A striking memoir of hope in the face of persecution, Stars between the Sun and Moon is the first true account written by a North Korean woman to survive human trafficking to China and imprisonment in a labour camp.Born in the seventies in North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household—her parents worked in the factories, and the family scraped by on government rations of rice and what little food they could grow in their small garden. Every night before bed, Jang dusted the frame around the portrait of Kim Il Sung, as her little sister looked on. When done, they would both bow and say: “Thank you, father.”But for the secretive nation, it was the beginning of a chaotic period that would see the death of “the eternal leader” and the uncontested rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-Il. The country would face a decade-long famine resulting in more than a million dead. In this bleak landscape, Jang marries young, to a hard-drinking and abusive man who sells their baby son for 300 wan and two bars of soap. Powerless to get her child back, Jang dedicates herself to helping her parents and siblings survive the famine. Undertaking more and more drastic measures, she finds herself trading goods in a border town between China and North Korea, where she is trafficked into an unlawful marriage. Although she runs away, Jang has no choice but to keep illegally returning to China and is imprisoned multiple times. She becomes pregnant again, and determined not to lose another child, Jang flees her home country once and for all, crossing a river with her infant nestled in a plastic bag.With a keen memory for the details of life within an idiosyncratic and dangerous regime, this memoir reflects the range of experiences many North Korean women have endured—loss of a child, starvation, imprisonment, trafficking—but it is Lucia Jang’s extraordinary will to live and to protect her family that drives her past every obstacle in a stunning demonstration of love and courage.

Product Description: How two young Maasai tribesmen became warriors, scholars, and leaders in their community and to the world.They are living testament to a vanishing way of life on the African savannah. Wilson and Jackson are two brave warriors of the Maasai, an intensely proud culture built on countless generations steeped in the mystique of tradition, legend and prophecy...read more

Product Description: Spencer West is many things. Accomplished speaker. University graduate. Natural prankster. Former cheerleader. And a young man without legs—something that has never held him back. Spencer was born without the use of his legs. When he was five, doctors decided to amputate below his pelvis to better help him get around...read more

Product Description: As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumors of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry. But one day when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived...read more

As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumors of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry. But when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived. Heavily armed rebel soldiers, many no older than children themselves, attacked and tortured Mariatu. During this brutal act of senseless violence they cut off both her hands. Stumbling through the countryside, Mariatu miraculously survived. The sweet taste of a mango, her first food after the attack, reaffirmed her desire to live, but the challenge of clutching the fruit in her bloodied arms reinforced the grim new reality that stood before her. With no parents or living adult to support her and living in a refugee camp, she turned to begging in the streets of Freetown. As told to her by Mariatu, journalist Susan McClelland has written the heartbreaking true story of the brutal attack, its aftermath and Mariatu’s eventual arrival in Toronto where she began to pull together the pieces of her broken life with courage, astonishing resilience and hope.

Product Description: For those of us who find ourselves at a loss as to how we can help friends faed with some kind of misfortunate, here are practical suggestions -- what to say, what to do, what to write, what to give. Helps you be the kind of person you want to be (and really are)! (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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