Bøger udgivet af Linda Ruth Brooks

Lucy's mother died at home, listening to the afternoon birds. Lucy treasured her mother's silk embroidered notebook. It had wildflowers inside, pressed and dried, their petals as dainty as insect wings. Charlotte Bragg, denied invitation to her elder son's wedding, slid into the back pew of the cathedral.At the Soldatenkaffee Madeleine on the Rue St Honoré a slender woman sits on the edge of a vinyl chair.The corpulent man stumbled and wavered, taking pains to appear sober, soughing onto the slatted bench near the park.Georgia dragged her feet, watching her brother's long strides swirl dust on the bush track ahead. It was alright for him. He wanted to go.Kate couldn't remember when her role of carer had begun. It stretched back into a childhood that should still exist, but didn't. This long awaited collection of Brooks' short stories deals with all the themes close to her heart. They are shared with the grit and fearlessness that has appeared in her previous narratives. A welcome addition to Brooks' list of published works.

Animals have unique personalities and experience fear, anxiety and stress. The Banyula Tales are about a group of Australian animals living in the Australian bush. There's Callan Chameleon who doesn't like to go far from home, Ben Bowerbird is very careful and collects blue objects to decorate his bower. Kyle Koala likes to sleep a lot. Katie Kookaburra is loud and bossy. Serena Sugar Glider is thoughtful and takes care of the others. Blue Roo has lots of energy and acts before he thinks. Freya Frill-Neck Lizard is anxious and worries about lots of things. Fleur Possum is shy and kind. Emily Echidna is confident and friendly. Wesley Wombat likes to join in but he can't keep up with the faster animals. The Bilby Twins live in the Dark Forest, which is where you'll find Cassowary and Lyre Bird. There are many other animals: Tyson Turtle, Tazza the Tasmanian devil, Tessa Thorny-Devil, Fraser Frog, Gang-Gang Galah and Peter Platypus. There's Grandpa Koala, Doc Possum and Hawk. Welcome to Banyula!

Living with someone on the autism spectrum is like watching a child trying to play hopscotch when they can't see the squares, and everyone else can.This new compilation of I'm not broken, I'm just different & Wings to fly takes us to the heart of living with a child with on the autism spectrum. This latest edition of the book has also been published as Don't read this book by my mother - she's crazy. However, for early fans of Brooks' books on Asperger's it will be welcome news to find both books available in the one volume in the previous familiar style and title. Brooks chronicles her life with her son from his birth, covering the early years, and the teen years through to adulthood-ending with his fearless flight into manhood. The last section, focuses on the struggles faced by adults on the spectrum and their families in an informative, scientific approach.In an unflinching account Brooks poignantly captures the struggle of living with a child who appears to see the world through broken glass. A roller coaster ride from the bizarre to the obscene, encompassing the poetic and the hilarious, heartache and joy. The narrative embraces the muddled stumbling between two worlds-worlds that seem so desperately different at first glance. About a boy obsessed with the unfathomable and a mother obsessed with understanding him. This book is a celebration.

Callan the Chameleon lived in a tall lilly pilly tree with pink tipped leaves. The leaves of the lilly pilly tree grow very thick. Callan felt safe in the rustling tree that was home.Uniquely Australian, this story revolves around Callan and his bush animal friends, Emily the Echidna, Kyle the Koala, Katie the Kookaburra, Wesley the Wombat, Freya the Frilled Necked Lizard and other Australian animals. The book is illustrated with stunning pencil and watercolour artwork.

A white blanket of snow lay deep on the ground. Blistering cold winds brought sheet after sheet of swirling snowflakes. The 7.45 from Astonville was late. The clanking steam train only came twice a day.The town had once set their clocks by its arrival, but that was before the war. The women who lived in the valley just out of town noticed its lateness first. They put their children to bed by the sound of the whistle and the trail of steam behind the ancient grinding engine.However, they had other things to concern them. Ever since war broke out the routine of their daily lives had become unpredictable in so many ways.Now the war was over, but not the waiting.';Come away from the window, Beth,' begged her mother in a tired voice. ';You are fogging up the whole front window.'Beth sighed and stepped back a little, eyeing the circles of cloud her breath made on the glass. Grown-ups were so tiresome, she thought. Sometimes they didn't understand anything at all. Her mother had told her a hundred times that looking out that window wouldn't make her father come home any quicker. Truth be told, none of them knew whether Peter Renshaw had even survived the war, much less when he was coming home.Beth was too young to know that it wasn't her tireless vigil that irritated Miriam, her mother, but it was the visible hope that shone on her daughter's face that pained Miriam. A hope that mirrored her own. A hope buried deep inside a woman weary with waiting and exhausted from caring for three children. A woman with the toil-worn hands of a man.

Steele Fitchett describes his vision for The Narrow Way of Loving Ourselves:"This book is designed for anyone who has a longing to be themselves but has no idea of how to go about it. Being ourselves requires being real about how we feel about what's going on in our lives. It also reveals how our past impacts on our current attitudes and behaviour. The book is valuable for those who have reached a place where nothing seems to work and there seems to be no way out of the mess we find ourselves in. It provides no quick fix-there is none. It also presents God as the source of the unconditional love and acceptance we all long for.The journey of being real requires us to discover that our Creator is more committed to our heart than we are. He longs to teach us how to love ourselves and then our neighbour. He desires us to be able to love our enemy. Love him, but struggle with what he does. What we do is not what we are.You will find this journey confronting. I did."

Where's your mother?Not well today. Said carefully and neutrally, as if pretending things were normal would make them so. Transform life into a manageable thing. As if ten year olds everywhere were the ladies of the house, the caretakers of the family.I see.Mrs Blakehurst, their babysitter from up the road was on the stoop. She had brought the youngest two. Kate knew it was important to use her grown up voice, through a narrow slit in the door.Thank you, Mrs Blakehurst. Here is your pay.Father didn't change the rhythm, so that helped make it normal. Though deep inside a much younger Kate screamed that it was not. But Emily, Daniel and Sara's voices were louder. Some inner sense stopped Kate from calling them 'the children' as was her mother's custom. She was even particular that she called them in order of their age, oldest to youngest, as if by this precision she could push back the chaos that hovered like a patient bird of prey.Brooks explores the internal dilemma of a child compelled to become parent to a mentally unstable mother, as well as the guardian of her three younger siblings. With fearless candour, Linda peels back the layers of a child with adult responsibilities. What becomes of Kate when the years fall by and she reaches adulthood? Can the child within be denied voice?

There's a randomness and whimsy to this collection, and anyone familiar with Linda, will expect exactly that. It is also represented in the cover art-a zentangle, aptly name 'Goldfish in the Garden'.Prose begins at a nurses' reunion where the usual entertainments slip away as Pathfinder Robyn astounds the normally unflappable Marilyn and everyone else with a tale as disjointed as ever was told. A difficult childhood, a fascinating life, related with warmth and received with hilarity. Monica is voted Google-On-Legs for her encyclopaedic knowledge of life's goings on.A boy learns the beauty of the legacy of his great-uncles. A patient Indian Postmaster goes to great lengths to explain the parcel post system to an insistent customer. Jenny grieves a son on Mother's Day. Brooks shares memories of a muddy creek, a barbed wire fence and the angst and joys of growing up.Linda steps into a Jane Austen world and is maid at an elegant mansion in leafy upper-crust Sydney's North Shore and learns the rules for the help haven't changed much. In spite of his best intentions, an angry man becomes like his brutal father. A top-lofty son is embarrassed by his gentle mother's dementia and receives a lesson in grace. A vigilante tenant prunes a hedge and the neighbourhood is not amused.Brooks shares her award winning stories: 'The loud clock' (Coastlines 6, Southern Cross University), 'That Madness' (Legacy University Prize), 'Anyone but him, God' (Gabe Reynaud Award), 'Ancient Grief' (Grieve, Newcastle Writers Centre), 'A far place' (Stringybark Press), 'Dad's apprentice' (Wood, Brick & Stone, Catchfire Press), and 'The wall is blue (Coastlines 5, Southern Cross University).

This is the story of a man born in turbulent times in Tsarist Russia, a man who found his vocation in China and carried the Christian Gospel into the barren and lonely land of Inner Mongolia. He was a man of courage and perseverance, fervent in prayer, and persuasive in his preaching. Who were the people who influenced his life? What were the events that shaped his destiny, the places where his character developed? Read the pages that follow to find those people, places and events in the life of Pavel (Paul) Rodionoff. Read also the story of his wife, Vera, and their three surviving children, because they too shared the trials and the joys, the privations and persecutions. It is a story, but it is also twentieth century history; an account which leads us from Russia to China, to Mongolia and back to China, before resolution in 1950s Australia.

Galilee is a Gospel music label started in 1978 and active until 1982, when all the key players were Christians (more or less). Now, three of the four believe in something else, leaving record producer, songwriter, lecturer in Rock, and Bible translator, Robert Wolfgramm as the only true believer. Such is their respect for Robert and the Gospel years that Sally Hilder, Genna Levitch and Lowell Tarling have re-joined Robert and re-formed Galilee. They have re-released all three Galilee records and written this book.Galilee songs go into unusual territory. All My Friends Are Sinners and Refugee are 'moody' albums. Not happy-clapping. More like the blue note resonating from the Psalms of David. After which comes Persecution Games - unusual territory indeed. Welcome to the crucifixion.