True Childhood

America’s Hometown has a dark side. And the truth has been hidden in plain sight. Hannibal, Missouri is known around the world as the boyhood home of Mark Twain—a picturesque river town celebrated for its charm, history, and sense of American innocence. But beneath the postcards, museums, and storybook streets lies a far more unsettling legacy. True Crime in America’s Hometown uncovers the real crimes that shaped Hannibal in silence: brutal murders, unexplained deaths, disappearances that haunted families for generations, and scandals quietly erased from public memory. These are not ...

How can Danielle understand "normal" if she has never experienced it? She was moved from town to town, kept hidden from society, and always felt like an outsider. Her innocence was brutally taken by someone she least expected. She harbored a dark secret that could devastate her family—a secret she fiercely protected. Would the burden of shame be too much to bear if the truth were revealed? As secrets are uncovered, Danielle plunges into a tumultuous descent with nothing to stop her fall.

Nancy Pusateri's book is a powerful, raw journey through unimaginable pain and resilience. The book begins by introducing Nancy's roots, tracing her family's migration from Greece to the United States, setting the stage for the story shared ahead in the book. The early years of Nancy's life seemed like a normal childhood until her family shifted to a new house. Then began the series of harrowing experiences, shattering the innocence of her early years. As she shares her story, she reveals the dark undercurrents within her family home: a father who abuses his authority in the cruelest ways ...

True Story of Childhood Trauma Can I Come HOME Now? Can I Come Home Now? is more than a memoir—it’s a call for compassion, understanding, and dialogue. Whether you’re a survivor, a supporter, or simply someone who appreciates stories of resilience, this book will stay with you long after the final page. Can I Come Home Now? is a moving and deeply personal memoir that brings to light the realities of childhood trauma through the honest and unforgettable journey of its author. This true story offers both heartbreak and hope, showing that even in the darkest moments, the human spirit can...

In How to Plant a Billion Trees, Walker tries to understand why her whole life didn’t fall apart, as was predicted. As she pieces together her story, she finds that it was thanks in no small part to her mother, her sisters, her friends who did not let the sexual abuse to define her. In this candid portrayal of a young girl, Nicole Walker writes about how, thanks to her family, her friends, and the mountains of the Wasatch, Cascades, and San Francisco Peaks, she reknit herself into the fabric of a supportive culture.

“They’re gone,” I hear someone say. “Your mother, they all left. Did you know?” The door opens without resistance. They didn’t even bother to lock; they never did. Doors are never locked here, not in this apartment nor any other. Who would steal anything here? There is nothing to take. Born in a rural desert town to a family of Persian immigrants, Miriam was twelve years old the first time she had three meals in one day. The tenth daughter of twelve siblings, she was raised so far away from anyone who might care that there was no one around to see her endure the debilitating ...

You are not broken. You are simply a person who learned to survive. You live as if something bad is always about to happen. You move through your days carrying a heavy, invisible weight, a constant, underlying sense that you must guard yourself, perform, or hide just to be safe. To the outside world, you might seem fine. You might even have high functioning anxiety, appearing competent and successful. But inside, you feel like you are performing a role rather than living a life, constantly managing the internal noise of a nervous system that refuses to rest. This is not a personality flaw. ...

The man who should have been there to help protect me, love me, and teach me about life did the opposite. I was told to keep quiet and not tell anyone our secret. A secret that filled me with fear and shame. I was sexually abused from ages five to twelve.

When Misty was six years old, her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty, and sexual abuse.

‘Each time my mother laid a finger on me… it was another step into the jaws of hell. Her abuse, more so than any other, destroyed me. It was the ultimate betrayal.’ Abused from the age of eight by her older brother and then her step-father, Maureen Wood quickly became numb to the constant...

Based on a remarkable true story. Winter, 1969. Since she was a little girl, Catarina learned not to ask for much. Born to a family of corn farmers in rural south Brazil, she was happiest when she was surrounded by sprawling fields and burly, familial farmhands—until her family was driven out of the land they had worked diligently for years, and Catarina was sent to work for a wealthy family in São Paolo. Only ten years old, Catarina becomes a housemaid—and the lifeline of her family. Far from everyone and everything she’d ever known, she discovers the shocking gap between her life ...

I was born and broken in Birkenhead, abused from infancy by a network of every kind of pervert from ‘thinks it’s love’ to ‘show it hurts’. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim—that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix—a work in progress. This is my story....

Every president started out as a kid! Forget the legends, tall tales, and historic achievements - before they were presidents, the future leaders of the United States had regular-kid problems just like you. John F. Kennedy hated his big brother. Lyndon Johnson pulled pranks in class. Barack Obama was bothered by bullies. And Bill Clinton was crazy clumsy (he once broke his leg jumping rope). Kid Presidents tells all of their stories and more in these hilarious biographies. History has never been this much fun!

Athletes throughout history have dreamed of competing in the Olympics—and some were kids themselves when those dreams and plans began! In Kid Olympians: Summer, discover the childhood stories of legends. Featuring kid-friendly wording, this book will inspire you to dream bigger, faster, and higher than ever before! The diverse and inspiring group also includes Dick Fosbury, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Gertrude Ederle, Nadia Comaneci, Ellie Simmonds, Tommie Smith, Wilma Rudolph, and Megan Rapinoe.

I escaped once. From that house. That street. That place. And my parents. As a teenager - struggling with my sexuality after years of bullying and abuse - I left home and moved to another city, put together a new life and became a different person, while keeping my mental health struggles hidden from everyone. I came out and made friends. I fell in love and was cheated on. But it was life and I was finally getting to live it. Then a violent attack changed everything, so I ran away from it all. I moved abroad on my own. But even on an island in the sun I couldn't escape myself or my past. So...

The classic work on the enduring effects of childhood trauma “Rare and compelling in its compassion and its unassuming eloquence.” —New York Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided millions of...

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell finally tells the story that rivals all of the works that precede it: her own. Patricia Cornwell is best known for her international bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Every story comes from somewhere...

Mary MacLeod's mother died in childbirth when Mary was five, an event that marked for the child a "before time" - a lost joyful time - and after. She was shunted from one relative to another while her father coped with his grief. He married again only nine months later, perhaps to have a mother for his child, but her new mum, harsh and withholding of her love, quickly exerted complete control over her thoughts and deeds, with her father oblivious.

Living in the shadows isn’t the safest place to be… it’s where secrets are buried and predators lurk.. As the youngest child living within a dysfunctional family, I thought that anger, rivalry and hatred were the norm, that every family possessed dirty little secrets they hid from the world… like alcohol and drug addiction, mental and physical abuse, depression, schizophrenia and suicide. Surviving those dirty little secrets while running from the school bully was hard, but it was nothing in comparison to coming up on the radar of the neighbourhood paedophile.

Before their experiments, inventions, and discoveries that changed the world, the world’s most celebrated scientists had regular-kid problems just like you. Stephen Hawking hated school and preferred to spend his free time building model airplanes, inventing board games, and even building his own computer. Jane Goodall got in trouble for bringing worms and snails into her house. And Neil deGrasse Tyson had to start a dog-walking business to save up money to buy a telescope.