Despite The Odds

'Despite the Odds' examines five examples of education reform in South America, focusing on the political battle to secure reform in the face of powerfully entrenched opposition. It shows how strategic choices by reformers can reshape power equations & undermine institutional biases.

This book explores the "resilient" or "invulnerable" child in various at-risk situations. These children are at risk of developing later psychological dysfunctions, but do not. Topics include: divorce, black children from single-parent families, stepchildren, loss of a sibling, teen pregnancy, and attention deficits.

The common thread among the 18 stories in Against the Odds is the way people can resourcefully overcome obstacles to realize their ambitions and dreams. The “odds” are varied in these skillfully written tales. An obstacle to one’s success or happiness may lie in one’s own character or the prejudice of someone else. A potential employer may cast a suspicious eye on an individual’s background. A guardian seems reluctant to sponsor any further education for his charge. Other characters here are looking as much for increased self-respect as financial reward or better training. Set in locales as varied as Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Prince Edward Island, the stories of Against the Odds are peopled with orphans, teachers, actors, struggling single-parent families, intransigent relatives. It’s a world, though distant from our own, where Montgomery’s characters have problems similar to ours, and their methods of solving them are not very different from what we would try.

Against All Odds is the incredible true story of that escape-and of the heart-pounding courage of Major Phil Ashby who defeated the rebel forces of Sierra Leone and became a living testament to the power of the human spirit and the sheer determination to survive. In West Africa's war-ravaged Sierra Leone no one was getting out alive. It took the courage of one man to change the odds. By 1990, Sierra Leone, once hailed as the 'Athens of West Africa', had degenerated into a savage battlefield, overtaken by rebel forces in a devastating civil war. Assigned to spearhead the mission as UN peacekeeper was Major Phil Ashby. But by 2000, the rebel occupation he had worked so diligently to disarm rose again to control an astounding two-thirds of the country. The enemy's mission: get rid of the outside opposition first. A number of Ashby's colleagues were tortured and finally butchered, and more than 500 were taken as hostages. Among the hostages was Phil Ashby. Miles from civilization, with no rescue in sight, Ashby and three of his men knew that their fate was up to them alone. Lost deep inside the rebels' heartland, unarmed, and outnumbered 20-to-1, Ashby devised a plan to escape from the hostile jungles that would test fate and challenge all reason.

Against All Odds is the extraordinary personal story of the man who rose up to meet the challenge of terrific opposition and become one of America's most promising new political figures—Senator Scott Brown. Brown is famous for succeeding popular Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy after Kennedy’s death in 2010—but, as he reveals in a compelling memoir reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue and Clarence Thomas’s My Grandfather’s Son, his experiences with struggle and achievement go back a lifetime.

Anyone who watched part three in the Star Wars movie trilogy, Return of the Jedi, saw Matt Roloff. His handicap helped land him a part as one of the diminutive, furry Ewoks. In Matt's biography Against Tall Odds, readers view a world of fast-walking giants, where common obstacles for most are mountains for little people, and stares from strangers are the norm. Through perseverance and faith, Matt shows that success comes not by trying to be what you're not, but by being what God has made you.

While working for a financial consulting firm that offers insurance against catastrophic events, a young mathematician becomes increasingly obsessed with doomsday scenarios until one of his worst-case scenarios unfolds in Manhattan.

Offers techniques and stories to help individuals with learning problems succeed in school as well as life.

Roma brings authenticity and refreshing keys that guide you out of despair, pain and grief to a place where you can smile again. A life filled with one trauma after another; her daughter brutally murdered, her husband and grand-daughter killed in a light plane crash. Roma has stepped out of the prison of grief and become a prisoner of hope and wholeness.