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By Heart: A Mother's Story of Children and Learning at Home
- Narrated by: Kathleen Melin
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
By Heart shares the surprising story of one family's journey from compliant public schooling to radical home-based learning. This literary homeschool memoir takes readers from the tundra of Bethel, Alaska, to the placid farm country of Wisconsin, all the while exploring the homeschool lifestyle.
Daring and compassionate, it portrays homeschooling as a progressive choice and thoughtfully examines classic homeschool tensions – homeschool decision, schedules and curricula, socialization, and the economics of co-parenting. By Heart offers a view of the homeschool lifestyle deeply connected to nature and its cycles. Unflinchingly human, it explores doubts and concerns while remaining steadfastly passionate to the homeschool choice.
By Heart is a "must- read" for those considering the homeschool life and a soothing companion to parents in the midst of it. Entertaining, inspiring, and empowering, it's a delightful and provocative memoir for all parents, whether they homeschool or not. For educators and policy makers, it reveals an insider's experience of the homeschool reality; meanwhile, courageously searching the historical and cultural complexity of education rather than posing a simplistic debate between public school and homeschool.
By Heart: A Mother's Story of Children and Learning at Home is a literary page-turner of a memoir that strips away facades and invites readers to an intimate portrayal of one homeschool family. Ultimately, this rare and heartfelt telling affirms all those who live their lives beyond tidy boxes and categories. Narrated by the author. Sound engineering by David Frank.
"For educators and parents alike." (Midwest Books Review)
"A literary memoir by a compelling storyteller." (Review Direct)
"A poignant and literary memoir." (Home Education)
"Unique in perspective." (Old Schoolhouse Magazine)
Critic reviews
"Like hitting the jackpot." (Washington Times)
"Wry, wise, gentle, tender, and honest." (Otherways)
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Story
Milo Andret is born with an unusual mind. A lonely child growing up in the woods of Northern Michigan in the 1950s, he gives little thought to his own talent. But with his acceptance at UC Berkeley, he realizes the extent - and the risks - of his singular gifts. California in the '70s is a seduction, opening Milo's eyes to the allure of both ambition and indulgence. The research he begins there will make him a legend; the woman he meets there - and the rival he meets alongside her - will haunt him for the rest of his life.
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The curse of genius?
- By Bonny on 03-03-16
By: Ethan Canin
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The Magic of Ordinary Days
- A Novel
- By: Ann Howard Creel
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Olivia Dunne, a studious minister's daughter who dreams of being an archaeologist, never thought that the drama of World War II would affect her quiet life in Denver. An exhilarating flirtation reshapes her life, though, and she finds herself banished to a rural Colorado outpost, married to a man she hardly knows. Overwhelmed by loneliness, Olivia tentatively tries to establish a new life, finding much-needed friendship and solace in two Japanese American sisters who are living at a nearby internment camp.
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I purchased this audio book not 15 minutes ago...
- By Kim on 09-15-16
By: Ann Howard Creel
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The Poet of Tolstoy Park
- By: Sonny Brewer
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is based on the true life of Henry Stuart. When the 67-year-old former professor finds out he is dying of tuberculosis, he vows to “learn in solitude how to save myself.” He sets off for Fairhope, Alabama, with only the writings of his beloved Tolstoy for company. There, the barefoot poet builds himself a small hut and slowly becomes an inspiration for the rest of the utopian town. When his last few months become his last few years, Henry’s attempt to understand death becomes a lesson on life.
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Great read
- By Jimmy Oaks on 03-23-15
By: Sonny Brewer
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Language Arts
- By: Stephanie Kallos
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Marlow is a Seattle English teacher who instructs his students to expand their worlds through language. Lately, however, with one child off to college and the pressure from his ex-wife to make plans for their severely autistic son who's about to age out of the system, he prefers the company of the ghosts he turns up in the storage boxes in his crawl space.
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The beauty of the broken
- By SJ Evans on 04-27-18
By: Stephanie Kallos
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The Stolen Child
- By: Keith Donohue
- Narrated by: Andy Paris, Jeff Woodman
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Henry Day is kidnapped and renamed "Aniday" by changelings, ageless beings who inhabit the woods near his home. The changelings also leave behind one of their own, who flawlessly impersonates Henry except for one noteworthy detail: the new Henry is a prodigiously talented pianist.
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Not Anything Close to the Hype
- By Jon on 06-20-06
By: Keith Donohue
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The Lightkeeper's Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Jean E. Pendziwol
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg, Dawn Harvey, Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family, especially her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after an accident, the past suddenly becomes all too present. With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at her senior home, Elizabeth goes through the diaries.
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very good
- By A concerned consumer on 09-17-17
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Whirligig
- By: Paul Fleischman
- Narrated by: Robert Field, Lily Christian, Alex Hauk, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman writes a profoundly moving story of connectedness and the journey of a young soul to self-discovery. Told through the voices of five characters and narrated by age-appropriate actors, Whirligig compels the listener with its lesson on how our actions can impact the lives of others - even years later. A stunningly authentic listening experience.
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Fabulous
- By Tim on 03-21-17
By: Paul Fleischman
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The Longest Trip Home
- By: John Grogan
- Narrated by: John Grogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the highly anticipated follow-up to Marley & Me, John Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly.
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As real as it gets
- By bclmb on 12-06-08
By: John Grogan
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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The Source of All Things
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy Ross
- Narrated by: Tracy Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A loving and devoted step-father, Donnie introduced Tracy Ross's family to the joys of fishing, deer hunting, camping, and hiking among the pristine mountains of rural Idaho. Donnie was everything Tracy dreamed a dad would be: protective, brave, and kind. But when his dependence on his eight-year-old daughter's companionship went too far, everything changed.
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Brave Woman
- By Ray Stewart on 06-23-24
By: Tracy Ross
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The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
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Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
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Middle C
- By: William H. Gass
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Gass’ new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life - futile, comic, anarchic - arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C. It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland....
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All the world was a stage. But not for all the wor
- By Darwin8u on 06-07-14
By: William H. Gass