“This book actually breaks the rules just by existing. This much sheer coolness should not be allowed in one volume!” —Jordan Sonnenblick, bestselling author of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie In Break These Rules, 35 favorite middle grades and young adult authors—including Kathryn Erskine, A. S. King, Matthew Quick, Sara Zarr, Gary Schmidt, and many others—speak directly to their readers and advise them to break the boundaries of conformity. In moving, inspiring, often funny essays they take on many of the powerfully inhibiting, often unspoken “rules” of adolescence, such as Boys shouldn’t be gentle, kind, and caring; Thou shalt wear Abercrombie & Fitch to fit in; You must be a jock or a nerd--you can’t be both; and Girls should “act like girls.” It is often through reading fiction that kids start to question such restrictions, so who better to speak to them directly than their favorite novelists? The book is focused on encouraging students to break rules in their own lives—a prospect many teens and tweens will find thrilling and fresh. Luke Reynolds has taught middle and high school English in Connecticut and Massachusetts, as well as composition at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of A Call to Creativity and Keep Calm and Query On.

Before Kyle rides a school bus for the first time, his older brother gives him a list of rules he must follow, but after breaking every single one on the first day, Kyle discovers the rule his brother left out.

Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its revolutionary study of more than 80,000 managers in First, Break All the Rules, revealing what the world’s greatest managers do differently. With vital performance and career lessons and ideas for how to apply them, it is a must-read for managers at every level. The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why. Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup’s research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee’s talent into performance. In today’s tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer. The authors explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations for him or her — they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps; how they motivate people — they build on each person’s unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people — they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. And perhaps most important, this research — which initially generated thousands of different survey questions on the subject of employee opinion — finally produced the twelve simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. This book is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.

New York Times Bestseller How women can make it to the top by adopting the new rules of leadership Women hold just 11 percent of the most senior-level leadership positions in U.S. Corporations—a number that hasn't changed in over 30 years. How can women break through? Break Your Own Rules distills the six faulty assumptions (or "rules") most women follow that get in the way—then delivers the correlating new rules that promise to clear that path. For example, the old rule of "Focus on Others" must be replaced by "Take Center Stage," "Hard Work Will Get You There" must yield to "Be Politically Savvy." "Play It Safe" must give way to "Play to Win." "Ask Permission" must be replaced by "Proceed Until Apprehended." Features the results of over 1,700 interviews with executives in Fortune 1000 companies, as well as the authors' new research and ongoing work with over 5,000 professional women Showcases previously-untold stories from high profile women including Ann Moore (CEO, Time Inc.), Susan Ivey (CEO, Reynolds American), Cathy Bessant (Global Executive for Technology and Operations for Bank of America), Lynn Ford (CEO, ING Solutions), and more Reveals what it really takes for any woman to succeed at the highest levels Foreword by Sharon Allen, Chairman of Deloitte This hands-on guide is for women who are ready to transform their assumptions and join the senior ranks of American business.

Daughters Rule Number Six: Never talk to the press about your parents. After leaking a story about the family business, impetuous high school freshman Carina Jurgensen is cut off by her billionaire father. Always resourceful, she fibs her way into a job as a party planner for New York's annual Silver Snowflake Ball. But when Carina finds out that the party committee expects favors and freebies from her dad's A-list connections, a choice must be made: Does she get real about her downgraded status, or pretend she's still the ultimate heiress? Best friends and fellow daughters of celebrities Lizzie Summers, Carina Jurgensen and Hudson Jones are back in Joanna Philbin's second stylish and heartfelt Daughters novel.

In this groundbreaking work of ecstatic criticism, Carole Maso shows why she has risen, over the past fifteen years, as one of the brightest stars in the literary firmament. Ever refusing to be marginalized or categorized by genre, Maso is an incisive, compassionate writer who deems herself daughter of William Carlos Williams, a pioneer in combining poetry and fiction with criticism, journalism, and the visual arts. She is daughter, too, of Allen Ginsberg, who also came from Paterson, New Jersey. Known for her audacity, whether exploring language and memory or the development of the artistic soul, Maso here gives us a form–challenging collection, intelligent, and persuasive.

Honest and full of heart, this clever contemporary romance debut deftly combines utterly relatable family drama with all the sweetness and uncertainty that comes with falling in love. Rule #1: Don't get attached. Amber lives by strict rules to survive her mother’s love life: Always keep your eyes on the horizon and never get close to anyone connected to Mom's boyfriends. But after they move in with Kevin, the latest of her mom's “soul mates,” the rules become increasingly difficult to follow. Kevin’s daughter, Cammie, keeps acting like Amber’s friend, even though she’s definitely not. And Jordan—star basketball player, hottest boy in school, and Cammie's best friend—keeps showing up at the most inconvenient moments. Amber has reasons for every one of her rules, and following them is the only way to protect her heart when her mom inevitably moves on. But as she spends more time with Kevin, his daughter, and especially Jordan, she starts to wonder if the rules might be worth breaking this time. Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, Rules We're Meant to Break is a charming, heartachingly real story of family and young love by debut author Natalie Williamson. Praise for Rules We're Meant to Break: "Vibrant and funny and completely relatable. ... The perfect read for anyone wanting to be swept away." —Danielle Stinson, author of Before I Disappear "Rules We’re Meant to Break is one of those young adult contemporaries that I truly resonated with... What an amazing debut! I cannot wait to see what Natalie Williamson writes next!" —The Write Kind of Love