Inspired by a little-known chapter of World War II history, a young Protestant girl and her Jewish neighbour are caught up in the terrible wave of hate sweeping the globe on the eve of war in this powerful love story that’s perfect for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. If you’re reading this letter, that means I’m dead. I had obviously hoped to see you again, to explain in person, but fate had other plans. 1933 At eighteen years old, Molly Ryan dreams of becoming a journalist, but instead she spends her days working any job she can to help her family through the Depression crippling her city. The one bright spot in her life is watching baseball with her best friend, Hannah Dreyfus, and sneaking glances at Hannah’s handsome older brother, Max. But as the summer unfolds, more and more of Hitler’s hateful ideas cross the sea and “Swastika Clubs” and “No Jews Allowed” signs spring up around Toronto, a city already simmering with mass unemployment, protests, and unrest. When tensions between the Irish and Jewish communities erupt in a riot one smouldering day in August, Molly and Max are caught in the middle, with devastating consequences for both their families. 1939 Six years later, the Depression has eased and Molly is a reporter at her local paper. But a new war is on the horizon, putting everyone she cares about most in peril. As letters trickle in from overseas, Molly is forced to confront what happened all those years ago, but is it too late to make things right? From the desperate streets of Toronto to the embattled shores of Hong Kong, Letters Across the Sea is a poignant novel about the enduring power of love to cross dangerous divides even in the darkest of times—from the #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS GOD BLEW, AND THEY WERE SCATTERED, BOOK III The continuing saga of the Taelmann (Tallman) family finds young William Tallman in the Oley Valley of Pennsylvania, some fifty miles from Philadelphia, where he shall remain from 1740 until 1780. There, circa 1742, he marries Anne Lincoln. Anne is the daughter of Mordecai Lincoln II, a land baron and ironmaster, and first wife Hannah Salter, the daughter and granddaughter of a powerful New Jersey political family; destined to become the great-great grandparents of the nation’s 16th president. Although William and Anne would have eleven children, after years of struggle the only child who would survive to adulthood would be their second child, Benjamin. Their trials are further complicated by the 1736 death of Mordecai, which had left his second wife, the former Mary Robeson, widowed with three young boys to rear alone. When she decides to remarry, William is drawn into a contract, devised to protect the inheritance of Mordecai’s sons, wherein he agrees to relinquish fifteen years of his life tethered to the yoke of the Lincoln legacy. He would not be freed from that promise until 1757, when the youngest of Anne’s half-brothers reached the age of twenty-one. In 1765 the immigration of his dearest friend and brother-in-law, “Virginia John” Lincoln, to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, brings a restlessness for William, which is quelled only by realizing an earlier ambition. 1768-80 finds William Tallman as the proprietor of an “Inn” in Reading, Pennsylvania, located approximately ten miles from his newly constructed stone residence, built on the site of the old Lincoln log house, on the banks of Amity’s Schuylkill River. Then, as Colonists can no longer deny that they are at war with England, in 1779, with an attack on Georgia’s Savannah, Thomas Jefferson, the governor of Virginia, calls for the enlistment of all able-bodied men. Answering the `Patriot Cause’ of the American Revolution, William and Anne’s son, Benjamin, now the husband of Dinah Boone, and the father of seven surviving children, joins De Best’s Troops of the First Partisan Legion, leaving his father to cope with matters in Amity Township, and the Inn in Reading. After the war, Benjamin returns to his family, immigrants to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he and his father, William Tallman, establish plantations, comparable to that of “Virginia John,” i.e., Anne’s brother, Benjamin’s uncle, and William’s brother-in-law. The Linville Creek Baptist Church is the heart of the community, where Deacons John Lincoln, Jr. and Benjamin Tallman, supported by his wife, the former Dinah Boone, cousin of Daniel, become pillars of that admirable institution. There, also, Ben and Dinah’s progeny become acquainted with the Harrison family, founders of Harrisonburg, Virginia – relationships which, ultimately, result in the marriages of five of their children: three daughters and two sons. Then, with the turn of the century, now president, Thomas Jefferson begins a westward movement. Land offered at $2 per acre begins the “Western Fever.” A tide of settlers flow out onto Zane’s Trace, the trail that will deliver them to Ohio, a state in the unbroken wilderness of the Northwest Territory. There, as settlers, they will begin anew the task of settling another frontier, as the nation pushes ever westward toward the Pacific.
The Bible presents a landscape rich with characters whose stories and prophecies, wisdom and woes, parables and prayers describe our very human struggle to know and respond to the love of God. Repeated reading and retelling make these texts familiar, and yet we encounter them anew in these fresh, intimate, and sometimes startling reflections by master storyteller Genevieve Glen, OSB. Sr. Genevieve writes with a vivid and poetic imagination. Drawing on her life of monastic prayer and the practice of Lectio Divina—a life saturated in Scripture—she pulls us deeply into these stories. Sauntering through this holy ground with her we enter small villages and busy towns, sheepfolds and gardens, a nomad’s tent and a rich man’s house, a stable in Bethlehem and the great temple in Jerusalem. Most of all we encounter the transforming message and mercy of God in Jesus Christ.
This book examines the Buffalo Public Schools and their admissions process following a civil rights complaint filed by parents and community leaders. The authors offer research-based recommendations for reducing barriers to enrollment and for creating competitive admissions choice systems that will allow all students access to important educational opportunities.
The Home for Unwanted Girls meets Orphan Train in this unforgettable novel about a young girl caught in a scheme to rid England’s streets of destitute children, and the lengths she will go to find her way home—based on the true story of the British Home Children. 2018 At ninety-seven years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago... 1936 Fifteen-year-old Winny has never known a real home. After running away from an abusive stepfather, she falls in with Mary, Jack, and their ragtag group of friends roaming the streets of Liverpool. When the children are caught stealing food, Winny and Mary are left in Dr. Barnardo’s Barkingside Home for Girls, a local home for orphans and forgotten children found in the city’s slums. At Barkingside, Winny learns she will soon join other boys and girls in a faraway place called Canada, where families and better lives await them. But Winny’s hopes are dashed when she is separated from her friends and sent to live with a family that has no use for another daughter. Instead, they have paid for an indentured servant to work on their farm. Faced with this harsh new reality, Winny clings to the belief that she will someday find her friends again. Inspired by true events, The Forgotten Home Child is a moving and heartbreaking novel about place, belonging, and family—the one we make for ourselves and its enduring power to draw us home.
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