Ironman

Stotan: A cross between a Stoic and a Spartin

It's the last swimming season for Walker, Nortie, Lion, and Jeff, and their coach is building their self-discipline in a grueling four-hour-a-day test of stamina designed to bring them to the outer edge of their capabilities.

As it turns out, Stotan Week is also the week in which secrets are revealed, and the four friends must draw upon their new strengths for an endurance they never knew they'd need.

Is someone you care about gambling your life away?

You don't have to be a gambler yourself to suffer from the often disastrous effects of excessive gambling. Behind the 8-Ball is the must-have guide to reclaiming your financial, legal, and emotional freedom.

Spouses, parents, siblings, children, friends, and coworkers of the gambler will learn how to:

• Understand why some people lose control of their gambling
• Recognize the compulsive gambler and realistically assess the financial and emotional damage he or she is causing you and others
• Accept that you can't control someone else's gambling
• Encourage the gambler to seek help
• Recover from being involved with a gambler

For anyone who is or has ever been involved with someone who gambles too much, this supportive, informative volume delivers all the tools and motivation you need to rebuild your life.

"This book is essential for gamblers, families, friends, and professionals who need to know more about the personalities of gamblers ... It is a precise, updated, and accurate look at how gambling affects families."

- Timothy W. Fong, MD, co-director, UCLA Gambling Studies Program

"This book remains as important today as ever and has remained the standard reference for family members of gamblers."

A varsity letter jacket: it's exclusive, nearly unattainable, revered . . . and everything that's screwed up about Cutter High, as far as T. J. Jones is concerned. That's why T. J. is determined to have the Cutter All Night Mermen—the unlikeliest swim team a high school has ever seen—earn letter jackets of their own.

It won't be easy. For one thing, they don't even have a pool. They will fight for their dignity, they will fight with each other, and sometimes they will just fight. And then they will realize that a single moment can bring lifelong heartache or lifelong friendship. For T. J. and his crew of misfits, the quest may be far more valuable than the reward.

Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood. Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer. But as his prospects for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and his books for comfort. Here in his own words is the story of one of the strongest voices in children's and young adult literature today.

Every kid in this group wants to fly. Every kid in this group has too much ballast.

Mr. Nak's Angry Management group is a place for misfits. A place for stories. And, man, does this crew have stories.

There's Angus Bethune and Sarah Byrnes, who can hide from everyone but each other. Together, they will embark on a road trip full of haunting endings and glimmering beginnings.

And Montana West, who doesn't step down from a challenge. Not even when the challenge comes from her adoptive dad, who's leading the school board to censor the article she wrote for the school paper.

And straightlaced Matt Miller, who had never been friends with outspoken genius Marcus James. Until one tragic week—a week they'd do anything to change—brings them closer than Matt could have ever imagined.

Chris Crutcher fills these three stories with raw emotion. They are about insecurity, anger, and prejudice. But they are also about love, freedom, and power. About surviving.

And hope.