"Their secret love affair has lasted for decades--but this could be the summer that changes everything"-- When Mallory Blessing's son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he's not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It's the late spring of 2020 and Jake's wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election....

"What does it mean to show respect in real life? Showing respect could look like saying "please" and "thank you." It could mean apologizing when you make a mistake or do something hurtful. One of the best ways to show respect is to honor someone's boundaries or listen to their feelings. Respect is a key tenet of citizenship, but it can be a difficult concept for little citizens to understand. Using helpful examples of how to apply this principle in...

An Emmy Award-winning writer and activist describes the harrowing years she spent in early adulthood fighting leukemia and how she learned to live again while forging connections with other survivors of profound illness and suffering. A few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, Jaouad received a diagnosis of leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling...

"Preston and Constance Whittier have built a happy life together, with a brood of six children raised in a beautiful historic Manhattan mansion. Now, with a nearly empty nest, it's easier than ever for the Whittiers to maintain their tradition of a solo romantic "Wintermoon" ski trip. But with this year's trip comes tragedy, and suddenly the Whittier's adult children find themselves reuniting in the family home without their parents for the first...

"Voter suppression has plagued America since its inception, and so has the issue of identity-who is really American and what that means. When tied together, as they are in our modern politics, citizens are harmed in overt, subtle, and even personal ways. Stacey Abrams experienced the effects firsthand, running one of the most unconventional races in modern politics as the Democratic nominee for the governorship in Georgia and the first black woman...

"An instruction manual for life, love, and relationships by a brilliant young scientist whose Asperger's syndrome allows her--and us--to see ourselves in a different way...and to be better at being human Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her. Desperate for a solution, she asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. With no blueprint...

"This collection focuses on the variety of immigrant experiences that have been depicted in literary works and the techniques that immigrant writers have used in fiction and non-fiction. The essays in this volume draw upon a vast range of immigrant experiences, precisely because immigrant writing in the United States and beyond brings together people of various nationalities, cultures, languages, immigration statuses, and social and economic classes....

"We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don't have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In Against Empathy, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society....

"From Russia to South Africa, from Turkey to the Philippines, from Venezuela to Hungary, authoritarian leaders have smashed restraints on their power. The freedom of the media and the judiciary have eroded. The right to vote remains, but the right to have one's vote counted honestly does not. Until the US presidential election of 2016, the global decline of democracy seemed a concern for other peoples in other lands. That complacent optimism has been...