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The berry pickers : [Book Club Set] / by Peters, Amanda,author.;
"A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that will remain unsolved for nearly fifty years. July 1962. A Mi'kmaw family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family's youngest child, vanishes mysteriously. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain deeply affected by his sister's disappearance for years to come. In Boston, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren't telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. A stunning debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction, The Berry Pickers is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma and the persistence of love across time."--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Family secrets; Missing children; Mi'kmaq;
Available copies: 12 / Total copies: 12
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The measure of our age : navigating care, safety, money, and meaning in later life / by Connolly, M. T.(Marie-Therese),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An elder justice expert uncovers the failures in the systems that are supposed to protect us as we age, and provides a battle plan for families and policy-makers to counter the greed and incompetence. Between 1900 and 2000, Americans gained, on average, thirty years of life. That dazzling feat allowed tens of millions of Americans to reach the once-rare age of 85, now the fastest-growing age group. The bad news: For millions of Americans, the Golden Years are appallingly tarnished, leaving them and those who love them at a loss for what to do. More than 34 million family members care for an older relative for "free," but with costs to them in time, money, jobs, and health. Countless seniors are targeted by scammers and make riskier decisions about care, housing, money, and driving due to cognitive decline. And epidemics of isolation and loneliness make older people unnecessarily vulnerable to all sorts of harm. These problems touch millions of families regardless of class, race or gender. Today, one in ten older Americans is neglected or exploited with devastating results. And the systems supposed to safeguard them-like nursing homes, guardianship, Adult Protective Services, and criminal prosecution-often make problems worse. Weaving first-person accounts, her own unrivaled experience, and shocking investigative reporting across the worlds of medicine, law, finance, social services, caregiving, and policy, MT Connolly exposes a reality that has been long hidden-and sometimes actively covered up. But things are not hopeless. Along with diagnosing the ailments, she gives readers better tools to navigate the many challenges of aging-whether adult children caring for aging parents, policy-makers trying to do the right thing, or, should we be so lucky to live to old age, all of us"--
Subjects: Aging; Older people; Older people; Older people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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After life / by Forman, Gayle,author.;
"One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It's just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber's mom sees her, she screams. Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she's inexplicably riding now. This mysterious return doesn't impact only Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber's now-estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple further and further out: Amber's friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone's turmoil, amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? Why was she given this second chance? This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity."--Jacket flap.Ages 14 up.Grades 10-12.
Subjects: Young adult fiction.; Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Families; Future life; Teenagers; Family life; Families; Future life; Teenagers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Almost brown : a mixed-race family memoir / by Gill, Charlotte,1971-author.;
"An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family's journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household. Charlotte Gill's father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960's London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union, a revolutionary act, results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey from the United Kingdom to Canada and to the United States in elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness--a dream that eventually tears them apart. Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving parents of two different races and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it's lived between race checkboxes. Eventually, her parents drift apart because they just aren't compatible. But as she finds herself distancing from her father too--why is she embarrassed to walk down the street with him and not her mom?--she doesn't know if it's because of his personality or his race. As a mixed-race child, was this her own unconscious bias favoring one parent over the other in the racial tug-of-war that plagues our society? Almost Brown looks for answers to questions shared by many mixed-race people: What are you? What does it mean to be a person of color when the concept is a societal invention and really only applies halfway if you are half white? And how does your relationship with your parents change as you change and grow older? In a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming story, Gill examines the brilliant messiness of ancestry, "diversity," and the idea of "race," a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about ethnicity today"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Gill, Charlotte, 1971-; Gill, Charlotte, 1971-; Identity (Psychology); Immigrants; Race awareness in children.; Racially mixed families; Racially mixed families; Racially mixed people; Racially mixed people; Racially mixed women; Women authors, Canadian; Race;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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I've got my eyes on you [sound recording] : a novel / by Clark, Mary Higgins,author.; LaVoy, January,narrator.; Simon & Schuster Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by January LaVoy."After a party when her parents are away, eighteen-year-old Kerry Dowling is found fully dressed at the bottom of the family pool. The immediate suspect is her boyfriend who had a bitter argument with her at the party. Then there is a twenty-year-old neighbor who was angry because she didn't invite him to the party. Or is there someone else who has not yet been seen on the radar? Kerry's older sister Aline, a twenty-eight-year-old guidance counselor, is determined to assist the Prosecutor's Office in learning the truth"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Audiobooks.; Drowning victims; Murder; People with mental disabilities; Student counselors; Teenage girls;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hollywood Park : a memoir / by Jollett, Mikel,author.;
"Hollywood Park is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country's most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer. We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they'd disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett's remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country's most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader's mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult's "School." After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic. In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician. Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett's story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Jollett, Mikel; Synanon (Foundation); Rock musicians;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The city of lost cats / by Kyi, Tanya Lloyd,1973-;
"A feisty young girl named Fiona stumbles upon an old house, the middle of three abandoned mansions, full of stray (and runaway) cats (and two budgies). Naming it the City of Lost Cats, Fiona feels a great deal of sympathy for the animals; she understands wanting to run away. Ever since her parents died, she's been struggling to adjust to the new, smaller apartment she and her older sister, Tannis, now live in. Tannis has even less time to spare for Fiona, as her job at City Hall has her working more hours than ever. Cot (short for Cottonball Fluffikins Magnificent III, but he refused to answer to that name when he lived with his family) has lived in the house for two years and is the self-proclaimed leader of the cats. But lately, he's been worried about a challenge to his leadership. When a giant excavator rolls up to the houses, it's going to take some quick thinking on the part of Fiona, not to mention the cooperation of all the cats to give The City a future"--
Subjects: Animal fiction.; Orphans; Cats; Parrots; Animal welfare; Activism; Housing;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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It. goes. so. fast. : the year of no do-overs / by Kelly, Mary Louise,author.;
"The time for do-overs is over. Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said "next year." Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James's soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR's All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I'll get on the plane, and next year I'll find a way to be there for the mom stuff. Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father as well as a surprising turn in her marriage, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on. Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It's what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents, and that marriages change. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong. This chronicle of her eldest child's final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer--not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again? Mary Louise's thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child, a parent or a spouse. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Kelly, Mary Louise.; Motherhood; Mothers and sons; Women journalists; Working mothers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Berry Pickers A Novel [electronic resource] : by Peters, Amanda.aut; cloudLibrary;
NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER 2023 BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE WINNER of the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL for EXCELLENCE in FICTION FINALIST Amazon First Novel Award FINALIST for the Atwood-Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize FINALIST Best First Novel, Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence FINALIST Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction FINALIST Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction FINALIST Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award FINALIST OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that remains unsolved for nearly fifty years  July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, is seen sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a field before mysteriously vanishing. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, who was the last person to see Ruthie, is devastated by his sister’s disappearance, and her loss ripples through his life for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as an only child in an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, while her mother is overprotective of Norma, who is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem to be too real to be her imagination. As she grows older, Norma senses there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she pursues her family’s secret for decades. A stunning debut novel, The Berry Pickers is a riveting story about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Native American & Aboriginal; Family Life;
© 2023., HarperCollins Canada,
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Deep Harbor / by Michaels, Fern,author.;
When Carol Ann 'CJ' Jansen lost her beloved older brother, Kick, in a boating accident, she came adrift. Kick had taken on the role of caring for his little sister after their parents were killed in a car crash. Inheriting half his fortune has left CJ financially secure--yet needing a purpose. As administrative assistant to powerful congressman Snapper Lewis, she's immersed herself in the exciting and often tumultuous world of politics. But suddenly, the career that anchors her life is threatened. CJ stumbles upon information that could implicate her boss in corruption. When the congressman goes missing, the closer CJ gets to uncovering the truth, exposing one shocking secret after another, the more she wonders if she's also in jeopardy. Moving to a small New England town for her own protection, CJ gradually begins to engage with her new surroundings.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Administrative assistants; Missing persons; Man-woman relationships; Small cities; Detective and mystery stories;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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