No Citizen Left Behind

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No Citizen Left Behind

Author : Meira Levinson
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674065298
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis No Citizen Left Behind by : Meira Levinson

Download or read book No Citizen Left Behind written by Meira Levinson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While teaching at an all-black middle school in Atlanta, Meira Levinson realized that students' individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their profound marginalization within American society. This is because of a civic empowerment gap that is as shameful and antidemocratic as the academic achievement gap targeted by No Child Left Behind. No Citizen Left Behind argues that students must be taught how to upend and reshape power relationships directly, through political and civic action. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and her own on-the-ground experience, Levinson shows how de facto segregated urban schools can and must be at the center of this struggle. Recovering the civic purposes of public schools will take more than tweaking the curriculum. Levinson calls on schools to remake civic education. Schools should teach collective action, openly discuss the racialized dimensions of citizenship, and provoke students by engaging their passions against contemporary injustices. Students must also have frequent opportunities to take civic and political action, including within the school itself. To build a truly egalitarian society, we must reject myths of civic sameness and empower all young people to raise their diverse voices. Levinson's account challenges not just educators but all who care about justice, diversity, or democracy.

Geographic Citizen Science Design

Author : Artemis Skarlatidou
Publisher : UCL Press
ISBN 13 : 1787356124
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (873 download)

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Book Synopsis Geographic Citizen Science Design by : Artemis Skarlatidou

Download or read book Geographic Citizen Science Design written by Artemis Skarlatidou and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little did Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and other ‘gentlemen scientists’ know, when they were making their scientific discoveries, that some centuries later they would inspire a new field of scientific practice and innovation, called citizen science. The current growth and availability of citizen science projects and relevant applications to support citizen involvement is massive; every citizen has an opportunity to become a scientist and contribute to a scientific discipline, without having any professional qualifications. With geographic interfaces being the common approach to support collection, analysis and dissemination of data contributed by participants, ‘geographic citizen science’ is being approached from different angles. Geographic Citizen Science Design takes an anthropological and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) stance to provide the theoretical and methodological foundations to support the design, development and evaluation of citizen science projects and their user-friendly applications. Through a careful selection of case studies in the urban and non-urban contexts of the Global North and South, the chapters provide insights into the design and interaction barriers, as well as on the lessons learned from the engagement of a diverse set of participants; for example, literate and non-literate people with a range of technical skills, and with different cultural backgrounds. Looking at the field through the lenses of specific case studies, the book captures the current state of the art in research and development of geographic citizen science and provides critical insight to inform technological innovation and future research in this area.

Many Children Left Behind

Author : Deborah Meier
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807004596
Total Pages : 117 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Many Children Left Behind by : Deborah Meier

Download or read book Many Children Left Behind written by Deborah Meier and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2004-09-29 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests and sanctions, it is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. But, argue the authors of this citizen's guide to the most important political issue in education, far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education-including school innovator Deborah Meier, education activist Alfie Kohn, and founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools Theodore R. Sizer-come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: * How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools * How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools * How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms * And they put forward a richly articulated vision of alternatives. Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.

Left Back

Author : Diane Ravitch
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743203267
Total Pages : 566 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis Left Back by : Diane Ravitch

Download or read book Left Back written by Diane Ravitch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-07-31 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this authoritative history of American education reforms in this century, a distinguished scholar makes a compelling case that our schools fail when they consistently ignore their central purpose--teaching knowledge.

No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005

Author : Patrick J. McGuinn
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 by : Patrick J. McGuinn

Download or read book No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 written by Patrick J. McGuinn and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education is intimately connected to many of the most important and contentious questions confronting American society, from race to jobs to taxes, and the competitive pressures of the global economy have only enhanced its significance. Elementary and secondary schooling has long been the province of state and local governments; but when George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, it signaled an unprecedented expansion of the federal role in public education. This book provides the first balanced, in-depth analysis of how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law. Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist with hands-on experience in secondary education, explains how this happened despite the country's long history of decentralized school governance and the longstanding opposition of both liberals and conservatives to an active, reform-oriented federal role in schools. His book provides the essential political context for understanding NCLB, the controversies surrounding its implementation, and forthcoming debates over its reauthorization. how the struggle to define the federal role in school reform took center stage in debates over the appropriate role of the government in promoting opportunity and social welfare. He places the evolution of the federal role in schools within the context of broader institutional, ideological, and political changes that have swept the nation since the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, chronicles the concerns raised by the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, and shows how education became a major campaign issue for both parties in the 1990s. McGuinn argues that the emergence of swing issues such as education can facilitate major policy change even as they influence the direction of wider political debates and partisan conflict. McGuinn traces the Republican shift from seeking to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education to embracing federal leadership in school reform, then details the negotiations over NCLB, the forces that shaped its final provisions, and the ways in which the law constitutes a new federal education policy regime - against which states have now begun to rebel. and that only by understanding the unique dynamics of national education politics will reformers be able to craft a more effective national role in school reform.

The Forgotten Americans

Author : Isabel Sawhill
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300230362
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis The Forgotten Americans by : Isabel Sawhill

Download or read book The Forgotten Americans written by Isabel Sawhill and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation's economic inequalities One of the country's leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society--economic, cultural, and political--and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. Although many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and the federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Religion & American Education

Author : Warren A. Nord
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion & American Education by : Warren A. Nord

Download or read book Religion & American Education written by Warren A. Nord and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 1995 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nord's thoughtful book tackles an issue of great importance in contemporary America--the proper place of religion in our public schools and universities. Nord's comprehensive study encompasses American history, constitutional law, educational theory and practice, theology and ethics.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Author : Diane Ravitch
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465014917
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The Death and Life of the Great American School System by : Diane Ravitch

Download or read book The Death and Life of the Great American School System written by Diane Ravitch and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

The Dignity of Working Men

Author : Michèle Lamont
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674039882
Total Pages : 406 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dignity of Working Men by : Michèle Lamont

Download or read book The Dignity of Working Men written by Michèle Lamont and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michèle Lamont takes us into the world inhabited by working-class men--the world as they understand it. Interviewing black and white working-class men who, because they are not college graduates, have limited access to high-paying jobs and other social benefits, she constructs a revealing portrait of how they see themselves and the rest of society. Morality is at the center of these workers' worlds. They find their identity and self-worth in their ability to discipline themselves and conduct responsible but caring lives. These moral standards function as an alternative to economic definitions of success, offering them a way to maintain dignity in an out-of-reach American dreamland. But these standards also enable them to draw class boundaries toward the poor and, to a lesser extent, the upper half. Workers also draw rigid racial boundaries, with white workers placing emphasis on the "disciplined self" and blacks on the "caring self." Whites thereby often construe blacks as morally inferior because they are lazy, while blacks depict whites as domineering, uncaring, and overly disciplined. This book also opens up a wider perspective by examining American workers in comparison with French workers, who take the poor as "part of us" and are far less critical of blacks than they are of upper-middle-class people and immigrants. By singling out different "moral offenders" in the two societies, workers reveal contrasting definitions of "cultural membership" that help us understand and challenge the forms of inequality found in both societies.

I, Citizen

Author : Tony Woodlief
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 1641772115
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (417 download)

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Book Synopsis I, Citizen by : Tony Woodlief

Download or read book I, Citizen written by Tony Woodlief and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a story of hope, but also of peril. It began when our nation’s polarized political class started conscripting everyday citizens into its culture war. From their commanding heights in political parties, media, academia, and government, these partisans have attacked one another for years, but increasingly they’ve convinced everyday Americans to join the fray. Why should we feel such animosity toward our fellow citizens, our neighbors, even our own kin? Because we’ve fallen for the false narrative, eagerly promoted by pundits on the Left and the Right, that citizens who happen to vote Democrat or Republican are enthusiastic supporters of Team Blue or Team Red. Aside from a minority of party activists and partisans, however, most voters are simply trying to choose the lesser of two evils. The real threat to our union isn’t Red vs. Blue America, it’s the quiet collusion within our nation’s political class to take away that most American of freedoms: our right to self-governance. Even as partisans work overtime to divide Americans against one another, they’ve erected a system under which we ordinary citizens don’t have a voice in the decisions that affect our lives. From foreign wars to how local libraries are run, authority no longer resides with We the People, but amongst unaccountable officials. The political class has stolen our birthright and set us at one another’s throats. This is the story of how that happened and what we can do about it. America stands at a precipice, but there’s still time to reclaim authority over our lives and communities.

Making Civics Count

Author : David E. Campbell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781612504773
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Civics Count by : David E. Campbell

Download or read book Making Civics Count written by David E. Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past." So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States. They argue that the current period of "creative destruction"--when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates--is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote civic education and good citizenship. Making Civics Count offers research-based insights into what diverse students and teachers know and do as civic actors, and proposes a blueprint for civic education for a new generation that is both practical and visionary. "This collection of state-of-the-art essays advances the discussion of civics from noble aspiration to empirical evidence and pedagogical practice. The authors, all noted scholars, have shown us how to improve civic education and--in the process--how to strengthen our democracy. It's time for policymakers to pay attention." -- William A. Galston, Ezra Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution "Making Civics Count models a brilliant alternative to the ideological polarization and paralysis that dominates civic education discourse. Campbell, Levinson, Hess, and the other contributors to this volume hail from across the political spectrum but share a critical commitment to reinvigorate dialogue around civic education. They seek not consensus but spirited engagement--with ideas, with solid empirical data, and with visions for a more robust democracy. This is an important book for scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in civic education's future." -- Joel Westheimer, university research chair, sociology of education, University of Ottawa "This compelling and persuasive book shows that an open climate for discussion of current issues, teachers' preparation across subject areas, and the new digital media can help foster a vision of democracy and counter prevailing inequality." -- Judith Torney-Purta, professor of human development, University of Maryland David E. Campbell is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and founding director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy. Meira Levinson is an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Frederick M. Hess is resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Conditional Citizens

Author : Laila Lalami
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0525436049
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (254 download)

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Book Synopsis Conditional Citizens by : Laila Lalami

Download or read book Conditional Citizens written by Laila Lalami and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice • Finalist for the California Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, Los Angeles Times In this brilliantly argued and deeply personal work, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S.citizen, using her own story as a starting point for an exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth—such as national origin, race, and gender—that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today, poignantly illustrating how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation. Weaving together her experiences with an examination of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture, Lalami illuminates how conditional citizens are all those whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.

Citizen

Author : Claudia Rankine
Publisher : Graywolf Press
ISBN 13 : 1555973485
Total Pages : 165 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (559 download)

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Book Synopsis Citizen by : Claudia Rankine

Download or read book Citizen written by Claudia Rankine and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry * * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . . A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Reign of Error

Author : Diane Ravitch
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385350899
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis Reign of Error by : Diane Ravitch

Download or read book Reign of Error written by Diane Ravitch and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, “whistle-blower extraordinaire” (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System (“Important and riveting”—Library Journal), The Language Police (“Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating”—The New York Times), and other notable books on education history and policy—an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. In Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch argues that the crisis in American education is not a crisis of academic achievement but a concerted effort to destroy public schools in this country. She makes clear that, contrary to the claims being made, public school test scores and graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been, and dropout rates are at their lowest point. She argues that federal programs such as George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top set unreasonable targets for American students, punish schools, and result in teachers being fired if their students underperform, unfairly branding those educators as failures. She warns that major foundations, individual billionaires, and Wall Street hedge fund managers are encouraging the privatization of public education, some for idealistic reasons, others for profit. Many who work with equity funds are eyeing public education as an emerging market for investors. Reign of Error begins where The Death and Life of the Great American School System left off, providing a deeper argument against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, putting forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve it. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it. For Ravitch, public school education is about knowledge, about learning, about developing character, and about creating citizens for our society. It’s about helping to inspire independent thinkers, not just honing job skills or preparing people for college. Public school education is essential to our democracy, and its aim, since the founding of this country, has been to educate citizens who will help carry democracy into the future.

Against Race

Author : Paul Gilroy
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674000964
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Against Race by : Paul Gilroy

Download or read book Against Race written by Paul Gilroy and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He argues that the triumph of the image spells death to politics and reduces people to mere symbols."--BOOK JACKET.

The Color of Mind

Author : Derrick Darby
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022652549X
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis The Color of Mind by : Derrick Darby

Download or read book The Color of Mind written by Derrick Darby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-01-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An indispensable text for understanding educational racial injustice and contributing to initiatives to mitigate it.” —Educational Theory American students vary in educational achievement, but white students in general typically have better test scores and grades than black students. Why is this the case, and what can school leaders do about it? In The Color of Mind, Derrick Darby and John L. Rury answer these pressing questions and show that we cannot make further progress in closing the achievement gap until we understand its racist origins. Telling the story of what they call the Color of Mind—the idea that there are racial differences in intelligence, character, and behavior—they show how philosophers, such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and American statesman Thomas Jefferson, contributed to the construction of this pernicious idea, how it influenced the nature of schooling and student achievement, and how voices of dissent such as Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and W.E.B. Du Bois debunked the Color of Mind and worked to undo its adverse impacts. Rejecting the view that racial differences in educational achievement are a product of innate or cultural differences, Darby and Rury uncover the historical interplay between ideas about race and American schooling, to show clearly that the racial achievement gap has been socially and institutionally constructed. School leaders striving to bring justice and dignity to American schools today must work to root out the systemic manifestations of these ideas within schools, while still doing what they can to mitigate the negative effects of poverty, segregation, inequality, and other external factors that adversely affect student achievement. While we can’t expect schools alone to solve these vexing social problems, we must demand that they address the injustices associated with how we track, discipline, and deal with special education that reinforce long-standing racist ideas. That is the only way to expel the Color of Mind from schools, close the racial achievement gap, and afford all children the dignity they deserve.

Firefly Lane

Author : Kristin Hannah
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1429927844
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Firefly Lane by : Kristin Hannah

Download or read book Firefly Lane written by Kristin Hannah and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2008-02-05 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.