Recommendations based on "Letter To My Daughter"

"It has been a long time since you have read a book with the sheer emotional impact of One Child." --New York TimesThe true story of a tormented six-year-old and the brilliant teacher who reached out.Six-year-old Sheila never spoke, she never cried, and her eyes were filled with hate. Abandoned on a highway by her mother, unwanted by her alcoholic father, Sheila was placed in a class for emotionally disturbed children after she committed an atrocious act of violence against another child.Everyone said Sheila was lost forever, everyone except her teacher, Torey Hayden.Torey fought to reach Sheila, to bring the abused child back from her secret nightmare, because beneath the rage, Torey saw in Sheila the spark of genius. And together they embarked on a wondrous journey--a journey gleaming with a child's joy at discovering a world filled with love and a journey sustained by a young teacher's inspiring bravery and devotion.

Six-year-old Sheila never spoke, she never cried, and her eyes were filled with hate. Abandoned on a highway by her mother, unwanted by her alcoholic father, Sheila was placed in a class for emotionally disturbed children after she committed an atrocious act of violence against another child.Everyone said Sheila was lost forever, everyone except her teacher, Torey Hayden.Torey fought to reach Sheila, to bring the abused child back from her secret nightmare, because beneath the rage, Torey saw in Sheila the spark of genius. And together they embarked on a wondrous journey—a journey gleaming with a child's joy at discovering a world filled with love and a journey sustained by a young teacher's inspiring bravery and devotion.

A memoir from singer-songwriter Madison Beer, chronicling the past decade of her life spent in the spotlight—the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens that you won’t see on social media.Discovered at twelve years old, Madison Beer was one of the first artists to have her entire life documented online. Over the past decade, she has navigated the spotlight as a child, through her teenage years, and now as a young woman in her twenties.In The Half of It, Madison pulls back the curtain to show the behind-the-scenes of her journey, from reckoning with mass hate online and the time her private pictures were leaked, to battling suicidal thoughts while making her highly acclaimed debut album, Life Support, and her recovery since then. This memoir is an honest and unflinching account of self-love, mental health, and advocacy from one of the fastest-rising musical voices and most influential social media presences of her generation. It hammers home the point, more striking and urgent than ever, that no matter how close the internet may make us feel to people, we truly don’t know the half of it.

“Audacious, original and profoundly moving . . . . Healing is a likely outcome of a book imbued with the righteous anger, compassion and humanity of Swing Low.” —Globe and Mail (Canada)Reverberating with emotional power, authenticity, and insight, Swing Low is Miriam Toews's daring and deeply affecting memoir of her father’s struggle with manic depression in a small Mennonite community in rural Canada. Personal and touching, a stirring counterpart to her novel IrmaVoth and reminiscent of works by Susan Cheever, Gail Caldwell, Mary Karr, and Alexandra Styron, Swing Low is an elegiac ode to a difficult life by an author drawing from the deepest well of insight,craft, and emotion.

The New York Times BestsellerNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistLambda Literary Award winnerFrom Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a memoir in weight about eating healthier, finding a tolerable form of exercise, and exploring what it means to learn, in the middle of your life, how to take care of yourself and how to feed your hunger.New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.

The talented and beautiful woman who has moved us with her singing now moves us with her words.Celine Dion -- My Story, My Dream is an unforgettable true story of courage, perseverance, dedication, and devotion -- told with the wide-eyed honesty of someone who has basked in the glowing adoration of millions of fans but has never lost touch with her working-class roots. Here is a book for anyone who has ever wondered about the real person behind the magnificent voice. Touching and funny, fascinating and uplifting, it is an exquisitely detailed portrait of a remarkable woman who has never backed away from any challenge...even the most daunting challenges of the heart.

Inspired by a true story, Color Me Butterfly follows four generations of mothers and daughters—haunted by a common specter of domestic abuse—as they discover the strength, hope, and courage to survive.The last thing Eloise Bingham wanted was to leave the comforts of her South Carolina home and family. But at the end of World War II, the young wife follows her husband, Isaac, to Philadelphia—only to experience his sinister and violent temper. Eloise’s children—and their children and grandchildren—will face their own trials over the next sixty years: Mattie, who has lived in her mother Eloise’s shadow, finds it takes a life-changing tragedy to help her break free; Lydia, Mattie’s strong-willed daughter, summons the resolve to rise above the cycle of abuse; and finally, Treasure, Lydia’s lively daughter, has the chance to be the first to escape her family’s destructive legacy.It will take unconditional love, old-fashioned family values, faith, and fearless determination—already embedded in each woman’s DNA—to triumph over a life plagued with unspeakable pain.

A beautiful, heartbreaking, and ultimately heart-lifting graphic memoirLike most kids, Katie was a picky eater. She’d sit at the table in silent protest, hide uneaten toast in her bedroom, and listen to parental threats that she’d have to eat it for breakfast. But in any life a set of circumstance can collide, and normal behavior might soon shade into something sinister, something deadly. This hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery takes a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness, an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the vulnerable, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol.Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life.Praise for Drinking“Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review“Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle“Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times“Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek

NATIONAL BESTSELLER“Thank you for the perfect blend of nostalgia-drenched humor, wit, and heartbreak, Nora.” — Mandy Moorecomedy = tragedy + time/roséTwenty-seven-year-old Nora McInerny Purmort bounced from boyfriend to dopey “boyfriend” until she met Aaron—a charismatic art director and comic-book nerd who once made Nora laugh so hard she pulled a muscle. When Aaron was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, they refused to let it limit their love. They got engaged on Aaron’s hospital bed and had a baby boy while he was on chemo. In the period that followed, Nora and Aaron packed fifty years of marriage into the three they got, spending their time on what really matters: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, each other, and Beyoncé. A few months later, Aaron died in Nora’s arms. The obituary they wrote during Aaron’s hospice care revealing his true identity as Spider-Man touched the nation. With It’s Okay to Laugh, Nora puts a young, fresh twist on the subjects of mortality and resilience. What does it actually mean to live your “one wild and precious life” to the fullest? How can a joyful marriage contain more sickness than health? How do you keep going when life kicks you in the junk? In this deeply felt and deeply funny memoir, Nora gives her readers a true gift—permission to struggle, permission to laugh, permission to tell the truth and know that everything will be okay. It’s Okay to Laugh is a love letter to life, in all its messy glory; it reads like a conversation with a close friend, and leaves a trail of glitter in its wake.This book is for people who have been through some shit.This is for people who aren’t sure if they’re saying or doing the right thing (you’re not, but nobody is). This is for people who had their life turned upside down and just learned to live that way. For people who have laughed at a funeral or cried in a grocery store. This is for everyone who wondered what exactly they’re supposed to be doing with their one wild and precious life. I don’t actually have the answer, but if you find out, will you text me?