Take a journey through time as a young girl recounts the exploits of her female ancestors, seven brave women who left their imprints on the past and on her. Beginning with the great-great-great-grandmother who came to America on a wooden sailboat, these women were devout and determined and tireless and beloved.

A young girl recounts the brave exploits of her female ancestors, including her great-great-great grandmother who came to America in a wooden sailboat.

Brave Women of the Early Church is about the setting of the early church and the opposition that women as home church leaders would have faced and had to overcome. I explore seven brave women, from Mary Magdalene who worked with Jesus to others who started churches and worked with Paul. I compare the courageous actions of these women to ways that women today can be a powerful influence for transformaiton in culture and Christian life.

Brave Women of the Early Church is about the setting of the early church and the opposition that women as home church leaders would have faced and had to overcome. I explore seven brave women, from Mary Magdalene who worked with Jesus to others who started churches and worked with Paul. I compare the courageous actions of these women to ways that women today can be a powerful influence for transformaiton in culture and Christian life.

Five Brave Women was written to encourage and inspire young people of all ages. One should never be afraid to speak out against any injustice faced in life, no matter who it is perpetuated against. “For God has not placed in us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). This means that we must speak out against all injustice wherever we see it. If someone is being bullied on the school ground by another student, politely ask the bully to stop. Let the bullies know that they would not like to be treated the same way. God said we should love one another and treat one another with respect. “We should do unto others as we would like done unto us” (Matthew 7:12). When Moses divided God’s promised inheritance among the children of Israel, no land was given to the family of Zelophehad because he had daughters and no sons. So the daughters of Zelophehad took a stand and petitioned Moses, asking for their father’s share of the land. The sisters, in standing up for their rights, were the force behind a change in the law that protected all women. Based in scripture, Five Brave Women was inspired by the five young women described in Numbers 27:1–11. A picture book for children, it encourages females of all ages to speak up when they feel they’re not being treated fairly.

What Is Smart? There's evidence of so much more than "reading, writing, and 'rithmetic" in every child -- at least seven distinct intelligences, according to the theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Harvard's Dr. Howard Gardner. In Seven Times Smarter, veteran educator Laurel Schmidt offers a parent-friendly explanation of this theory and of the ways that kids are -- simply put -- word smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, logic smart, people smart, and self-smart. These intelligences aren't fixed at birth. They can be nurtured and strengthened, meaning that in the right environment, kids get smarter. Seven Times Smarter, an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, and caregivers, provides the perfect way to create this environment. Unlike other craft or activity books that just fill time and keep kids busy, Seven Times Smarter prompts kids aged six to fourteen to work their brains and cultivate new skills using recycled or low-cost materials found in every home -- and enjoy it! It offers an exploration of what it means to be smart, checklists to recognize the seven intelligences in your child, book lists to develop and celebrate all the ways your child is smart, and fifty creative, constructive activities that are good for kids playing alone or in a group, supervised or independently, including: * Memory Tours -- If a memory book is too straightforward for your artistic child, try an un-book, a memory box, or a calendar. * Hanging Gardens -- Indoors or out, even the smallest garden plot can yield a bumper crop of mathematical, linguistic, scientific, and kinesthetic skills. * The Boredom Brigade -- Boredom is a springboard for imagination; imaginary structures, identities, occupations, and friends are just some of the ways kids develop their inter- and intra-personal intelligences. * Junk Yard Genius -- There's an education in junk; in fact, it's easy to turn your broken radio, alarm clock, fan, blow-dryer, or scale into a project that could fascinate kids for days.

From the end of Reconstruction and into the New South era, more than one thousand white southern women attended one of the Seven Sister colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Joan Marie Johnson looks at how such educations--in the North, at some of the country's best schools--influenced southern women to challenge their traditional gender roles and become active in woman suffrage and other social reforms of the Progressive Era South. Attending one of the Seven Sister colleges, Johnson argues, could transform a southern woman indoctrinated in notions of domesticity and dependence into someone with newfound confidence and leadership skills. Many southern students at northern schools imported the values they imbibed at college, returning home to found schools of their own, women's clubs, and woman suffrage associations. At the same time, during college and after graduation, southern women maintained a complicated relationship to home, nurturing their regional identity and remaining loyal to the ideals of the Confederacy. Johnson explores why students sought a classical liberal arts education, how they prepared for entrance examinations, and how they felt as southerners on northern campuses. She draws on personal writings, information gleaned from college publications and records, and data on the women's decisions about marriage, work, children, and other life-altering concerns. In their time, the women studied in this book would eventually make up a disproportionately high percentage of the elite southern female leadership. This collective biography highlights the important part they played in forging new roles for women, especially in social reform, education, and suffrage.