Difficult Times

Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life - until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she embeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic - the Mageus - live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power - and often their lives. Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink.

We do not learn how to manage personal money in our schools. Actually, most people lack this knowledge and are losing money very quickly as a result. I will lead you through every important spending area and show you many tips that can help you save hundreds and thousands a year, and we may even go over some things you have never thought about. I will give you step-by-step instructions for immediate and long-term savings.

"I was told to beware the accursed spindle, but it was so enchanting, so hypnotic. I was looking for a little adventure the day I ditched my tour group. But finding a comatose town, with a hot-looking chick asleep in it, was so not what I had in mind. I awakened in the same place but in another time – to a stranger’s soft kiss."

It's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone. In the time since every person over the age of 14 disappeared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil. And now, the gaiaphage has been reborn as Diana's malicious mutant daughter, Gaia. Gaia is endlessly hungry for destruction.

The perfect practical pick-me-up for life's tough days, this book is the perfect guide to help you feel happier, healthier and calmer. We all have days where we feel like the world is getting us down. But here's the thing - you're not alone. From helping us see what strong really looks like, to what to do when you have no energy for self-care; Jayne Hardy shows us that even on our most difficult days, a little kindness can go a very long way.

Life is harsh in Chennai's teeming streets, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, 11-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter - and friendship - on an abandoned bridge. With two homeless boys, Muthi and Arul, the group forms a family of sorts. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom.

The beautiful struggle of a girl desperate for the one relationship that has caused her the most pain. Cassie O'Malley has spent the past two and a half years in a mental institution - dumped there by her mother, against her will. Now, at 18, Cassie emancipates herself, determined to start over. She attends college, forms new friendships, and even attempts to start fresh with her mother. But before long, their unhealthy relationship threatens to pull Cassie under once again.

Before they were the Boxcar Children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden lived with their parents on Fair Meadow Farm. Although times are hard, the Aldens are happy - “the best family of all,” Mama likes to say. One day, a blizzard hits the countryside, and a traveling family needs shelter. The Aldens take them in, and the strangers soon become friends. But things never stay the same at the farm, and the spring and summer bring events that will forever change their lives.

Wars. Famine. Betrayal. Uncertainty. Fear. Everywhere you look, chaos is unfolding. What do you do when everything around you feels unstable? In What to Do in Times Like This, Prayer Madueke gives you a clear, Bible-based guide to standing strong when everything around you feels uncertain. This book will help you: Understand what’s happening in the world through the lens of Scripture. Stay firm in faith even when facing fear, trials, and spiritual battles. Pray powerful prayers to overcome hardship and find peace. Learn from biblical heroes like Noah, Joseph, and Ruth, who survived ...

The journey with God is rarely straight—but it is always worth it. Life doesn’t move in predictable lines. It bends through heartbreak, waiting, loss, and silence. The Winding Road is a 30-day devotional for believers who feel weary, disoriented, or uncertain—but still want to walk with God. Each entry is rooted in Scripture and written to help you keep going—not by trying harder, but by trusting deeper. With grace in every word and Christ at the center, this devotional reminds you that God uses even the confusing parts of the journey to make you more like His Son. You may not ...

Jaxon and Grace's story continues in New York Times best-selling author Tracy Wolff's captivating sequel to Crave. I'm in the fight of my life. For my humanity. For Jaxon. And for the world I've only just begun to be a part of. I'm all in, even if saving the people I love means I risk losing myself forever.

In this key civil rights and social justice book for young listeners, Scipio Africanus Jones—a self-taught attorney who was born enslaved—leads a momentous series of court cases to save twelve Black men who'd been unjustly sentenced to death.

Jonathan Lambshead stands to inherit his deceased grandfather’s overstuffed mansion - a veritable cabinet of curiosities - once he and two schoolmates catalog its contents. But the three soon discover that the house is filled with far more than just oddities: It holds clues linking to an alt-Earth called Aurora, where the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley has stormed back to life on a magic-fueled rampage across a surreal, through-the-looking-glass version of Europe replete with talking animals (and vegetables).

In first grade, twins Alexis and Adam wrote down what they wanted to be when they grew up and put it in their teacher’s time capsule. Now entering their senior year in high school, they are surprised to find out what they wrote: Alexis wanted to "help people" and Adam wanted to be a fireman. But that was before Adam got sick and their family fell apart. Adam’s leukemia is now in remission but, sadly, so is the twins’ family. Their mother and father are always working - not only don’t they have time for Alexis and Adam, they don’t have time for each other. Alexis can’t even convince them to take a weekend off for one last family vacation to Disney World.

Esta’s parents were murdered. Her life was stolen. And everything she knew about magic was a lie. She thought the Book of Mysteries held the key to freeing the Mageus from the Order’s grasp, but the danger within its pages was greater than she ever imagined. Now the Book’s furious power lives inside Harte. If he can’t control it, it will rip apart the world to get its revenge, and it will use Esta to do it. To bind the power, Esta and Harte must track down four elemental stones scattered across the continent. But the world outside the city is like nothing they expected.

The book highlights the importance of setting realistic boundaries and consistency, showing how to involve your child in setting these limits to promote ownership and cooperation. Positive discipline techniques, such as natural consequences and reward systems, are explored in depth to help you guide your child's behavior constructively. The key to the approach is empathy. You'll learn how to see the world through your child's eyes, validate their feelings, and build an emotional vocabulary that helps them express their complex emotions. Effective communication strategies, such as active ...

As much as we’d like to avoid suffering in life, all of us will occasionally face earth-shattering hardships. You might be dealing with one now, or perhaps your friend or a loved one is, or maybe you’d just like to prepare yourself for when one inevitably occurs in your life. Self-Discipline in Difficult Times is the right book for you if you want to learn how to press ahead as your world turns upside down.

Four teens have dug up the time capsule that their parents buried in 1986 and never bothered to recover. But in addition to the expected ephemera of mixtapes, Walkmans, photographs, letters, toys, and assorted junk, Elayah, Liam, Marcie, and Jorja discover something sinister: a hunting knife stained with blood and wrapped with a note. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill anyone."

"So, my beautiful fat girlfriend, Cassidy, is threatening to kick me to the curb again, my best friend suddenly wants to put the brakes on our lives of fabulous fun, my mom and big sister are plotting a future in which I turn into an atomic vampire, and my dad, well, my dad is a big fat question mark that I'm not sure I want the answer to."