Ernestine, the young heroine of Back Home, and her great-aunt Odessa often ride the trolley to the railroad station to watch the trains from North Carolina come in. When Ernestine finally travels on a train to the place of her birth, everyone in her family sacrifices something to make her trip possible. Gloria Jean and Jerry Pinkney together depict family warmth as bright as sunshine. Full color.

Mr. Gumpy accepts more and more riders on his boat until the inevitable occurs.

“Fascinating, funny, and wise, The Family Outing is an affirmation to all of us who know the pain and shame of hiding our truest self, and a stirring invitation into the courage, freedom, and joy of living our whole truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed, founder of Together Rising A striking and remarkable literary memoir about one family’s transformation, with almost all of them embracing their queer identities. Jessi Hempel was raised in a seemingly picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her father was constantly away from home, traveling for work, while her stay-at-home mother became increasingly lonely and erratic. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world. By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.

From Chastity Bono, daughter of Sonny and Cher, heroine of the gay community, comes the first comprehensive guide to the coming-out process, written from the perspective of both gays and lesbians and their parents.

In James Baldwin’s classic short story, “The Outing,” from Going to Meet the Man, a Harlem church group escapes the city for a summer day-trip of prayer and, more importantly, romance. Every summer, the Harlem Mount of Olives Pentecostal Assembly gives an outing, around the Fourth of July. There is boating, testifying, and illicit steps towards young love. Delving deeply into the church community he would depict in Go Tell It On The Mountain, this is Baldwin at his most compassionate, investigating the sexual ambivalence and towering religion of a group of young children on their way up the Hudson. “The Outing” is the perfect introduction to an American master. An eBook short.

The Outing is part of the Jolly Phonics Readers Level 3 General Fiction series. It is the third of four levels of decodable books, providing the best start for children just starting to read. In addition to the 42 letter sounds, and /y/ used for the /ee/ sound at the end of words like ‘funny’, Level 3 introduces the ‘magic e’ for spelling words with the long vowels, as in ‘make’, ‘like’, ‘bone’ and ‘tune’. Tricky words are shown at the beginning of each book. Comprehension questions and discussion topics are provided at the end of each book. Also includes guidance for teachers and parents. Light type is used as a guide for those few letters that should not be sounded out, such as the /b/ in lamb. Titles included in the General Fiction series: The Three Billy Goats Gruff The Fox and the Stork The Outing The Little Merman The Cricket and the Ants Little Monsters

The inquisitive Fred goes out to find food for his increasingly large family, but he gets more than he bargained for when he has a 'close encounter' with a 'big person'. The world can be such a scary place, especially when you are only 'mouse size'. A light-hearted story with a warm-hearted look at some issues raised during the pandemic with younger readers in mind, with slightly quirky watercolour and ink illustrations. Ideal as a read-aloud bedtime story.