Schools That Change: Evidence-Based Improvement and Effective Change Leadership

Title: Schools That Change: Evidence-Based Improvement and Effective Change Leadership

Author: Lew Smith

Pages: 298

Call Number: LB2822.82 .S645 2008

Synopsis: """Schools That Change "integrates equal parts passion and intellect. A well-crafted contribution to the literature on successful reform and a sophisticated and nuanced book that should be read with care.""???From the Foreword by Michael Fullan ""Schools have shown themselves to be gifted and talented at resisting and subverting change. Lew Smith hands us the keys to the storehouse of insights about how schools can change???really change.""???Roland Barth, Founder, The Principals' Center, Harvard UniversityAuthor, "Lessons Learned" "Learn from schools that have made meaningful, positive, and lasting changes!" With an in-depth look at eight schools across the nation???winners of the National School Change Awards???this illuminating resource shows how schools can transform themselves from low-performing into exemplary national status. Qualitative research, specific examples, and portraiture offer an inside view of the day-to-day dynamics of change in schools. This insightful book examines questions such as: Why are some schools able to change while other schools cannot?Why are people challenged by change?What is the best way to measure change?What professional characteristics must principals develop to bring about significant and sustainable change? Learn how your school can realize substantive change that supports a culture of learning, teacher development, and enhanced student achievement.-- Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/7/09

Helping Children with Autism Learn: Treatment Approaches for Parents and Professionals

Title: Helping Children with Autism Learn: Treatment Approaches for Parents and Professionals

Author: Bryna Siegel

Call Number: LC4717 .S54 2003

Pages: 498

Synopsis:
Bryna Siegel gives parents of autistic children what they need most: hope. Her first book, The World of the Autistic Child, became an instant classic, illuminating the inaccessible minds of afflicted children. Now she offers an equally insightful, thoroughly practical guide to treating the learning differences (which she sees as 'autistic learning disabilities') associated with this heartbreaking disorder. -- Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/7/09.

Fire from the Rock

Title: Fire from the Rock

Author: Sharon M. Draper

Call Number: PZ7.D78325 Fi 2007

Pages: 240

Synopsis: Sylvia is shocked and confused when she is asked to be one of the first black students to attend Central High School, which is scheduled to be integrated in the fall of 1957, whether people like it or not. Before Sylvia makes her final decision, smoldering racial tension in the town ignites into flame. When the smoke clears, she sees clearly that nothing is going to stop the change from coming. It is up to her generation to make it happen, in as many different ways as there are colors in the world. -- Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/7/09.

The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

Title: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

Author: Leonard Susskind

Call Number: QC174.12 .S896 2008

Pages: 480

Synopsis: At the beginning of the 21 st century, physics is being driven to very unfamiliar territory--the domain of the incredibly small and the incredibly heavy. The new world is a world in which both quantum mechanics and gravity are equally important. But mysteries remain. One of the biggest involved black holes. Famed physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that anything sucked in a black hole was lost forever. For three decades, Leonard Susskind and Hawking clashed over the answer to this problem. Finally, in 2004, Hawking conceded. THE BLACK HOLE WAR will explain the mind-blowing science that finally won out, and the emergence of a new paradigm that argues the world--this catalog, your home, your breakfast, you--is actually a hologram projected from the edges of space. -- Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/7/09.

Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice

Title: Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice

Author: Verna Benner Carson (Editor), Harold G. Koenig (Editor)

Call Number: RT85.2 .C37 2008

Pages: 416

Synopsis: In this highly anticipated revised edition of Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, co-editors Verna Benner Carson and Harold G. Koenig offer a thorough update to this seminal work on spirituality and health in the nursing field. The revised edition builds on the foundations laid in the first, providing perspectives on new research in the spiritual dimensions of nursing care, applying nursing theory to spiritual care, and addressing the spiritual needs of both nurses and patients. It also examines ethical issues in nursing and the impact of legal decisions on health care issues. Contributors address issues of spiritual development across the entire lifespan-from the spiritual needs and influences of the very young to the elderly, including those facing chronic illnesses or death. The volume takes a similarly broad approach in addressing spiritual issues from a variety of faith backgrounds-including both theistic and pantheistic religious practices-so that nurses can be prepared to meet the needs of patients from various religious traditions. Second to chaplains, nurses are the major providers of spiritual care, and no other book will serve their needs like Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice. -- Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/2/09.

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature

Title: Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature

Author: Leonard S. Marcus

Call Number: Z480.C48 M37 2008

Pages: 416

Synopsis:
What should children read? As preeminent children's literature authority Leonard S. Marcus shows incisively, that's the three-hundred-year-old question that created a rambunctious children's book publishing scene in colonial times. And it's the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children's book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business.Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among the pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians-most of them women- throughout the twentieth century. From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hatto Cormier's The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty analysis of the pivotal books that transformed children's book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times.--Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/02/09.

Understanding and Treating Depression: Ways to Find Hope and Help

Title: Understanding and Treating Depression: Ways to Find Hope and Help
Author: Rudy Nydegger
Call Number: RC537 .N93 2008
Pages: 240





Synopsis: In any given year, 10 percent of the population - or about 21 million people - suffer from a depressive disorder. Most do not seek professional help although the great majority could find relief with treatment. And that not only causes hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic costs annually from work slowdown and accidents to illnesses and suicides, the wider picture is that depression hurts not only the person at issue, but millions more who are family members or other loved ones. The problem has become so pervasive yet often ignored that a major pharmaceutical company has launched commercials focused on informing the public that "Depression hurts, everywhere," and can surface not only as psychological aches but also physical pains and illness. This book offers a one-stop source that explains the history, increasing incidence, diagnosis, costs, treatment, and many faces of depression across ages, gender, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic group, and sexual identity. Every chapter includes vignettes and interviews to illustrate the topic and main points. Treatment approaches and success rates are discussed, as are the meanings and myths applied to this common disorder. Current and emerging research, and treatments on the horizon, are also spotlighted.--Retrieved from Books in Print, 9/2/09.