An investigation into the pressures placed on today's gifted children evaluates the long-term consequences of high demands and competitiveness, revealing the truth about current practices in IQ testing, the pitfalls of the No Child Left Behind Act, and the downside of popular practices in over-scheduling. By the author of Branded. Reprint.

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA.

If you do it right, it can be a life. The hothouse, the guys, the glory. But just like that, it can all go up in smoke. In the beginning it was strange, ya know, because of all that we had lost. But there was something about it that felt so good and so right, too: "I'm so proud of you, Russ." "We'll always be here for you, man." "Heroes don't pay for nothin' in this town." It was nonstop. The mayor shook my hand. Ladies sent food. I've never eaten so much baked ham in my life. And now? Now the phone won't stop ringing from the crazies ready to blame me. My mom has to cry herself to sleep. They take a firefighter, a man, and they pump him up so big. . . . But once they start taking it away from you, they don't stop until they leave nothing on the bones. First they needed heroes, then they needed blood.

A Hugo Award–winning classic about a far-future Earth dominated by gargantuan plants and the few humans who remain Millions of years beyond our time, our Earth has long since stopped spinning—and giant flora have taken over the sunlit half of the motionless world. Here humans are among the very few animal species that still exist, struggling to survive against enormous odds, but they have become small and weak, and their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. When the aging leader of Gren’s tribe decrees it is time for the old ones to go “Up,” the younger are left to make their own way below. Although the journey will not be an easy one for young Gren, he sets off on an odyssey across a perilous world populated by carnivorous plants and other evolved vegetation. But any knowledge to be gained at the terminator—the forbidding boundary between the day world and the night—might well prove worthless for the boy and the companions he amasses along the way when the expanding sun goes nova and their Earth is no more. A thrilling parable of courage, discovery, and survival, Hothouse is among Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss’s most beloved and enduring works. Ingeniously inventive, richly detailed, and breathtakingly lush and vibrant, the doomed world and people that Aldiss creates will live forever in the minds of all those who enter this remarkable realm.

An account of the book publisher who is home to more Nobel Prize-winning writers than any other publishing house in the world reveals the era and city that built FSG through the stories of two men--Roger Straus and Robert Giroux.

Critically acclaimed author Alissa Quart breaks the news about an issue that will be of urgent concern to parents and educators as well as adult readers with "gifted" pasts: the dilemma of the gifted child. While studies show that children who are superior learners do benefit from enriched early education, the intensely competitive lives of America's gifted and talented kids do have risks. The pressure can have long-term effects in adult life, from debilitating perfectionism to performance anxiety and lifelong feelings of failure. Quart traveled the country to research the many ways in which the current craze to "produce" gifted kids and prodigies has gone too far. Exploring the overhyped world of baby edutainment and "better baby" early education programs, she takes a hard look at the claims about educational toys and baby sign language. Taking readers inside the ever-more elite world of IQ testing, she reveals the proliferation of new categories of giftedness, including "terrifyingly" and "severely" gifted and examines the true value of such testing. Profiling the explosion of kid competitions-from Scrabble(tm) and chess to child preaching-she uncovers the dangers of such heated pressure to excel so early in life and exposes the prodigy hunters who search science and math fairs for teens to hire for Wall Street investment firms. Critiquing the professionalization of play, she visits with kids who've been identified as prodigies-from a four-year-old painter whose works sell for $300,000, to an eight-year-old professional skateboarder who is backed by nine corporate sponsors. Surveying expert assessments of the necessary role of unstructured play in child development, she warns about the disappearance of recess and the pitfalls of children's overstuffed schedules today. She also profiles the growing divide in opportunities for wealthy kids versus those from middle and lower income families who are losing out as gifted programs at public schools are gutted in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act. How should parents and educators draw the line? How much enrichment is too much, and how much is too little? What are we doing to our gifted kids? Alissa Quart's penetrating in-depth examination provides a much-needed wake-up call that will spark a national debate about this urgent issue.

The TikTok sensation Addicted Series continues with Hothouse Flower, now in a print edition with special bonus material! Ryke Meadows, meet Daisy Calloway ... she's all grown up. Twenty-five-year-old Ryke Meadows knows he's hard to love. With a billion-dollar inheritance, a track-star resume, and an alpha-male personality—he redefines the term likable-asshole. But he's not living to make friends. Or enemies. He just wants to free climb three of the toughest mountains in Yosemite without drama or interruption. And then he receives a distressed call from a girl in Paris. Daisy Calloway is finally eighteen. With her newfound independence, she can say goodbye to her overbearing mother and continue her modeling career. Next stop: Paris. Fashion Week begins with a bang, and Daisy uncovers the ugly reality of the industry. She wants to prove to her family that she can live on her own, but when everything spirals out of control, she turns to Ryke to keep her secrets. As Daisy struggles to make sense of this new world and her freedom, she pushes the limits and fearlessly rides the edge. Ryke knows there's deep hurt beneath every impulsive action. He must keep up with Daisy, and if he lets her go, her favorite motto—"live as if you'll die today"—may just come true.