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"While vacationing at the beach with her mother, Sasha Samokhina meets the mysterious Farit Kozhennikov under the most peculiar circumstances. The teenage girl is powerless to refuse when this strange and unusual man with an air of the sinister directs her to perform a task with potentially scandalous consequences. He rewards her effort with a strange golden coin. As the days progress, Sasha carries out other acts for which she receives more coins from Kozhennikov. As summer ends, her domineering mentor directs her to move to a remote village and use her gold to enter the Institute of Special Technologies. Though she does not want to go to this unknown town or school, she also feels it's the only place she should be. Against her mother's wishes, Sasha leaves behind all that is familiar and begins her education. As she quickly discovers, the institute's "special technologies" are unlike anything she has ever encountered. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, their families pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of ... and suddenly all she could ever want"--Front jacket flap.

Provides a guide for young people on how to help a friend who is dealing with an abusive relationship.

This book investigates the historical and contemporary forms of discrimination faced by those with mental illness. Provides a valuable resource for researching the hot topic of discrimination and injustice against a group of individuals--one that is often overlooked by society as well as by reference books. Supplies annotated primary sources that will serve to improve readers' research and critical reasoning skills. Examines the role the media has played in discriminatory practices towards mental illness. Explores several contemporary issues related to mental illness--including diversity, comorbidity, homelessness, veterans, and the criminal justice system--and their intersection with discrimination.

Dana, a young black writer, can't explain how she is transported across time and space from her loving home in 1970s California to a plantation in Maryland. But she does quickly understand why: to deal with the troubles of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder - and her progenitor. Her survival, her very existence, depends on it.

Jamie Grimm tries to win the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic Contest, while also dealing with his stepfamily, friends, and a school bully.

Born of a brief encounter between a Liverpool prostitute and an African soldier in 1907, Beck finds himself orphaned as a young boy and sent overseas to the Catholic Brothers in Canada.

"Parents, teens, and survivors are lucky that Elin Stebbins Waldal has the courage to share her own harrowing experience with teen dating violence. At 17 she unwittingly fell in love with an abusive man. Tornado Warning is the true, honest portrait of how he whittled her down--with words, hands, and weapons--from a confident teen to the shadow of a woman. But Elin offers more. Interwoven with herreal-life journal, she reflects on how this relationship hasaffected her since, and how she is working to protect her teenagers from succumbing to a similar experience"--Back cover.

A collection of news articles by Seymour Hersh that originally appeared in "The New Yorker" that address a variety of topics related to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Eighteen-year-old Jarra, one of the unlucky few born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets, derided as an "ape" and a "throwback" by the rest of the universe, is on a mission to prove that Earth Girls are just as good as anyone else, except now the planet she loves is under threat by what could be humanity's first ever alien contact, not only is her specialist knowledge and bravery challenged, but she must discover if the rest of the universe considers Earth worth fighting for.