Empfehlungen basierend auf "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America"

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 PickA special 75th anniversary edition of the beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century.From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior―such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce―no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are raw with honestly and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life―from “junk day” on Saturdays, when the children traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience. Here is an American classic that "cuts right to the heart of life," hails the New York Times. "If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will deny yourself a rich experience."

"The best book I read this decade." —Sharon Van Etten in Rolling Stone“Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak. . . . Eli’s remarkably poetic voice and his astonishingly open heart take the day. They enable him to carve out the best of what’s possible from the worst of what is, which is the miracle that makes this novel marvelous.” —Washington PostA "thrilling" (New York Times Book Review) novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy’s coming of age in 1980s Australia, named one of the best literary fiction titles of 2019 by Library Journal.Eli Bell’s life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in Eli’s life is Slim—a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes—who watches over Eli and August, his silent genius of an older brother.Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a neglected suburb populated by Polish and Vietnamese refugees, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism. Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli’s path—most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane’s legendary drug dealer.But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom—all before starting high school.A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton’s debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience.

In her first book, the popular From the Front Porch podcast host and independent bookstore owner challenges the idea that loud lives are the ones that matter most, reminding us that we don't have to leave the lives we have in order to have the lives of which we've always dreamed.Can life be an adventure, even when it’s just . . . ordinary?Annie Jones always assumed adulthood would mean adventure: a high-powered career; life in a big, bustling city; and travels to far-flung places she’d longed to see. But her reality turned out differently. As the years passed, Annie was still in the same small town running an independent bookstore —the kind of life Nora Ephron dreamed.During that time, she hosted friends’ goodbye parties and mailed parting gifts; wrote recommendation letters and wished former shop staffers well. She stayed in her small town, despite her love of big cities; stayed in her marriage to the guy she met when she was 18; and she stayed at her bookstore while the world outside shifted steadily toward digital retailers. And she stayed loyal to a faith she sometimes didn’t recognize.After ten years, Annie realized she might never leave. But instead of regret, she had an epiphany. She awakened to the gifts of a quiet life spent staying put.In Ordinary Time, Annie challenges the idea that loud lives matter most. Rummaging through her small-town existence, she finds hidden gifts of humor and hope from a life lived quietly. Staying, can itself be a radical act. It takes courage to stay in the places we’ve always called home, Jones argues, as she paints a portrait of possibility far away from thriving metropolises and Monica Gellar-inspired apartments.We’ve long been encouraged to follow our dreams, to pack up and move to new places and leave old lives—and past selves—behind. While there is beauty in these kinds of adventures, Ordinary Time helps us see ourselves right where we are: in the middle of messy, mundane lives, maybe not too far from where we grew up. We don’t have to leave to find what we yearn—we can choose to stay, celebrating and honoring our ordinary lives, which might turn out to be bigger and better than we ever imagined.

Imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion. This is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic."When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."So begins the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

In this “compelling, bighearted, emotionally precise page-turner” (Sunday Times), the New York Times bestselling writer and acclaimed television host explores the aftermath of a tragedy on a small-town to illuminate the shame and longing that can flow through generations—and how the secrets of the heart cannot stay be buried forever.It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony, a group of young friends, including the bride and groom, are involved in an accident. Three survive. Three are killed.The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them ripple throughout the small town. Connor survived, but living among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as carrying the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he eventually makes a home—of sorts—for himself in New York, where he finds shelter and the possibility of forging a new life.But the secrets—the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind—will not be silenced. Before long, Connor will have to confront his past.A powerful and timely novel of emigration and return, Home Stretch demonstrates Norton’s keen understanding of the power of stigma and secrecy—and their devastating effect on ordinary lives.

The New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein—a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.“Splendid.” —People“The perfect book for anyone who knows that compassion isn’t only for humans, and that the relationship between two souls who are meant for each other never really comes to an end. Every now and then I’m lucky enough to read a novel I can’t stop thinking about: this is one of them.” —Jodi Picoult“It’s impossible not to love Enzo.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune“This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book.” —Sara GruenEnzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life’s ordeals.On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through: the sacrifices Denny has made to succeed professionally; the unexpected loss of Eve, Denny’s wife; the three-year battle over their daughter, Zoë, whose maternal grandparents pulled every string to gain custody. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with Zoë at his side.A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life…as only a dog could tell it.

Winner of the 1982 IRA Children's Book AwardLondon is poised on the brink of World War II. Timid, scrawny Willie Beech--the abused child of a single mother--is evacuated to the English countryside. At first, he is terrified of everything, of the country sounds and sights, even of Mr. Tom, the gruff, kindly old man who has taken him in. But gradually Willie forgets the hate and despair of his past. He learns to love a world he never knew existed, a world of friendship and affection in which harsh words and daily beatings have no place. Then a telegram comes. Willie must return to his mother in London. When weeks pass by with no word from Willie, Mr. Tom sets out for London to look for the young boy he has come to love as a son. ‘A small, timid refugee from wartime London—and from a sadistic mother—and a lonely villager who has reluctantly accepted the child form a bond of love and trust that is deeply touching. Michelle Magorian has created a vivid cast for an English story with universal and timeless appeal.’ —Zena Sutherland, IRA Children’s Book Award Chair. ‘An engrossing, vividly detailed novel.’ —BL.Winner, 1982 International Reading Association Children's Book AwardNotable Children's Books of 1982 (ALA)1982 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1983 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)1982 Young Adult Editors' Choices (BL)1983 Teachers' Choices (NCTE)Notable 1982 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)1988 Choices (Association of Booksellers for Children)Children's Books of 1982 (Library of Congress)

“A touching family portrait that also happens to be very, very funny. . . its appeal is timeless.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington PostOne of the best-loved American memoirs of an oversized family and the parents who held them together - now a Disney+ movie starring Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff.What do you get when you put twelve lively kids together with a father—a famous efficiency expert—who believes families can run like factories, and a mother who is his partner in everything except discipline? You get a hilarious tale of growing up that has made generations of kids and adults alike laugh along with the Gilbreths in Cheaper by the Dozen.Translated into more than fifty-three languages and made into numerous films over the years — including a classic film starring Myrna Loy and a cult favorite with Steve Martin, Hilary Duff, and Alyson Stoner — this memoir is a delightfully enduring story of family life at the turn of the twentieth century.

Little Princes is the epic story of Conor Grennan's battle to save the lost children of Nepal and how he found himself in the process. Part Three Cups of Tea, and part Into Thin Air, Grennan's remarkable memoir is at once gripping and inspirational, and it carries us deep into an exotic world that most readers know little about.One Person Can Make a DifferenceIn search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children's Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.Conor was initially reluctant to volunteer, unsure whether he had the proper skill, or enough passion, to get involved in a developing country in the middle of a civil war. But he was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war - for a huge fee - by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury. Waiting for Conor back in Kathmandu, and hopeful he would make it out before being trapped in by snow, was the woman who would eventually become his wife and share his life's work.Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.

From daughter of musical visionary Frank Zappa, Moon Unit Zappa, comes a memoir of growing up in her unconventional household in 1970s Los Angeles, coming of age as part of the MTV generation in the 1980s as the “Valley Girl,” and finding herself after losing her father, then her mother, and the fracturing of her longest relationships.I got my first journal when I was five, for Christmas, then every year after I’d get a new one. They were hardbound in black leather with gold embellishments on the cover and along the paper edges. So fancy. These books felt important. I believed I had a responsibility to do excellent work in them, to match their external beauty and honor the dead trees I held in my hands, a concept my mother had recently illuminated along with explaining hamburgers were deceased cows. Plus, the diaries were from Gail and Frank, my mother and my father, with the inscription to me in his handwriting, so I put undue pressure on myself to turn these blank nothings into weighty somethings, as I saw my idol dad doing on his large, butter-colored music paper.When I wasn’t writing short stories about my camels T’mershi Duween and Sinini, or about aliens or ballerinas or nuns, or alien ballerina nuns, I’d report on the happenings in the house or the world at large. I was political and wrote a letter to President Ford to get him to stop men from clubbing baby harp seals. I was ambitious and practiced signing my autograph in various handwriting styles. I was complimentary and wrote a letter to Tina Turner to let her know she is almost as good a dancer as me. I was boy crazy for Shawn Cassidy and wrote his name everywhere, followed by pages of scrawling my new name “Moon Unit Cassidy” in loopy cursive. I used my journals like a secret best friend I could tell anything to: “I’m sad. I wish my dad would take me with him to Europe.” When I still lived at home and had no privacy, I’d write in code about really secret stuff so I had somewhere safe to be the real me, to vent about my feelings with impunity.As time went on, I loosened the reins on my dad-comparing and perfectionism in my journals. And in life. I had no choice. Rightly or wrongly, I believed I would never be as good as my dad, so I had to learn to live with plain old me.For Moon Unit Zappa, processing a life so unique, so punctuated by the whims of creative genius, the tastes of popular culture, the calculus of celebrity and the nature of fractured love has at times been eviscerating, at others, illuminating. Yes, this is a book about growing up in the shadows of Frank Zappa, in a sexually free, but also dysfunctional world in 1970s LA.And as we careen into the 1980s, the style and the music and the tone changes—but Moon remains the constant, trying to find herself in a very confusing, everchanging equation—that of her family and the relationship with fame.It is Moon’s deep sense of humor and humility that keeps her grounded, and keeps this memoir pinned to the ground. Earth to Moon is a creative, colorful, and wonderful lesson in growing into oneself.