There are certain books that find their way into your hands, and then there are those that seem to pull you in, demanding to be written. This story, "A Ritual Opens A Portal That Cannot Be Closed Easily," is one of the latter. It began not as a grand design, but as a whisper, a persistent question that kept me up at night: what if our deepest desires, our most fervent wishes, could indeed be granted, but at a cost far greater than we could ever conceive? What if the very act of seeking ans...

Lay the critical foundation for reading fluency with this engaging resource! Increasing Fluency with High Frequency Word Phrases offers 20 creative lessons that analyze high frequency practice to gain word recognition, expression, and fluency with comprehension questions to evaluate mastery. A fluency rubric and reference list of oral reading strategies are included to support learning success. Based on Dr. Timothy’s expert fluency research and Dr. Edward Fry’s Instant Words, t...

In this collection of short stories by Anthony Trollope: A Viennese musician courts a much younger woman. A young man must choose between pursuing his literary aspirations and supporting his wife and child. Two brothers on opposing sides of the American Civil War compete for the same woman's affections. A man recounts the unfortunate manner he first met his long-time friend. A young woman and a young man argue over the rights to a local cove and its seaweed crop. A bride struggles to find ...

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north-south line. Mark Lewis traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions.The Yangzi River valley arose as the rice-producing center of the country. Literatur...

A sweeping and surprising new understanding of extreme poverty in America from the authors of the acclaimed $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America.“This book forces you to see American poverty in a whole new light.” (Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty, by America and Evicted)Three of the nation’s top scholars – known for tackling key mysteries about poverty in America – turn their attention from the coun...

In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia.The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the W...

Surveys are used extensively in psychology, sociology and business, as well as many other areas, but they are becoming increasingly difficult to conduct. Some segments of the population are hard to sample, some are hard to find, others are hard to persuade to participate in surveys, and still others are hard to interview. This book offers the first systematic look at the populations and settings that make surveys hard to conduct and at the methods researchers use to meet these challenges. ...

While admitting particular parameters and priorities for Roman Catholic preachers, this volume was intentionally envisioned as a handbook for "catholic" preaching in the broadest and most universal sense of that term. Cosponsored by the Catholic Academy of Liturgy, the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics, and the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, it covers the role of the Scriptures in preaching, the challenges of preaching in a digital age, sermonizing in an interf...

Originally published in 1992 Economics for the Wilds argues that an economics that properly values the resources of the wilds offers the best long-term security for their future. Most of the world’s wilds have, in fact, always been utilized by local societies who have managed their resources sustainably, and one important guarantee for their preservation is therefore the continued participation of those communities and an adequate reward to them for their management. The book look...

Recent advances in techniques available to memory researchers have led to a rapid expansion in the field of cognitive neuroscience of memory. This book provides accessible coverage of four key areas of recent advance, including research on functional imaging, electrophysiological and lesion studies, and developments from the computational modelling approach. The first section reviews functional imaging studies in humans, with particular emphasis on how imaging methods have clarified the co...

Designed as a research-based yet matter-of-fact guide for beginning and future scientist-practitioners, A Practical Guide to Building Professional Competencies in School Psychology skillfully augments the reader’s training, supervision, and experience by providing a framework for honing essential skills in the field. This reader-friendly, evidence-based text encourages the continuing development of expertise in communication and collaborative skills, diversity awareness, technical...

In this book, we document and evaluate the recovery of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The Great Lakes region is unique in that it was the only portion of the lower 48 states where wolves were never c- pletely extirpated. This region also contains the area where many of the first m- ern concepts of wolf conservation and research where developed. Early proponents of wolf conservation such as Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson, and Durward Allen lived and wo...