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Everyone can be bullied. Even dogs!Max the dog is very smart, but Max has anxiety because he's being bullied. It all started at the local dog park when Max was attending training classes. Other dogs bullied poor Max, but his friends Helen and Greg helped him get through it and put a stop to Max's anxiety.Children will learn from reading Four-Legged Friends in the Bark Park that being nervous has nothing to do with how smart someone is. Whether it's dogs or humans, bullying is a bad thing.It's been said that "Strong people stand up for themselves. But the strongest people stand up for others."Author Bio: Natalia G. Toreeva is an award-winning artist whose works are shown in museums in Chicago and Russia. She received her master's degree in art and design in St. Petersburg, Russia, and her master's in computer science from DePaul University, Chicago. The author is a member of the Artists Trade Union of Russia, the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and the DuPage Writer's Group in Illinois. She has illustrated novels, poetry, and children's books, and has also contributed written works to a number of literary journals. Her books are in the collection of the State Museum "Tsarskoselskaya Collection" in St. Petersburg, Russia. This is her fourth children's novel.

In the days when superstition ruled the world, twin babies are born with terrible afflictions. The family in this tale goes against tradition, deciding to keep these children and raise them with the protections and advantages a prominent senator of means can provide. Blessing or Curse takes place in ancient Rome in the 390s BC, ending in 387 BC. The story follows the lives of Alexandrus, Lucretia, and their children leading up to the invasion and fall of the city to the Gauls.The family struggles and is blamed for the impending doom that will befall the city due to their breaking of traditions. Despite their treatment, they rise to the occasion and do what they think is best for their homeland.Author Bio : A Michigan native, Dawn Chick began this book in 2011. She finished it in 2013 as her thesis project for her master's in humanities, with a concentration in English creative writing at Tiffin University. She has also studied history at Madonna University and theater at DePaul University. The love of the history of the Roman Empire, Greek tragic theater, and creative writing combined to craft her tale. This is her first book.

A three-story house nestled in the hills outside of Portland, Maine, is the setting for House of Lies. The novel tells of a young woman coming out of her shell and standing up for what she believes in. Myra Webb is just such a person. But her story goes further than that.When Myra goes to work for Ned Granger, a famous industrialist, she gets caught up in intrigue and the supernatural. She also solves the mystery of a room on the third floor of the Grainger house.From the moment Myra asks the hesitant taxi driver to take her to the house for her job interview, she begins to have misgivings."My goodness," Myra said as she settled in the back seat. "You act as if the place were haunted."Margaret Blythe grew up in Lyerly, Georgia, a small town in the western part of the state. She now lives with her husband of 32 years in Fort Payne, Alabama.

Meet Gary Chattman, who didn't want to be a teacher. But when it became a valid way to escape the draft during the Vietnam War, he made it his mission to teach.Once Gary was hired, he realized becoming a teacher was what he was meant to be, and for over fifty years dedicated his life to making a difference in the lives of his students. Despite his dedication, the school administration tried to bring him down one notch at a time.Student deaths, students skipping classes, and the callous attitudes of some of the administrators who could not see his vision became everyday battles, making Gary determined to conquer his windmills like Don Quixote. Finally, an illness brought on by his school's new construction threatened to knock Gary off his Dulcinea for good.Follow the embellished life of this dedicated educator through the tumultuous 1970s, '80s, and '90s.(About the Author)Gary D. Chattman has been a teacher all his life, primarily in public high schools in the Bronx. He has also been a principal, an academic leader, headed up school theatrical productions, and created a special program for teaching Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah programs for young Jewish men and women outside of Hebrew School. He is a concert pianist, a lyricist, and a composer. A grandfather of four, the love of his life is his wife Patti. This is his eleventh book.

"In 1957, I witnessed a trial in Mongu, Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), in which there was great argument about whether a death had been caused by witchcraft or by a very minor wound from an inefficient firearm," says author Chris Elgood.He Only Died Twice was inspired by this real-life incident.When the British government wants someone dead who is beyond the normal reach of the law, an arrangement is reached with an African woman to carry out the deed. Nshila Ileloka holds the highest degrees from universities in England, but this capable assassin also knows witchcraft.Born in a remote African village, Nshila was befriended by the local witch doctor who taught her his particular skills. She is moral and fastidious, making sure the targets to be removed are sufficiently villainous.Nshila is contacted independently by two British government agencies that never speak to each other. Both name a man they want killed. Her research reveals her target is really one person operating under two different names and conducting two separate criminal activities. To satisfy her clients and collect two fees, she must kill one person, but appear to produce two bodies.Author Bio: Born just before World War II, Chris Elgood served in the military, went to university, and then joined her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service in the late years of the British Empire. "Returning to the UK, I worked for a time in industry and then founded my own consultancy in the field of management games." An author for fifty years, he currently resides in Berkshire, England.

In a remote, poverty-stricken mountain village of Sicily, a baby boy awakens to life. Today that child is an old man. His memories crop up, stone hard and fleeting as birds: of faces, of hunger and beauty, love and wounding, song and weeping, war and peace.In Sancalò, his memoirs emerge in the form of 59 brief chapters. His intimate personal experiences reflect and shed light on his surroundings. He remembers post-War Sicily, the complicated legacy of fascism, centuries-long injustices and prejudices, and the spiritual depth and memorable quirks of simple people.Says the author, "I felt a driving need to reconnect to my past while trying to recreate a part of its beauty." Some names have been changed.His other books are The Devil's Scourge. Exorcism in Renaissance Italy (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2002) and Poesie/Poems (AVEditoria, 2018). He is currently completing a study dealing with Jews in Renaissance Italy.About the Author: Gaetano Paxia was born in Naro, "a poor, tiny mountain village in southern Sicily, rich with ancient history, popular traditions, irrepressible beauty, complex experience in surviving fascism and World War II." The author of two previous books, he is a retired high school teacher of Italian and history, and lives near Venice, Italy.

On a remote Caribbean island, refuge of the rich and famous, a woman appears. No one knows who she is or where she comes from, including the woman, who suffers from amnesia.Amid intrigues and conspiracies involving one of the most influential island families, this mysterious woman's arrival will change the lives of all those who meet her in an unexpected way.With a lost past and a fragile present, the future looks dangerous for anyone who gets involved. Only one has enough faith to know that everything happens for a reason and that coincidences do not exist.Author Bio : Born in Cuba, Sandra M. Gomez lived briefly in Mexico when she was sixteen, and then came to America. A neurologist, she studied medicine at the University of Salamanca, Spain, and trained at St. Louis University, Missouri. She has lived in Alabama ever since. "I have traveled the world and had an amazing life." Recently retired, this is the author's first book.

The Odd Couple details the ups and downs in the tortuous relations between modern Turkey and Israel.The central actor in the book is Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in Turkey in 2002-2003, determined to turn the clock back and return his country to its pre-Ataturk glory, when the Ottoman Dynasty reigned supreme and Islam was the dominant ideology holding the Empire together. To understand the aberrant relationship between the Jewish state of Israel and the Islamic state of Turkey, and the preponderant role of Tayyip Erdogan in its deterioration, one must dig into the Ottoman past, the historical attitudes of Turks to Jews, and the shift in Turkish policies that was effected by the transition from the modern Turkish civil governments up to 2002 to the vast changes that the Islamic parties of Erbakan and Erdogan have triggered thereafter. This is the story of how one man can alter relations between two countries. Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam. Born in Fes, Morocco, at fourteen, "I left my family when I could no longer bear the oppression of Jews in an Islamic country and moved to fledgling Israel. To this day, I consider that the wisest and most game-changing decision I took in my life."

The Middle East conflict, which has been raging for a century and seems to have no end in sight, is not over territory or other assets, but is historically anchored in the Islamic tradition, which has become the preponderant faith of the Arabs.Being a qualitative factor of an either-or import from the Muslim point of view, which is today best expressed by Iran, the Muslim Brothers, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other radical Muslim movements, it is not given to negotiation and compromise, as any other political conflict, but is governed by absolutes and one-sided perspectives.Arab nationalism, Islam, and Zionism are the main political and religious movements taking center stage in this conflict.The intractable nature of the conflict has so far defied all negotiations, agreements, and peace treaties. All the proposed "peaceful" settlements have thus far remained brittle, while the fundamental issues of stereotyping, suspicion, hatred, and condescendence have remained in place, unshaken.This book confronts two contradictory ideologies and attempts to bridge them over. Born in Fes, Morocco, Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s. Professor Israeli is the author of over 50 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

There are walls that oppress in the name of peace, brutal walls that exist at the threshold of genocide.In this stunning novel, Albert is a journalist who makes his way from Berlin to Korea to Northern Ireland, from Western Sahara to Palestine, from Kashmir to Mexico and Brazil. His long odyssey reveals the theaters of war, torture, and inhumanity that still exist in the world, caused by walls.This story is an alert to these realities that are hidden behind ignorance, apathy, and indifference.Humanity is in a backward way. Today's issue of Syrian refugees has wakened the medieval and dark fears that are inconsistent with the defense of the most basic rights of all human beings. What do we do, but build walls to defend ourselves, as if they are the solution for all problems, yet those that still exist prove otherwise.When we accept that we were once all refugees and others welcomed us, this should be the path we must follow to conquer the humanist's values and evolve towards our humanization. Otherwise, we will fall again into barbarity.The noblest role of literature is its potential to change the world of what in it is wrong, breaking prejudices and barriers of ignorance and indifference. This book meets that noble mission. Albert wants to raise awareness, force us to reflect on our responsibility as human beings towards others who live in oppressive situations. Ana Filomena Amaralgrew up in the small village of Avintes, near Oporto, Portugal. She wants to end "the suffering, pain, and misery caused by the still existent walls." This is her sixth novel, the second published in America.