Who is Richard Stands and Why Do Our Children Pledge Their Allegiance to Him?

I remember my first day of school first as a student and then as a teacher. I was even more nervous as a teacher. I knew the material. I understood what I was supposed to teach. But I felt unprepared. When I walked into that classroom, I had no idea how to get my kids to buy what I was selling. After two years of uncertainty and self-doubt, I decided to stop trying to be something I wasn’t. I started being me. No more referring to my class as students. They were now “my kids.” A wise, veteran teacher once told me, “Get your kids to love you and they will do whatever you ask.” That’s exactly what we did. We started building real connections with the kids and their parents. The kids bought in. A lot of the parents did too. This family environment created daily rewards for all of us. These daily rewards were the reason we all wanted to be there.

Open the book. Read the first chapter. Then maybe the chapter on daily rewards. Relate it to your own experiences. See how we created a ‘Triangle of Trust.’ See how we created a family each year for eighteen years. A classroom filled with kindness, compassion, and a lot of laughter and joy. A classroom where good learning flourishes. It works. It’s fun. It’s a real family. Your family. I hope you enjoy it. I still miss opening the door each morning and turning on the light.

Top Leaf

Embark on a delightful journey with a curious little girl, as she unfolds the wonders of her world! Top Leaf invites you to see the magic of everyday through her wide-eyed wonder. Her joy is infectious as she revels in the beauty of trees, cherishes the waves lapping at the beach, and finds excitement in all the little adventures that lie in between. With each page, her enthusiasm for the simple joys around her will surely brighten your day and remind you of the endless magic that surrounds us all. So, come along and discover the world anew through her charming escapades!

The Toad and His Warts

In this endearing Clarke Fable, a young toad finds great delight in counting his glorious warts, but runs into trouble when he tries to count all of them. He remains persistent in his goal, never giving up, and finally finds a solution to his problem. Be sure to look for the beautiful dragonfly as it flits throughout the pages! This book has a repeating chorus that will be helpful to young children who are early readers.

Thought Prints

“Birthed in a month, on a day, somewhere in time. Somewhere in history.

Somewhere in my past, I didn’t exist… But I was to be.”

“When I look back in time, exploring my mind, I realize I didn’t glance…

But I was to see…”

– from “A Letter to Myself.”

With intensity and emotion, Thought Prints reels the reader in instantly! Anyone who has the pleasure of reading this compilation of poems will surely find magic. A collection of poetry with a story to tell!

Eight Fought to Live

1988: 82,362 gay and bisexual men had AIDS.

1989: 100,000 gay and bisexual men had AIDS.

1990: 307,000 gay and bisexual men had AIDS.

These are the two years Dr. Rosiello led an AIDS therapy group at Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City. Within two years each man in her group passed away from AIDS complications. One of these men was Vito Russo, an AIDS activist and historian.

This is the story of eight gay men living with advanced AIDS and one inexperienced fresh out of training psychoanalyst. Each man’s intimate story is peppered with Dr. Rosiello’s anxiety and her growing awareness regarding the importance of emotional authenticity in psychotherapy. The group members had no spare moments for Dr. Rosiello to use her newly learned psychoanalytic techniques. There was only time to be real.

Early on these group members pledged to not die. They pledged emotional support for the life of the group. This pledge held true for over a year. Blood brothers in their fight to live.

Illinois 1000

Illinois 1000 is a quick dive into the lives of the English and the Indians of the Upper Midwest a thousand years ago.

Building on The Year 1000 by British historians Robert Lacey and Danny Danzinger, the author moves from one side of the Atlantic to the other. The contrasts are as much from the past to the present as between the two very different cultures. ‘Primitive’ is often used to describe the Indians’ way of life, and not without at least some reason. So much of what characterized and made English life possible was entirely absent in North America.

Yet, centuries later, hundreds, even thousands of Europeans joined the Indians, preferring their way of living to that which they had known in Europe or colonial America. The Indians, the first people, survived and prospered in what was at that time not amber fields of grain but a very ungenerous landscape. If they were brutal, they were hardly unique. In their affinity to the earth they lived on, there were few like them.

Refrigerator Door

Refrigerator Door!

How one household item became the epicenter for cherished memories.

The refrigerator door – that communal billboard found in every home. Covered in photos, mementos, report cards, and takeout menus, this humble appliance takes on far greater meaning. It becomes a tapestry of everything important to a family.

In Refrigerator Door, author and father Thom reminisces on the refrigerator door of his childhood. This mosaic of fading photos and fridge magnets shaped his upbringing and brought his family together. Now Thom passes along the tradition to his own children, reminding them that even an ordinary door can be transformed into something extraordinary with the memories we choose to display.

Join Thom on this heartwarming journey that reveals how a refrigerator door quietly yet profoundly chronicles the story of a family. More than just a surface for sticking homework assignments and takeout menus, it is a celebration of all that gives our fast-paced lives meaning.

The Loura Lure

Dr. Shamus Bergin lands a coveted position of Staff Psychologist in the Secure Treatment Unit of a mental hospital right out of school. He is soon vexed by an amnesiac patient who defies clinical diagnosis and whom every other doctor has written off. Inconsistencies about the man’s origins intersect with Shamus’s own doubts that the patient even belongs in an institution.

As his own investigation continues to be met with redacted files and evasion from governmental agencies, the doctor-patient relationship suddenly undergoes a radical shift. The patient discloses that he has time travelled from a forgotten Age of Loura to seek help from modern day members of The Sacred Order of Keepers to find the last living angel. Only the angel can turn the tide in the ultimate struggle between good and evil in this deliberately erased timeline 20,000 years in the past. With his parents tragically lost in a boating accident a decade earlier, Shamus must turn to his one true friend, Dr. John Browse, to make sense of the voices within which are calling him to action.

With career and grip on sanity at stake, Shamus must decide whether he has succumbed to the delusions of a sick mind or whether he should take a leap of faith and help the man achieve his mission.

M.A.X.X.

Marie Winterfield founded and directed the S.N.O.W. agency, a group of advanced investigative search and rescue specialists, is world renowned for cracking the toughest cases. When a massive power outage in New York City compromises the FBI, CIA, and NASA; Marie takes on her hardest case ever; taking on a top-secret agency that was believed to be shut down, but has actually gone global, kidnapping, killing, and framing innocent people for crimes they did not commit.

When things get out of hand and people start dying, Marie realizes that even her closest friends and colleagues have been corrupted, and her enemies are everywhere. She isn’t safe at home, at work, she isn’t safe… anywhere. Can Marie stop this group of computer criminal masterminds before it is to late or are they even the real enemy? Hold tight in this nonstop futuristic thriller with all the twists and turns that come with it.

Below

Drawing inspiration from a chilling, real-life enigma of an airline crash in the Gulf of Mexico, this thriller plunges deep into the heart of the southern U.S.

What dark secrets did the passenger on the ill-fated flight harbor, and what unspeakable terror was he transporting?

Dive into a tale where every twist beckons a haunting question, pulling you deeper into the mystery.