In a 2014 essay that went viral, Pippa Biddle revealed the inequities and absurdities baked into voluntourism--the pairing of short-term, unskilled volunteer work with tourism. In the years since, Biddle has devoted herself to understanding the origins, intentions, and outcomes of a multibillion-dollar industry built on the premise of doing good, and she tracks that investigation in Ours to Explore. The flaws of voluntourism have included xenophobia, racism, paternalism, and a "West knows best" mentality. From exploitative orphanages that keep children in squalid conditions to attract donors to undertrained medical volunteers practicing their skills on patients in developing regions and to those looking for an inspiring selfie, Biddle reveals the hidden costs of the voluntourism complex. Along the way, readers meet inspiring activists and passionate community members, as well as thoughtful former voluntourists who still work to make a difference--just differently. Ours to Explore offers a plan for how the service-based travel industry can break the cycle of exploitation and suggests strategies for travelers who want to improve the places they visit for the long haul.

2017 ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist (Bibles category) The Girls Life Application Study Bible is the only Bible for tween girls based on the #1-selling Life Application Study Bible. It includes over 800 Life Application notes plus other features and Foundations for Your Faith sections all intended to help girls grow in their Christian faith. The eight full-color and fun sections are designed to help girls learn more about the Bible, understand the Bible's big story, meet Jesus, know what it means to follow him, learn how to share their faith with others, and gain practical faith and relationship skills that will help them live out what they believe. A one-of-a-kind discipleship resource, the Girls Life Application Study Bible helps girls draw closer to God and establish healthy relationships with those around them. The New Living Translation breathes life into even the most difficult-to-understand Bible passages, changing people's lives as the words speak directly to their hearts.

Tourism in Cuba – described by Fidel Castro as 'the evil we have to have' – has been regarded both with ambivalence, and as a crucial aspect of development and poverty alleviation. The result is a remarkable approach to tourism, one which often compels tourists to become agents of development through solidarity. Drawing on her experiences of working in an NGO in Cuba, the author uses a multi-sited ethnographic approach to investigate tourism motivations and experiences, and to examine the very nature of development. Her analysis covers a wide range of issues including social change, globalization, social theory, and sustainability. Also discussed is the way in which tourism in Cuba relates to broader debates surrounding transformation, capacity building, social action and solidarity.