Saving Sycamore

Download or read book Saving Sycamore written by Molly Hudgens and published by Dave Burgess Consulting. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Power of Faith, Hope, and Relationships On September 28, 2016, school counselor Molly Hudgens was in her office at Sycamore Middle School when a fourteen-year-old armed with a semiautomatic handgun and an additional magazine of ammunition came to her in the counseling department. His plan was to kill people on campus. He told Hudgens she was the only person who could talk him out of it. After ninety minutes of talking with the young man, and ultimately praying on her knees with him, he relinquished the gun with no shots fired and no lives lost. In this memoir, Hudgens shares the story of that day and the thirty-nine years and 364 days leading up to it that prepared her for the best and worst day of her life. Her story is one of triumph over adversity and hope found in the bleakest of moments. As Hudgens walks readers through the incident, she shares how her faith, rapport with the student, and a strong school community guided her efforts and provided a positive outcome that day. How do you have compassion for a student sitting in your office with a loaded gun and the desire to kill? Saving Sycamore is the remarkable story of a woman whose compassion was stronger than the homicidal rage in the heart of a desperate student.--Peter Langman, PhD, author of School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators; director of Research and School Safety Training, Drift Net Securities Saving Sycamore illustrates Molly's leadership, compassion, faith, and vulnerability when the members of her school community needed her most on that fateful day and in the aftermath. This is a book about a faith journey.--Frank DeAngelis, principal of Columbine High School, 1996-2014; author of They Call Me "Mr. De" The Story of Columbine's Heart, Resilience, and Recovery Saving Sycamore is a must-read to learn how God worked to truly save lives at Sycamore Middle School.--Major General William B. Raines, Jr., USA (retired); Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center Executive Board

Download or read book Saving Wonder written by Mary Knight and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this utterly transporting debut about the power of words, the importance of friendship, and the magic of wonder, Curly Hines must decide whether to fight to save the mountain he calls home. Having lost most of his family to coal mining accidents as a little boy, Curley Hines lives with his grandfather in the Appalachian Mountains of Wonder Gap, Kentucky. Ever since Curley can remember, Papaw has been giving him a word each week to learn and live. Papaw says words are Curley's way out of the holler, even though Curley has no intention of ever leaving.When a new coal boss takes over the local mining company, life as Curley knows it is turned upside down. Suddenly, his best friend, Jules, is interested in the coal boss's son, and worse, the mining company threatens to destroy Curley and Papaw's mountain. Now Curley faces a difficult choice. Does he use his words to speak out against Big Coal and save his mountain, or does he remain silent and save his way of life?From debut author Mary Knight comes a rich, lyrical, and utterly transporting tale about friendship, the power of words, and the difficult hurdles we must overcome for the people and places we love.

Download or read book Sycamore written by Bryn Chancellor and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Southwest Book of the Year "In this masterful performance, Bryn Chancellor explores the loss around which an entire community has calcified with humanity and wisdom. Chancellor digs deep in these pages, unearthing broken hearts, secrets, betrayals, passion and—most impressively—grace. What a joy to find a book that is both propulsive and perfectly composed."—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest An award-winning writer makes her debut with this mesmerizing page-turner in the spirit of Everything I Never Told You and Olive Kitteridge. Out for a hike one scorching afternoon in Sycamore, Arizona, a newcomer to town stumbles across what appear to be human remains embedded in the wall of a dry desert ravine. As news of the discovery makes its way around town, Sycamore’s longtime residents fear the bones may belong to Jess Winters, the teenage girl who disappeared suddenly some eighteen years earlier, an unsolved mystery that has soaked into the porous rock of the town and haunted it ever since. In the days it takes the authorities to make an identification, the residents rekindle stories, rumors, and recollections both painful and poignant as they revisit Jess’s troubled history. In resurrecting the past, the people of Sycamore will find clarity, unexpected possibility, and a way forward for their lives. Skillfully interweaving multiple points of view, Bryn Chancellor knowingly maps the bloodlines of a community and the indelible characters at its heart. Evocative and atmospheric, Sycamore is a coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a moving exploration of the elemental forces that drive human nature—desire, loneliness, grief, love, forgiveness, and hope—as witnessed through the inhabitants of one small Arizona town.

Download or read book Underneath the Sycamore Tree written by B. Celeste and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of BookTok #sadbooks comes an emotional love story that will break your heart and mend it at the same time. Time is a luxury we don't all have... Emery Matterson's life has been broken for a while. First, she lost her twin sister—the other half of her heart—to an incurable autoimmune disease. Then her father left. Now Emery has been diagnosed with the same disease that killed her sister, and her mother is falling apart. Unable to live under the same roof anymore, the only option for Emery is to move in with a father she hasn't seen in ten years and try to start over. Enter Kaiden Monroe, the brooding athlete who has baggage of his own. Kaiden makes Emery feel normal. Hated. Cared for. Loathed. And...loved. Somewhere along the way, Emery finds solace in the guy with the sad eyes. But everything happens in stages. And nothing good ever lasts. From fan-favorite author B. Celeste comes a raw, real, and unforgettable story of love and loss between two young people grappling with the harsh reality of invisible disease.

Download or read book The Incredible Charlotte Sycamore written by Kate Maddison and published by Holiday House. This book was released on 2013-03-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queen Victoria's court knows Charlotte Sycamore as the mild-mannered sixteen-year-old daughter of Her Majesty's royal surgeon. Yet Charlotte has a penchant for inventing new gadgets, and most nights she sneaks out to sword fight with her best friends, Peter and Jillian. When the three are mauled by what look like rabid dogs, Charlotte is forced to hide both her friends and her own injury. As her symptoms worsen and people are murdered across London, she embarks on a race against time to find the antidote and ultimately save the queen's life. Full of action, a luxe royal court, engineered beasts, and a good dose of humor, this steampunk novel is a masterful blend of science fiction, fantasy, and alternative history.

Download or read book A Dresser of Sycamore Trees written by Garret Keizer and published by Non Pareil Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prophet Amos, a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, had a parallel, and more challenging, calling as a shepherd of human souls. So too does Garret Keizer, an Episcopalian minister to the community of Island Pond in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. This profoundly contemporary book displays not only Keizer's knowledge of life's small practicalities (winding the church clock, shopping for groceries), but also his insights about faith and the mysterious ways of God. With an eye attuned to both the pleasures and foibles that make life on earth so rich, he presents a refreshing and often hilarious account of the hands-on work needed to maintain a parish and sustain its spirit. He is a man who believes that God's intentions, if seldom apparent, are inevitably compassionate and compelling.

Download or read book Big Sycamore Stands Alone written by Ian W. Record and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western Apaches have long regarded the corner of Arizona encompassing Aravaipa Canyon as their sacred homeland. This book examines the evolving relationship between this people and this place, illustrating the enduring power of Aravaipa to shape and sustain contemporary Apache society. Big Sycamore Stands Alone: The Western Apaches, Aravaipa, and the Struggle for Place articulates Aravaipa’s cultural legacy as seen through the eyes of some of its descendants, bringing Apache voices, knowledge, and perspectives to the fore. Focusing on the Camp Grant Massacre as its narrative centerpiece, Ian Record employs a unique approach that reflects how the Apaches conceptualize their history and identity, interweaving four distinct narrative threads: contemporary oral histories of individuals from the San Carlos reservation, historic documentation of Apache relationships to Aravaipa following the reservation’s establishment, descriptions of pre-reservation subsistence practices, and a history of early Apache struggles to maintain their connection with Aravaipa in the face of hostility from outsiders. In addition, Record has mined the research notes of Grenville Goodwin to document important elements of Apache economic, political, and social organization in pre-reservation times. A landmark ethnohistory, Big Sycamore Stands Alone documents a story that goes far beyond Cochise, Geronimo, and the Chiricahuas. Record’s work is a trailblazing synthesis of historical and anthropological materials that lends new insight into the relationship between people and place.