Recommendations based on "My Next Breath"

National Book Award FinalistA heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver.In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known. From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together—their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition.

Once by Morris Gleitzman is the story of a young Jewish boy who is determined to escape the orphanage he lives in to save his Jewish parents from the Nazis in the occupied Poland of the Second World War.Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least Once.Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.My name is Felix. This is my story.Once is the first in a series of children's novels about Felix, a Jewish orphan caught in the middle of the Holocaust, from Australian author Morris Gleitzman - author of Bumface and Boy Overboard. The next books in the series Then, Now and After are also available from Puffin.

A 5-year-old boy, Ethan, is brought to Casey in the middle of the night after the sudden death of his young mother after a drug overdose.

Joe knew his mother was cruel and violent, but he trusted his beloved father to protect him from her. When a freak accident saw his father burn to death in front of him, Joe was left at the mercy of his mother. Without the love of his friend and brother, he wouldn't have survived. With them, he went on to spend his life fighting child abuse.Joe was just five years old and the horrific scene literally struck him dumb. He didn't speak for four and a half years, which meant he was unable to ask anyone for help as his life turned into a living hell.His schizophrenic mother and two of his older brothers spent the following years beating him, raping him and locking him in the cellar at the family home. Fed on scraps that he was forced to lick from the floor, he was sometimes left naked in the dark for three days without human contact.Unable to read or write, all Joe could do to communicate his suffering was draw pictures.The violence and sexual abuse grew in severity as more people, including his stepfather, were invited to use him in any way they chose.The only thing that saved Joe was the kindness of his elder brother and his only school friend, both of whom showed him that love was possible even in the darkest of situations.At fourteen he finally found the courage to run away, hiding in a hut by a railway line, fed on scraps by some local children who found him.Joe's is the ultimate insider's story, casting light into the darkest of hidden worlds, and a truly inspirational account of how one small boy found the strength to overcome almost impossible odds and become a remarkable man. Now that he has found his voice again, Joe speaks out against child abuse and helps support and protect other children whose lives have been blighted by it.

An autobiographical story of childhood and family from the international sensation and bestseller, Karl Ove Knausgaard.Childhood is exhilarating and terrifying. For the young Karl Ove, new houses, classes and friends are met with manic excitement and creeping dread. Adults occupy godlike positions of power, benevolent in the case of his doting mother, tyrannical in the case of his cruel father.In the now infamously direct style of the My Struggle cycle, Knausgaard describes a time in which victories and defeats are felt keenly and every attempt at self-definition is frustrated. This is a book about family, memory and how we never become quite what we set out to be.

Born into the beautiful bedlam of downtown New York in the eighties, iO Tillett Wright came of age at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. This was a world of self-invented characters, glamorous superstars, and strung-out sufferers, ground zero of drag and performance art. Still, no personality was more vibrant and formidable than iO’s mother’s. Rhonna, a showgirl and young widow, was a mercurial, erratic glamazon. She was iO’s fiercest defender and only authority in a world with few boundaries and even fewer indicators of normal life. At the center of Darling Days is the remarkable relationship between a fiery kid and a domineering ma—a bond defined by freedom and control, excess and sacrifice; by heartbreaking deprivation, agonizing rupture, and, ultimately, forgiveness.Darling Days is also a provocative examination of culture and identity, of the instincts that shape us and the norms that deform us, and of the courage and resilience it takes to listen closely to your deepest self. When a group of boys refuse to let six-year-old, female-born iO play ball, iO instantly adopts a new persona, becoming a boy named Ricky—a choice iO’s parents support and celebrate. It is the start of a profound exploration of gender and identity through the tenderest years, and the beginning of a life invented and reinvented at every step. Alternating between the harrowing and the hilarious, Darling Days is the candid, tough, and stirring memoir of a young person in search of an authentic self as family and home life devolve into chaos.

Four chronically homeless people–Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger–seek refuge in a warm movie theatre when a severe Arctic Front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world, and once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favour of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck. A found cigarette package (contents: some unsmoked cigarettes, three $20 bills, and a lottery ticket) changes the fortune of this struggling set. The ragged company discovers they have won $13.5 million, but none of them can claim the money for lack proper identification. Enlisting the help of Granite, their lives, and fortunes, become forever changed. Ragged Companyis a journey into both the future and the past. Richard Wagamese deftly explores the nature of the comforts these friends find in their ideas of “home,” as he reconnects them to their histories.

New York Times bestselling inspirational author Karen Kingsbury teams up with NFL quarterback Alex Smith to deliver a heartwarming story about never giving up on your dreams—even when setbacks seem too big to overcome.Alex and his best friend, Bobby, have high hopes for their futures. They may only be in grade school, but Alex dreams of throwing touchdown passes in the NFL, while Bobby fantasizes about soaring above the clouds as a pilot. But as they make moves to follow their dreams, trials arise that could deter them. With a little encouragement from Alex’s grandfather and a lot of dedication, they learn to never give up on their dreams, no matter how big and unreachable they may seem.With illustrations by Greg Banning, Smith’s account of his life as a boy is paired perfectly with Kingsbury’s signature uplifting words. This encouraging picture book will inspire readers to give their all, try their hardest, and . . . go ahead and dream!

PART 3 OF 3 Jackson is aggressive, confrontational and often volatile. His mother, Kayla, is crippled with grief after tragically losing her husband and eldest son. Struggling to cope, she puts Jackson into foster care. Cathy, his carer, encourages Jackson to talk about what has happened to his family, but he just won’t engage. His actions continue to test and worry everyone. Then, in a dramatic turn of events, the true reason for Jackson’s behaviour comes to light ...

"Eddie Wilkens is a workaholic house painter in his early forties. His wife has left him to her regret, and his main employee, Houston, is a loafer and scoundrel who barely shows up for work. Unassuming and self-reliant, Eddie is thoughtful man who rarely gets angry, despite life's frequent provocations, but he is ruled by a guilt that he has carried for nearly twenty years. Next door, a woman and her two sons move in with her frail and aging mother. The youngest boy, Russell, eight-years-old, is quiet and small for his age and lives in constant terror of his increasingly lost and troubled fifteen-year-old brother, Curtis. As their mother struggles to keep the family together and the grandmother's health begins to falter they find themselves unable to protect Russell and themselves from Curtis's cruelty, which threatens to explode in frenetic violence. Though neither knows it, Russell and Eddie will become each other's saving grace. While Russell's home life disintegrates he begins waiting in Eddie's backyard for him to get off work. Eddie offers the boy small acts of kindness: he feeds him, gives him jobs to do, listens to his dreams of escape, and offers Russell a glimpse into a world of hope and humor. A world of misfit painters, a derelict muscle car, an old dog, and the comradery and companionship of Eddie and his crew. In return, Russell gives Eddie a reason to carry on and helps him lay to rest the guilt that has plagued him for half of his life. Together, this makeshift father and son begin to build a better life, daring to trade the bleakness and cynicism around them for hope and friendship."--