Harvard Medical School instructor and founder of the unique gamer's support resource Healthy Gamer, Dr. Alok Kanojia has firsthand experience with video gaming and addiction: He needed professional help to break his own addiction in college, and his parents had very little guidance for how to help him. Written to fill the resource void that still exists, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer provides parents with critical information about gaming culture, how games affect developing brains, and solutions rooted in the science treating addiction, including: The neuroscientific and psychological reasons that children gravitate to video games and how addiction develops. Step-by-step guidelines for setting, enforcing, and troubleshooting healthy gaming boundaries. Essential strategies for reaching kids who have developed a serious gaming problem. Special chapters on behavioral issues that often accompany game use: ADHD, spectrum disorders, and substance abuse. Whether a parent's goal is to stop addiction or just promote healthy habits, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer will help them better understand, communicate with, and-ultimately-nurture their children"--
Subjects: Child rearing.; Video games; Video gamers; Video games and children.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Still, I cannot save you : a memoir of sisterhood, love, and letting go / by Thompson, Kelly S.,author.;
"With honesty, love, and humour, in this moving memoir, Kelly S. Thompson explores her relationship with her older sister, Meghan. Tested by addiction, abuse, and illness, the sisters' relationship crumbles, only to be rebuilt into an everlasting bond. Kelly Thompson, and her older sister, Meghan, are proof that sisterhood doesn't always equate to friendship. While they were mostly temperamental opposites, growing up in a military family forged their connection--Kelly, an anxious child, looked to her big sister for protection, and Meghan, who was being treated for kidney cancer, adored her younger sister. But when, as a teenager, Meghan becomes addicted to cocaine and opioids, putting the family under new strain, Kelly is forced to reevaluate her family role as her relationship with Meghan is torn apart. As time passes, the distance between the sisters only increases as Meghan slips deeper into addiction and chooses a series of abusive partners. Meanwhile, Kelly sets her own course, enrolling in the military at eighteen, moving across the country and marrying the love of her life, while pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. It's only when Meghan becomes a mother that she and Kelly tentatively begin to face past hurts and reexamine what sisterhood really means. Just as they reunite, Meghan is diagnosed with terminal cancer the day after the birth of her second child. Now, as the family reels at the prospect of the biggest loss, Kelly and Meghan will draw on their mutual dark sense of humour and deep understanding of each other, to share all they can in the time that they have. At once funny, inspiring, and heartbreaking, Still, I Cannot Save You is a story about addiction, abuse, tragedy, and illness, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between two sisters."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Thompson, Kelly S.; Thompson, Meghan, -2018.; Cancer; Drug addicts; Mothers; Sisters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Data baby : my life in a psychological experiment / by Breslin, Susannah,author.;
"What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you're a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are? When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year study of personality development that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in what she feels is an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children's puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself? At once bravely honest and sharply witty, Data Baby is a compelling and provocative account of a woman's quest to find her true self, and an unblinking exploration of why we turn out as we do. Few people in all of history have been studied from such a young age and for as long as Susannah Breslin, but the message of her book is universal. In an era when so many of us are looking to technology to tell us who to be, it's up to us to discover who we actually are"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Breslin, Susannah; Breslin, Susannah.; Harold E. Jones Child Study Center.; Breast; Child psychology; Human experimentation in psychology; Personality development; Women journalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The names / by Knapp, Florence,author.;
"A dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life? In the wake of an enormous, history-making storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow his family tradition going back generations, and name the child Gordon. But on the journey there, Cora wonders if it's right to impose the burden of this name and its legacy onto her tiny newborn son. She herself has Julian in mind, and Maia offers up her own suggestion: Bear. What follows are three alternate and alternating versions of both Cora's life and her young son's life shaped by her brave, last-minute choice of name. Spanning thirty-five years, the novel draws us in from the first page, as we follow three unforgettable journeys of one young man, but also his mother, grandmother, and sister. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing."--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Speculative fiction.; Novels.; Abused wives; Autonomy; Choice (Psychology); Conflict of generations; Families; Family violence; Mothers and sons; Names, Personal; Space and time;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The Castleton massacre : survivors' stories of the Killins femicide / by Cook, Sharon A.(Sharon Anne),1947-author.; Carson, Margaret(Margaret Louise),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A former United Church minister massacres his family. What led to this act of femicide and why were his victims forgotten? On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. Two child survivors lived to tell the story of what motivated a talented man who had been widely admired, a scholar and graduate from Queen's University, to stalk and terrorize the women in his family for almost twenty years and then murder them. Through extensive oral histories, Cook and Carson painstakingly trace the causes of a femicide in which four women and two unborn babies were murdered over the course of one blood-spattered evening. While they situate this murderous rampage in the literature on domestic abuse and mass murders, they also explore the perspective and journey of the two traumatized children. Told through vivid first-person accounts, this memoir recounts the story of one family's resilience after enduring years of relentless cruelty."--
Subjects: Killins, Robert.; Murder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Invisible Prisons Jack Whalen's Tireless Fight for Justice [electronic resource] : by Moore, Lisa.aut; Whalen, Jack.aut; cloudLibrary;
Riveting nonfiction from multi-award-winning author Lisa Moore, based on the shocking true story of a teenaged boy who endured abuse and solitary confinement at a reform school in Newfoundland, but survived through grit and redemptive love. Invisible Prisons is an extraordinary, empathetic collaboration between the magnificent writer Lisa Moore, best-known for her award-winning fiction, and a man named Jack Whalen, who as a child was held for four years at a reform school for boys in St John’s, where he suffered jaw-dropping abuses and deprivations. Despite the odds stacked against him, he found love on the other side, and managed to turn his life around as a husband and father. His daughter, Brittany, vowed at a young age to become a lawyer so that she could seek justice for him. Today, that is exactly what she is doing—and Jack's case is part of a lawsuit currently before the courts. The story has parallels with Unholy Orders by Michael Harris about the Mount Cashel orphanage, and with the many horrific stories about residential schools—all of which expose a paternalistic state causing harm and a larger society looking away. Yet two powerful qualities set this story apart. As much as it is about an abusive system preying on children, it is also a tender tale of love between Jack and his wife Glennis, who saw the good man inside a damaged person and believed in him. And it is written in a novelistic way by the great Lisa Moore, who makes vividly real every moment and character in these pages.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Cultural Heritage; Social Activists; Human Rights;
© 2024., Knopf Canada,
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Red paint : the ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish punk / by LaPointe, Sasha taqwšeblu,author.;
"Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish indigenous woman, has always longed for a sense of home. As a child her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha. As an adolescent determined to escape the poverty and abuse of her childhood in order to build a better future for herself and her people, Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, with little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother, a linguist who helped preserve her indigineous language of Lushootseed and one in a long line of powerful ancestors. Exploring what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art while offering an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas as well as the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples, Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience and above all the ability to heal that chronicles Sasha's struggles navigating a collapsing marriage while answering the call to greater purpose. Set against a backdrop of tour vans and the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk-an ethos that challenges us to reclaim what's rightfully ours: our histories, our power, our traditions, and our truths-Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to heal while fighting for our right to a place to call home"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; LaPointe, Sasha taqwšeblu.; Psychic trauma; Punk culture; Resilience (Personality trait); Salishan women; Coast Salish; Coast Salish; Coast Salish;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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