Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy. Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes, sharing the secrets to her delicious buttercream yellow cake, the perfect pinwheel cookies, and other sweet essentials. Her classes have become so popular that she's hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn't know how to bake but she needs to keep...

"Shahroo Izadi has a revolutionary message: treating yourself kindly is the only way to make changes that last. Self-compassion and self-understanding are the keys to transforming your life. Combining her own therapeutic style, personal experiences, and techniques learned from working in the field of substance abuse, she shares simple steps that strengthen your willpower like a muscle, allowing you to sustain your motivation and make lasting change...

When mean and angry Judd, who has never known kindness, takes to drinking and mistreats his dogs, Marty discovers how deep a hurt can go and how long it takes to heal

Everyone knows the cool beans. They're sooooo cool. And then there's the uncool has-bean ... Always on the sidelines, one bean unsuccessfully tries everything he can to fit in with the crowd--until one day the cool beans show him how it's done.

When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate contemplates how to make her feel better and what it means to be kind. From asking the new girl to play to standing up for someone being bullied, this moving and thoughtful story explores what a child can do to be kind, and how each act, big or small, can make a difference or at least help a friend.

When Lila, a worrier, moves to a new town, the what ifs only grow, and she feels alone and invisible until her teacher finds a creative and kind way to make Lila feel welcome and open to new experiences, a lesson that will stay with her long after second grade.

"Zahra loves spending time with Kyle at school, but when her other classmates start teasing her for helping him she starts making choices she regrets"--

"Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez's ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past. Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others,...

One small act of kindness can change the world. Lady Gaga has always believed in the importance celebrating individuality, acting with empathy, and being kind to yourself and other. She and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, founded Born This Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a kinder and braver place. Within these pages you will meet young change makers who found their inner strength, who prevailed in the face of...

"In Human(Kind), Ashlee Eiland shares her compelling story of being a black woman living on two sides of the fence: as the token black girl in majority-white spaces, and as the "whitewashed" black girl in majority black spaces. As she discovers her own unique worth through these recollections, Ashlee learns that extending radical kindness toward every person--regardless of their social status, political views, or religious beliefs--gives us hope and...