Bücher veröffentlicht von Mission Point Press

When hidden powers awaken, two unsuspecting teens are drawn into a world of danger and magic.Whitney and Edward are ordinary teenagers, but their lives are about to take an extraordinary turn. Little do the teens know, they possess incredible powers that are entwined with the fate of a distant world called Yagdi.When a vengeful Ancient's quest for power threatens Yagdi and the life of its young dragon prince, dormant gifts awaken in the two young chosen ones. Plagued with haunting images of a distant world in peril, the teens are confused and frightened. The arrival of mysterious visitors brings hope, something Whitney and Edward desperately need. Embracing their newfound talents, the teens navigate a world of magic and peril as they risk everything to save the future king.Fearing the clever teens could block her path to power, the formidable Ancient concocts a devious plan to eliminate her young adversaries. Whitney and Edward face grave danger, but a fierce defender has vowed to protect them.Will they risk everything to defend Yagdi from a devious enemy? Embarking on this dangerous journey will shape their destinies forever, and Whitney and Edward will discover the true power of friendship. Fans of "The Last Dragon Chronicles, "The Chronicles of Narnia," and "A Wrinkle in Time" will love "The Polar Bear and the Dragon." This is Book 1 in a coming-of-age fantasy adventure series for ages 10 and up. Click "Read Sample" to begin Chapter 1 today.

It takes perseverance, passion, and the support of many to create a life-changing mentoring program that matches successful, seasoned entrepreneurs with eager-but-green business owners willing to share what keeps them up at night. But that's exactly what Barnett C. Helzberg, Jr., did a quarter century ago after selling his business to Warren Buffett. He launched, and then led, the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program (HEMP) in Kansas City. Today, hundreds of Kansas City businesses have benefited from his wisdom and HEMP's overall mission of fostering bold, spirited entrepreneurism. Not surprisingly, HEMP has also emerged as a national model for business mentoring. In Put Your Worst Foot Forward, Helzberg openly shares the challenges, successes, and failures that accompanied HEMP's growth. It's a dramatic story of ups and downs. It also provides lessons to other business communities in how they, too, can foster the magic of mentoring in their cities and towns.

Train robberies, stage-coach holdups, posses, breakouts and shoot-em-ups step out of the darker pages of Michigan's past and spring to life in Tom Carr's MI Bad: Robbers, Cutthroats and Thieves in Michigan's Past and Present.The Great Lakes State has seen more than its share of sensational crimes in the last couple of centuries. MI Bad shines a searchlight on several of the most jaw-dropping capers and rogues, including:• A couple of 1880s prostitution procurers who roll drunken lumberjacks for their wages in a whorehouse and bury bodies in shallow graves. The two die drunk and destitute in a freezing shack.• Baby Face Nelson gets his big-time career start - with an actual baby - in a bank holdup in Depression-era Grand Haven.• A 1970s, cinema-esque escape from Jackson State Prison that falls apart quickly once outside the razor wire.• Train robbing brothers who get away with fortunes all over the Midwest, until one of them puts a bullet in the head of a well-liked Grand Rapids cop.• A 1960s cop and a 2010s fifth-grade teacher break bad.• Huge posses of armed Michiganders rush out to help - and sometimes hinder - a bank stickup. • A 19th Century U.P. boomtown finally has enough of a brothel owner beating the women he holds captive.• Plus many more blood-and-money tales of Wolverine-state intrigue, suspense or just plain awfulness. MI Bad is author Tom Carr's follow-up to his successful, Michigan historical true crime debut, Blood on the Mitten: Infamous Michigan Murders, 1700s-Present, also published by Mission Point Press/Chandler Lake Books.

In this old folktale, a poor Michigan fisherman catches a magic fish. When he tells his wife that he released the fish without asking for a reward, she makes it clear that what the fisherman's wife wants, the fisherman's wife gets.

Jack Kerkhoff was born to the news. His parents both worked at the Grand Rapids Herald, and Jack got an early start at the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Bigger papers followed: the Detroit News, New York Journal-American, and the New York Post. But Kerkhoff's professional success was overshadowed by personal tragedy. His wife died suddenly in 1940 and then his 25-year-old daughter eight years later. Severe depression and two suicide attempts followed. Kerkhoff had done some growing up in the Traverse City area - his parents owned a home on Old Mission Peninsula - and he was well aware of the form and function of the State Hospital.How many times I had scampered up that driveway with my gang, fearful yet curious. How many times we had wandered outside the bleak, tower-topped buildings that had iron bars at the windows, and shouted at the men and women behind the bars and giggled over the obscenities they tossed back at us.So, on a wintery November day, Kerkhoff checked himself into the asylum, hoping that the treatment provided there would lift the veil of sadness.How Thin the Veil is a 45-day account of Kerkhoff's treatment, his conversations with the nurses and doctors (some of them with their real names), his interactions with the inmates, and his trips to downtown Traverse City watering holes. There's also romance in the form of Suzy, a pretty, lisping waif whose "bad spells" had kept her hospitalized for eight years.First published in 1952, How Thin the Veil shines a "hard-boiled" light on the mid-century conditions of patients of mental illness. Booze and cigarettes abound. Insulin-shock therapy was in vogue, as was what the patients called "eloctros." However, the overall treatment is ultimately sympathetic and humane. Kerkhoff recovered and returned to work.Ray Minervini, who restored and developed Building 50 of the old Traverse City State Hospital, provides an insider introduction to this classic memoir of mental illness.

Daring to Dance Again: Pearls of Wisdom for a Soul-Filled Life is a compilation of personal stories - sad and joyful, painful and funny. They are also universal stories that speak to our common humanity. The stories embrace our fallibilities and our weaknesses. They show us at our lowest moments. They also shine a light, showing the way. The author hopes these stories, in some small way, will help others embrace God and His heavenly and earth angels who are there to lift us up.Life is full of journeys that we did not choose to make. Some journeys - divorce, cancer, death - choose us. They test our faith. Yet it is faith, along with the love of others that save us.Each chapter of Daring to Dance Again will elicit different emotions, and each chapter concludes with "A Pearl of Wisdom," a bit of inspiration the author has gleaned from her life. Together these stories will resonate with readers who have dealt with divorce, grief, and loss, a serious illness, or any other challenge in life. And it will leave them with a renewed faith in God and a sense of hope.

Sharon Emery struggled with the losses and limits she faced but couldn't change - no matter how hard she tried. And she did try. First with her incurable severe stutter, then with the death of her daughter, Jessica, and the too-early deaths of her own younger siblings. Meanwhile, her "broken" voice meant her long career in communications was regularly a battle.Emery wrote this memoir to help guide her children on their own life journeys, stressing the amazing resilience of humans beings. Exhibit A: herself.In the foreword, Steve Gleason - former NFL player with the New Orleans Saints, now living with ALS, and a friend of Emery's son, Ben Schneider, front man for the band Lord Huron - provides a compelling introduction to what we can gain from what we lose.Emery was a daughter, sister and mother - and lost all those roles. She was a journalist, public relations consultant, and teacher - and never able to speak fluently. Her memoir recounts Emery's challenges and achievements, tracing her efforts to give them meaning and find where they fit in her life. It's a process she considers vital to surviving what happens to you - telling the story. This is a reaffirming example of how it can be done.

Surviving your life - making your way through the good and bad - nudges you to make a record of it, to leave signposts for those who come after, especially your children. That was Sharon Emery''s plan in writing It''s Hard Being You, A Primer on Being Happy Anyway.She had survived perhaps the most heartrending loss of all, the death of a child. But she also faced the less wrenching challenge of having a disability that was incurable, though not deadly (stuttering). Life is hard, but, so what?This memoir became Emery''s so what. She has recounted her challenges and achievements and given them meaning, and found where they fit in her life. It''s a process she considers vital to surviving what happens to you - telling the story.As the title suggests, Emery writes with both hard-eyed realism and compassionate humor. Readers can listen in on what Emery wants her children to know about the losses and the limits that keep happening despite our desperate attempts to avoid them.Her memoir resides in the everyday struggle to live as best we can, providing insights on how all who struggle - which is to say all of us - can survive well.

Adversity and negativity can doom most children to a life of despair and failure. However, a few dedicated adults willing to offer love and support can make the critical difference. That''s the lesson Sid James learned through an extraordinary life of challenge and perseverance. He grew up in a family of high achievers. Of the six James children raised in rural Tennessee in the 1950s and 1960s, three would be valedictorians, and two would graduate in the top tier of their class. Then there was Sid. He used to brag that his parents raised five smart kids and one smart aleck.  In this entertaining and lively memoir, Sid chronicles his life as a child-suffering from dyslexia and hyperactivity-his disappointment in his teachers, his decision to become a better teacher than they were, then his journeys to college, the Vietnam War, surviving the trauma of PTSD, and the culmination of 37 consecutive years working with students of all grades, pre-kindergarten through high school. Along the way, he compiled a treasure-trove of hilarious anecdotes designed to enlighten and entertain readers everywhere.

In a world of deep polarization, we need a path to navigate our life journey. This book provides a way to move beyond the issues that divide us toward a life of calmness, compassion and conversation in these turbulent times.  No matter your religion or your politics, this book offers a way to balance your life. It isn''t written for the powerful and the zealots, but rather for ordinary Americans who find themselves caught up in anxiety-producing conversations wondering how to approach the moment. All too often we retreat to silence or engage in unproductive conversations that leave both sides upset. Ron Adams recommends seven steps from the ancient wisdom teachings of spiritual sages and from modern well-being gurus to move any of us along a journey toward balance and satisfaction in life.

In 2011, Good Morning America viewers voted Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northwest lower Michigan the "Most Beautiful Place in America." Long before the park was ranked as a national favorite, author Tim Mulherin began exploring the region - including Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties and other points north - as a frequent visitor. Now, in Sand, Stars, Wind, & Water: Field Notes from Up North, Mulherin tells of his love of the area and its people, and in turn encourages visitors to respect and enjoy this national treasure.Mulherin joyfully shares his enduring, decades-long friendship with the region, born of hiking and cross-country skiing on woodland trails, dune climbing, trout fishing, sailing across Lake Michigan to camp on South Manitou and Garden islands, kayaking crystalline waters of local lakes and rivers, driving the scenic M-22 highway, and savoring downtime on Lake Michigan beaches. His essays are also a timely commentary on invasive species - both aquatic and human. Anyone who has visited this special place - or plans to - will find Mulherin''s writing a thoughtful and amusing representation of what being "Up North" is really all about.

On the Trails of Northern Michigan covers state parks and national forests from coast to coast, leading you through Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Leelanau Conservancy and Little Traverse Conservancy holdings. From the Upper Manistee Headwaters to the Jordan River Valley, Arcadia to Power Island, the Clay Cliffs to Houdek Dunes, Terrell''s trail notes highlight trail length, special features, flora and wildlife and driving directions, with bold icons clearly indicating trail uses. Organized according to season, On the Trails of Northern Michigan will take you to some of the best spring wildflower displays in northern Michigan and cool cathedrals of pine and old-growth forests to hike under during summer''s heat. Hike to stunning windswept vistas of Lake Michigan, inland lakes, forests and river valleys. Find fall hikes that lead to colorful panoramas, and winter trails that take you on a hushed day trip through snow-covered forests and fields. On the Trails of Northern Michigan is 318 pages of fully- illustrated outdoor exploration for all seasons. As author Robert Downes says, "In a world that is increasingly filled with pavement, traffic and noise, Mike Terrell is a guiding light, leading us back to what is sacred and hidden in the wild, untouched trails and waterways of northern Lower Michigan."