Central Skagit Library District

"A windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare. She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn't their Lena. The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn't sharing, and Lena's devastated father is...

Sharing nothing in common except their 16-year-old daughter, divorced parents John and Irene reconnect in the wake of a devastating tragedy and discover things about each other that they had not revealed during their marriage.

Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. In asking, what are the effects of children on their parents, the author analyzes the many ways in which children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers,...

"A novel about a married Nigerian couple who must grapple with staggering levels of loss and betrayal in their quest to create a family for themselves"-- Yejide and Akin fell in love and married while at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide agreed polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage-- after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures-- Yejide is still...

The current model of parental discipline is as outdated as a rotary phone. Why don't our kids do what we want them to do? Parents often take the blame for misbehavior, but this obscures a broader trend: in our modern, highly connected age, children have less self-control than ever. About half of the current generation of children will develop a mood or behavioral disorder or a substance addiction by age eighteen. Contemporary kids need to learn independence...

In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.

"By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids have learned that 'fat' is bad. As they get older, kids learn to pursue thinness in order to survive in a world that ties our body size to our value. Multibillion-dollar industries thrive on consumers believing that we don't want to be fat. Our weight-centric medical system pushes 'weight loss' as a prescription, while ignoring social determinants of health and reinforcing negative stereotypes about...

The story continues for the children of The life series, now they are three, as they reveal what it takes to give a child the best chance at life. Over two episodes Life at 3 measures our group of children against the latest scientific findings on two of the hottest topics in child development, obesity and bad behaviour. The life series is made in conjunction with a long-term study, Growing up in Australia, in which 10,000 children have been placed...

A young boy living in the Florida backwoods is forced to decide the fate of a fawn he has lovingly raised as a pet.

A young boy named Alex enjoys the homes of both of his parents who live apart but love Alex very much.