Wendy J Dugas

A bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood, with a pragmatic program to encourage parents and teachers to rethink how and where young children learn best by taking the child's eye view of the learning environment.

The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio. The Town tells how Sayward completes her mission and lives to see the transition of her family and her friends, American pioneers, from the ways of wilderness to the ways of civilization.

Winner of the Quill Award and the Corine International Book Prize, Diana Gabaldon is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Outlander series. This fourth novel featuring popular character Lord John Grey is told both from Lord Grey’s perspective and from that of Jamie Fraser, the star of the Outlander series.

When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.

Eighteenth-century Scotsman James Fraser and his 20th-century time-travelling wife, Claire Randall, have emigrated to the beautiful countryside of the Royal Colony of North Carolina. The year is now 1771, and dissidents are stirring throughout the American colonies. Claire forewarns James of the impending war and the dangers it may bring to their clan. Will her knowledge of America’s tumultuous revolution be enough to guide them through a dangerously uncertain future?

The horse Susan Richards chose for rescue wouldn't be corralled into her waiting trailer. Instead, Lay Me Down, a former racehorse with a foal close on her heels, walked right up that ramp and into Susan's life. This gentle creature, malnourished, plagued by pneumonia and an eye infection, had endured a rough road, but somehow her heart was still open and generous.

You know her voice. Now hear her story.

Audible has teamed up with Rolling Stone to produce an uncompromisingly honest Audible Original that honors the life and legacy of the incomparable Aretha Franklin. Aretha’s universal appeal was evident from the release of her first album at age 14 through her nearly 50 Top 40 hits. Yet this intimate biography reminds us that Aretha knew pain as much as she knew glory. It was the blues, residing deep within her soul, that gave way to a voice able to lift millions with a profound sense of freedom, self-worth, and undeniable talent to rise above sorrow.

"I’m James Taylor and I’m a professional autobiographer", says the celebrated folk singer at the start of this tender audio memoir. Through decades of music by one of the best-selling musicians of all time, who created classics like "Fire and Rain" and "Carolina in My Mind", James Taylor has doled out his history in the poetry of his work. Taylor says his early life is, "the source of many of my songs", and Break Shot is a tour of his first 21 years in rich, new detail.

If any artist could brag about his contribution to the pop culture canon, it’s Smokey Robinson. His career is filled with so many “he was there” moments it’s a wonder he doesn’t recall them with the swagger of a conquering hero: songwriting and singing as a teenager in Detroit; co-founding Motown Records with Berry Gordy; creating 26 Top 40 hits with his group The Miracles; helping to spark racial integration of popular music in the 1960s; discovering hitmakers like Diana Ross and the Supremes; penning tunes for a jaw-droppingly diverse group of artists.

Neuroscientists have shown that music recruits nearly every area of the brain, fostering connections across different regions. In this book, we examine the latest imaging studies and discuss the effects of music on emotion, cognition, sensation, and motor function. This includes an examination of the brain’s anatomy when listening to or creating music, of music’s relationship to learning math and language skills, and of its role in promoting social connections and treating brain disorders and injuries.