Junkyard Wisdom

A heartwarming story of friendship and celebrating our differences--and the teachers who help us shine--from master storyteller Patricia Polacco, author of Thank You, Mr. Falker. In this story based on the author-illustrator's own childhood, Patricia Polacco once again celebrates the power teachers have to help us discover the potential we each hold. Young Trisha is devastated when she finds out that her class at her new school is known as the junkyard. It is a special class, and she had moved from where she used to live so she wouldn’t be in a special class anymore! But then she meets her teacher, the amazing Mrs. Peterson, and her classmates, an oddly brilliant group of misfit kids, whom the other kids in school call the junkyard kids. Much to her own surprise, it is here in the junkyard that Trisha discovers the true meaning of genius, and that this group of misfits are, in fact, Junkyard Wonders, each and every one of them. Now with questions at the back of the book to help guide readers through discussions about the ideas featured in the story, this kindness edition of The Junkyard Wonders brings celebrated author-illustrator Patricia Polacco's work to a new audience of young readers who can be inspired by its message.

This resource offers more than 75 innovative, creative, and challenging demonstration games in six traditional team sports (soccer, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and volleyball), while employing nontraditional approaches.

Successful Silicon Valley real estate developer and wealth creator Roy Goble shares the surprising lessons he learned as a boy working in his family junkyard. Skillfully uniting the teachings of Jesus with the sometimes messy realities of leading people and getting things done, Salvaged helps leaders at all levels discover powerful opportunities to follow Jesus in the real world—and in surprisingly simple ways. Working in his dad’s junkyard as a kid, Roy had no idea what his future held: an incredibly successful career in commercial real estate, as well as founding and leading multiple ministries, churches, and nonprofits across the globe. So when Roy talks about what it means to follow Jesus daily as a leader, people pay attention. Entrepreneurs, pastors, and managers who learn to lead from Roy won’t parrot his jargon or practice his “system”—these men and women will simply know how to lead better. After a no-nonsense and compelling introduction, Roy delivers 31 of his most surprising, memorable, and practical leadership lessons, many of which are culled from his junkyard days. Each focuses on a personal “junkyard” story, leadership lesson, and comparable Bible passage perfect for daily study. A growth and action section is included after each chapter that gets to the heart of the lesson through thought-provoking questions with action steps designed to be immediately put into practice.

When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday's newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don't want and turn it into something you can't wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter--veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner--travels deep into a vast, often hidden, five-hundred-billion-dollar industry that's transforming our economy and environment. With unmatched access to and insight on the waste industry, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or a William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America's junk and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of how the way we consume and discard stuff fuels a world that recognizes value where Americans don't. Junkyard Planet reveals that Americans might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.

Pete Greig, the acclaimed author of Red Moon Rising, has written his most intensely personal and honest account yet in God on Mute, a book born out of his wife Samie's fight for her life and diagnosis of a debilitating brain tumor. Greig asks the timeless questions of what it means to suffer and to pray and to suffer through the silence because your prayers seem unanswered. This silence, Greig relates, is the hardest thing. The world collapses. Then all goes quiet. Words can't explain, don't fit, won't work. People avoid you and don't know what to say. So you turn to Him and you pray. You need Him more than ever before. But somehow . . . even God Himself seems on mute. In this heart-searching, honest, and deeply profound book, Pete Greig looks at the hard side of prayer, how to respond when there seem to be no answers, and how to cope with those who seek to interpret our experience for us. Here is a story of faith, hope, and love beyond all understanding.

"Like the fantasies of Tolkien, Thurber, E. B. White, The Mouse and His Child is filled with symbolism and satire, violence and vengeance, tears and laughter." -- The New York Times The images stay with you long after the book is done: the toy mouse and his father, on a journey together joined hand in hand; Manny Rat, the nefarious lord of the junkyard, stalking the toy mice for their clockwork parts; Uncle Frog, spouting wisdom and nonsense from within a glove; and the Bonzo Dog Food dog, repeating himself endlessly on a label, fading away to the last visible dog...Russell Hoban's novel is many things: a stirring adventure story, a sharp-witted comedy, and the moving tale of a father and son struggling to return to a state of grace.Called one of the great works of children's literature of the twentieth century -- but with an audience that spans ages and times -- The Mouse and His Child has been lovingly re-illustrated by Caldecott Medalist David Small for a new generation and a new millennium.

From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a “heartfelt and refreshing” (New York Times) memoir that has inspired thousands to embrace their beginnings, no matter how humble, and to fight for the places they love. This new edition updates and contextualizes the story for a new generation and a wider audience desperately searching for stories of empowerment and hope. Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems her home and her people, while also cataloging the source of her childhood hope: the Edenic longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow amid wiregrass at the feet of widely spaced, lofty trees. Today, the forests exist in fragments, cherished and threatened, and the South of her youth is gradually being overtaken by golf courses and suburban development. A contemporary classic, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a clarion call to protect the cultures and ecologies of every childhood.

The house next door to Sameer’s had been empty for as long as he could remember. The family had gone away when the war began. But now they were back, and he was ready to have fun with his new playmate. Together they could climb the big olive tree that overlooked both their gardens, and eat the delicious olives it produced. The only problem was that Muna, the little girl next door, didn’t want to play and she didn’t want to share the olives. She said they belonged to her family alone—that is, until one fateful night when lightning struck the tree. Poignantly told by award-winning author Elsa Marston and with beautiful paintings from award-winning illustrator Claire Ewart, The Olive Tree follows two children as they learn to share and work together by looking past their differences. It shows young readers that compassion and understanding lie at the heart of all friendships.

Sheriff Longmire finds himself in the middle of a border dispute.

From bestselling author of Fermat's Last Theorem, a must-have for number lovers and Simpsons fans