When Odessa Blackburn is three years old, she sees her grandmother for the last time, and so begins her story as the fifth born of eight children in a troubled family. Molested by her father, Odessa is also the sole witness to a murder he commits. Her mother guards both secrets and joins her husband in ostracizing their fifth born from the rest of her siblings. As Odessa grows, so do her troubles. She ultimately separates herself from her parents and siblings into a new reality that prompts memory and revelation. Her choices for survival provoke an outcome that will forever alter the carefully maintained lies of her childhood. Zelda Lockhart's Fifth Born is lyrically written, poignant and powerful in its exploration of how secrets can tear families apart and unravel people's lives. Set in rural Mississippi and St. Louis, Missouri, Fifth Born is a story of loss and redemption, as Odessa walks away from those who she believes to be her kin to discover the meaning of family.

The miracle of life—for a new generation. The completely revised fifth edition of the beloved classic offers an astonishing glimpse of the world within the womb alongside authoritative advice for expectant parents. Deep inside a woman’s body, a miracle occurs. An egg and sperm meet and a new human being is created. Through the unique photographs of Lennart Nilsson, we see the fascinating process of fertilization unfold and watch as an embryo develops from a tiny cluster of cells into a fetus, growing and maturing day by day until the time comes to meet the world outside the womb. The book also describes pregnancy from a parent's perspective, diving into maternity care, health during pregnancy, prenatal testing, and labor and delivery. First published nearly fifty years ago, A Child Is Born broke astonishing new ground, bringing the magic of pregnancy and birth to life. This is the fifth edition of the beloved international classic, which teams Nilsson’s classic medical photographs with new documentary photographs by Linda Forsell and a revised text by professor Lars Hamberger and midwife Gudrun Abascal.

After her brother Lamont Blackburn dies of complications associated with AIDS, Odessa Lacey's quest to fulfill Lamon't wish for a connection with their siblings finds her navigating through a family history filled with incest, homophobia, and abuse.

Classic horror of a family torn apart by the arrival of Ben, their feral fifth child. 'Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other's hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.' Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt's life is a hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, 'full of cold dislike, ' tears at Harriet's breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness and a strange defiance she has never known before, Harriet is deeply afraid of what, exactly, she has brought into the world..

A long time ago in China, there existed three Books of Peace that proved so threatening to the reigning powers that they had them burned. Many years later Maxine Hong Kingston wrote a Fourth Book of Peace, but it too was burned--in the catastrophic Berkeley-Oakland Hills fire of 1991, a fire that coincided with the death of her father. Now in this visionary and redemptive work, Kingston completes her interrupted labor, weaving fiction and memoir into a luminous meditation on war and peace, devastation and renewal.

H. P. Lovecraft's classic novel, set in Rhode Island, and illustrated by Jason Eckhardt.