The memoirs of Mary Rodgers—writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and “a woman who tried everything.” “What am I, bologna?” Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent’s overwhelming gift, to become not just a theater figure in her own right but also a renowned author of books for young readers (including the classic Freaky Friday) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the chairman of the Juilliard School. But in telling these stories—with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times—Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms. Whether writing for Judy Holliday or Rin Tin Tin, dating Hal Prince or falling for Stephen Sondheim over a game of chess at thirteen, Rodgers grabbed every chance possible—and then some. Both an eyewitness report from the golden age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don’t make anymore—and never did. They make themselves.
Previously published as A Billion for Boris Annabel Andrews is back in her body, but life is still anything but normal. When her brother, Ape Face, and her boyfriend, Boris, discover a TV that airs its programs a day early, they're suddenly faced with lots of opportunities. Boris wants to make billions of dollars, but Annabel wants to help mankind. They've got to decide what to do before someone figures out what's going on.... An ALA Notable Children's Book
A thirteen-year-old girl gains a much more sympathetic understanding of her relationship with her mother when she has to spend a day in her mother's body.
When he hears his parents talking about a boy so rotten he will some day end up in jail, Simon imagines all the things he thinks might make a boy that rotten.
This book is about a day in the life of two lonely people meeting for the very first time. Through a sequence of events they agree to share an abbreviated version of their life testimony for the duration of their flight from Los Angeles to Londonthey are simply drawn to each other. They are amazed at how similar their stories are and how God has worked so wonderfully in each of their lives. They learn that however difficult their lives were God gave them the strength to endure and sent others to help them through things. They realize that it is their responsibility to likewise be available to God to be used to guide and assist others through their lives as well. Life is an opportunity to learn and make appropriate choices as to whom we choose to imitate and learn from. God is in places we least expect him to be, just as Robert Johnson realized halfway through the flight. The thing that takes these two by surprise is love, a feeling that the emptiness in their lives is being filled. Both immediately shrug it off as fatigue and jet lag, but know in their hearts it is something more. How will they be able to just say goodbye at the end of the flight?
Hadley is pretty much the model student: straight As, perfect attendance, front row in class. So what if she's overstressed and overscheduled: She's got school covered. (Life—not so much.) Ms. Pitt is the kind of teacher who wants you to call her by her first name and puts all the chairs in a circle and tells her students to feel their book reports. Hadley wishes Ms. Pitt would stick to her lesson plan. Ms. Pitt wishes Hadley would lighten up. So when Hadley and Ms. Pitt find themselves switched into each other's bodies, the first thing they want to do is switch right back. It takes a family crisis, a baffled principal, and a (double) first kiss to help them figure out that change can be pretty enlightening. Even if it is a little freaky!
This first-person narrative tells the true story of Marguerite Kirchner, whose multicultural family was living in Germany when WWII began. We have remained as true as possible to Marguerites account which reveals to readers the cruelty of war and the innocence of past generations. As a child, her family lived a luxurious life. Her mother was a French aristocrat, and her father a wealthy Austrian diplomat, and so her story begins. Always defiant, Margie was forced into a labor camp for dissident teenagers. She attended the University of Berlin during the Berlin bombings, became a young teacher in the Polish war zone, was captured as a prisoner of war and escaped, and after the war, worked for the Allied Forces, helping repatriate those who had been displaced. Her story demonstrates cunning and great courage. She went from affluence to poverty and survived the war on her wits alone, dependent on only herself and the skills shed acquired from traveling with her family. Only after the war does she reflect on what her single-minded struggle for survival cost her, and a new journey, of a very different kind, begins.
The Green Bay Packers are the last of the small-town teams that were once common in the NFL. The Pack and their fans, the devoted Cheeseheads, have won 13 league championships (more than any other team in the NFL), including 9 NFL championships prior to the Super Bowl era and 4 Super Bowl victories. Their stellar roster—Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Paul Hornung, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and of course, legendary coach Vince Lombardi—are all here, making history on the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field.
Davey Simpson, a fisherman, is charged with the murder of a powerful Alabama politician's son. His childhood friend, Ben Johnson, is well-qualified to act as his attorney, but Ben would have to resign as the first black lieutenant governor of Alabama to take the case. Davey does not want Ben to make such a sacrifice. While in the Mobile County Jail awaiting trial, Davey has a unique method of surviving confinement. Since he can't endure living in the present, he lives in the past, recalling memories of his two childhood friends --his lost love, Pokey, and his best friend, Ben. Even though those memories are also a reminder that Ben and Pokey both moved away from Mobile, they allow Davey to escape the unbearable loneliness of incarceration. Years before, when Ben was shunned and mistreated because of his race, Davey stood up for him. Now, despite Davey's protests, Ben insists on representing Davey. Though they had been separated by time and space, loyalty prevails. However, it is Davey's plight that causes childhood friends to reunite and renew their relationships. Unexpected twists reveal the many complications involved in the case and in Davey's personal life as well. This book was awarded Second Place in the Sandhill Writer's Conference for Novels in 2009. One of the judges, Milam McGraw Propst, author of Adventures of Ociee Nash (also a movie), expressed her "high regard for this manuscript." She compared it to The Help saying, "It is writing from the same heart." Calling the work amazing, she said she "loves these three characters; most especially Pokey and her triumph" adding that "these beautifully drawn, rich memories of the South bring back a place and time we all need to remember.
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