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Hitting Rock Bottom: New Beginnings for At-Risk Youth
- Narrated by: Mike Maloney
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
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Hitting Rock Bottom: New Beginnings for At-Risk Youth
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Publisher's Summary
They came from many of the high schools, middle schools, and continuation schools of Placer County due to truancy, multiple suspension, expulsion, probation referrals, or court order. Most hated school and school authority. Several had lengthy criminal histories already and some were from rival gangs. Forty-two males and females would start wearing Army camouflage versus street clothes.
This was their last chance of avoiding dropping out of school, living a life of crime, incarceration, or death. There they would run into a retired police sergeant who would be their teacher. He prided himself on being "old school" and with the help of the U.S. Army, they together, help transform these youth into high school graduates and productive adults.
They were inspired by books/films such as Freedom Writers, Stand and Deliver, To Sir With Love, Gridiron Gang, and Dangerous Minds to the point of wanting to share their stories with others. For most "cadets" the academy became their family.
Through their writings, the listener will enter the lives they had been living before attending the academy. They explain how they began noticing changes in both their attitude, physical fitness, and family life. It was their dream that at least one at-risk student would become inspired by their book and decide, after hitting rock bottom, to turn their lives around as they did.
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-
The Freedom Writers Diary
- How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them
- By: The Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman, Bahni Turpin, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 415
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 329
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 330
In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks - none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the 20th century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book
- By Anonymous User on 02-03-08
By: The Freedom Writers, and others
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The Pact
- Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream
- By: Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt
- Narrated by: Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 205
All too often, we hear about the dangers of male friendships in which peer pressure prevails over common sense. But for George Jenkins, Sampson Davis, and Rameck Hunt, strong and supportive male friendship was a powerful antidote to the temptations and pitfalls of street life. It led three boys to make a vow to be there for one another, to encourage one another every step of the way, until they overcame the odds and became doctors.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Inspirational
- By Heather on 04-10-09
By: Drs. Sampson Davis, and others
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It Gets Better
- Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
- By: Dan Savage, Terry Miller
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Gavin Marguerite
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
It Gets Better is a collection of expanded essays and new material from celebrities, everyday people, and teens who have posted videos of encouragement, as well as new contributors who have yet to post videos to the site. While many of these teens couldn’t see a positive future for themselves, others can. We can show LGBT youth the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach if they can just get through their teen years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Positive for LGBT youth
- By Ricardo Gomez on 05-01-23
By: Dan Savage, and others
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A Dream Too Big
- The Story of an Improbable Journey from Compton to Oxford
- By: Caylin Louis Moore
- Narrated by: Caylin Louis Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story5 out of 5 stars 53
When Caylin Louis Moore was a young child, his mother gathered her three young children and fled an abusive husband, landing in poverty in a heavily policed, gang-ridden community. When Moore’s father was convicted of murder and his mother was sexually assaulted in the hospital while recovering from open-heart surgery, Moore was forced to enter adulthood prematurely.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Truly inspiring.
- By Anonymous User on 12-14-22
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Success
- The Path to Personal Fulfillment Through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Fighters
- By: Chuck J. Rylant, Cindy Cyr
- Narrated by: Pete Ferrand
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
This book is a collection of intimate and sometimes shocking conversations about success. Each story will inspire, enlighten, and entertain you. In Success, not only did I seek to discover what motivates high achievers, but I also dug for the philosophies that lead to success. During these interviews, I asked uncomfortable questions that led to answers that often surprised even the athletes being interviewed, because it is the subconscious mind that drives most ambitious people to achieve.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Got through five chapters...all the same
- By jmf552 on 12-31-21
By: Chuck J. Rylant, and others
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It Won't Be Easy
- An Exceedingly Honest (And Slightly Unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching
- By: Tom Rademacher, Dave Eggers - foreword
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 97
Less a how-to manual than a tribute to an impossible and impossibly rewarding profession, It Won't Be Easy captures the experience of teaching in all its messy glory. Though directed at prospective and newer teachers, It Won't Be Easy is mercifully short on jargon and long on practical wisdom, accessible to anyone - teacher, student, parent, pundit - who is interested in a behind-the-curtain look at teaching and willing to understand that, while there are no simple answers, there is power in learning to ask the right questions.
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4 out of 5 stars
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good points, down to earth
- By LauraMPH on 02-03-19
By: Tom Rademacher, and others
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The Bridge to Brilliance
- How One Principal in a Tough Community Is Inspiring the World
- By: Nadia Lopez, Rebecca Paley
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Nadia Lopez
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story5 out of 5 stars 55
When 13-year-old Vidal Chastanet told photographer Brandon Stanton that his principal, Ms. Lopez, was the person who most influenced his life, it was the pebble that started a whirlwind for Nadia Lopez and her small, new public school in one of Brooklyn's most wretched communities. The posting on Stanton's wildly popular site, Humans of New York ( HONY), went megaviral. Lopez - not long before on the verge of quitting - found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with Obama as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar IndieGoGo campaign.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Phenomenal!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-26-16
By: Nadia Lopez, and others
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How Schools Work
- An Inside Account of Failure and Success from One of the Nation's Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education
- By: Arne Duncan
- Narrated by: Arne Duncan
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
Drawing on nearly three decades in education - from his mother’s after-school program on Chicago’s South Side to his tenure as Secretary of Education in DC - How Schools Work follows Arne as he takes on challenges at every turn: gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can’t help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the “most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama's Cabinet.”
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2 out of 5 stars
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Strayed off topic regularly.
- By RWC on 08-28-18
By: Arne Duncan
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Callings
- The Purpose and Passion of Work (A StoryCorps Book)
- By: David Isay
- Narrated by: David Isay
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 143
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
In Callings, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay presents unforgettable stories from people doing what they love. Some are paid well for their work, others not at all; some found their paths at very young ages, others later in life; many overcame great odds or upturned their lives in order to pursue what matters to them. Many of these stories have never been published or broadcast by StoryCorps until now.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Deceived
- By V. Bissonnette on 07-06-18
By: David Isay
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Hillbilly Elegy
- A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
- By: J. D. Vance
- Narrated by: J. D. Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53,207
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47,120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47,018
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over 40 years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In Mamaw's Contradictions Lay Great Wisdom
- By Cynthia on 11-20-16
By: J. D. Vance
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The Black Friend
- On Being a Better White Person
- By: Frederick Joseph
- Narrated by: Miebaka Yohannes
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 434
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 389
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Story5 out of 5 stars 387
Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs - creating an essential listen for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not really a friend and not friendly
- By emax on 06-01-21
By: Frederick Joseph
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The Warrior Code
- 11 Principles to Unleash the Badass Inside of You
- By: Tee Marie Hanible
- Narrated by: Tee Marie Hanible
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
In The Warrior Code, entrepreneur, philanthropist, reality star, and retired gunnery sergeant Tee Marie Hanible serves up 11 principles to awaken your inner badass and thrive in the face of adversity. With insightful honesty and wisdom and set against the backdrop of Tee’s life, The Warrior Code will help you understand that things can beat us back from realizing our true potential...but the key is finding the way to realize one’s own innate strength.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Your mother wears combat boots
- By Juanita L. Jones on 04-04-20
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Ain’t No Makin’ It
- Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood
- By: Jay MacLeod
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
This classic text addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. With the original 1987 publication of Ain’t No Makin’ It Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the "Brothers" and the "Hallway Hangers". Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved listeners and challenged ethnic stereotypes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Classic Every American Should Read
- By JW on 02-02-19
By: Jay MacLeod
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Second Chances
- Finding Redemption in Maine
- By: Craig Grossi
- Narrated by: Craig Grossi
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story5 out of 5 stars 50
The author of the heartwarming Craig and Fred tells the deeply emotional and inspiring story of the next phase of their lives together: working closely with prison inmates in Maine who raise and train puppies to become service dogs. Second Chances poignantly shows that no life is irredeemable and that each of us can make a difference if given the opportunity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, touching, important
- By mamaof6 on 06-28-21
By: Craig Grossi
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#NeverAgain
- A New Generation Draws the Line
- By: David Hogg, Lauren Hogg
- Narrated by: David Hogg, Lauren Hogg
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
On February 14, 2018, 17-year-old David Hogg and his 14-year-old sister, Lauren, went to school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, like any normal Wednesday. That day, of course, the world changed. By the next morning, with 17 classmates and faculty dead, they had joined the leadership of a movement to save their own lives and the lives of all other young people in America. It's a leadership position they did not seek and did not want - but events gave them no choice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well done!
- By Rich M on 07-11-18
By: David Hogg, and others
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Have a New Teenager by Friday
- From Mouthy and Moody to Respectful and Responsible in 5 Days
- By: Kevin Leman
- Narrated by: Kirby Heybourne
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 478
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 476
Congratulations! You have a teenager in your home. Life will never quite be the same again (of course, you already know that). But it can be better than you’ve ever dreamed. In fact, you’re just five days away from your teenager asking, “What can I do to help?” Guaranteed! With his signature wit and commonsense psychology, internationally recognized family expert and New York Times best-selling author Dr. Kevin Leman will help you. your teenager’s life. With Dr. Leman’s instinct and insight, plus an index with gutsy advice on 75 hot-button issues that keep parents up at night.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Listen with a Critical Mind
- By Stephanie on 03-25-13
By: Kevin Leman
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Pops
- Learning to Be a Son and a Father
- By: Craig Melvin
- Narrated by: Craig Melvin
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story5 out of 5 stars 107
For Craig Melvin this book is more an investigation than a memoir. It's an opportunity to better understand his father; to interrogate his family's legacy of addiction and despair but also transformation and redemption; and to explore the challenges facing all dads - including Craig himself, a father of two young children.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Close to Home
- By Michael HS on 06-22-21
By: Craig Melvin