Heather Anderson – författare

A Little More Than Perfect is Heathers inspiring true story of living with a disorder that touches every part of her life. The disease makes her bones incredibly fragile, and the slightest touch can sometimes cause a fracture. This led to numerous trips to the hospital, casts, and surgeries. Yet from an early age, Heather refused to let the disability stop her. She graduated high school, attended University, learned how to drive, and even started her own business. At the age of twenty-four, she moved into an apartment of her own and found the independence she so craved.

Through the years, she continued to face her own unique challenges including discrimination and job loss, but she refused to capitulate to despair. Instead, she found the inner strength to overcome her setbacks and live life on her terms. Though many have shown her pity, Heather counters with the perfect rejoinder: My life is a testimony to the human spirits ability to endure the worst challenges imaginable.

Honest and utterly captivating, A Little More Than Perfect will embrace your heart.

Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students'' Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom is meant to help all middle school educators encourage their students to build literate lives both within the classroom and well beyond it.

Veteran middle school teacher Jennifer Ochoa has brought together middle school teachers and teacher leaders, children’s author and We Need Diverse Books cofounder Ellen Oh, children’s literature scholar Kristin McIlhagga, reading and writing workshop teacher-author Linda Rief, and censorship expert Millie Davis to examine current middle school literacy practices that support students’ rights to read and write.

By showcasing their experiences and activities, and positioning NCTE policy statements—The Students'' Right to Read and NCTE Beliefs about the Students’ Right to Write—as foundational guiding documents, Ochoa and her colleagues prove that even in today’s standards-driven environment, authentic reading and writing practices can create literacy-rich middle school classrooms.

As a bonus, teachers who don’t have strong support in their schools to implement these practices will find a myriad of suggestions for developing a virtual personal learning network—a grassroots professional development tailored to their needs and interests—that will support them in their efforts to help kids as readers and writers.

About Principles in PracticeBooks in the Principles in Practice imprint offer teachers concrete illustrations of effective classroom practices based in NCTE research briefs and policy statements.

Each book discusses the research on a specific topic, links the research to an NCTE brief or policy statement, and then demonstrates how those principles come alive in practice: by showcasing actual classroom practices that demonstrate the policies in action; by talking about research in practical, teacher-friendly language; and by offering teachers possibilities for rethinking their own practices in light of the ideas presented in the books.

Following her bestselling memoir, Thirst, here is the next step in Heather “Anish” Anderson’s adventurous life journey—one of deep emotion and self-discovery

Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather “Anish” Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose.

The 2,189 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, did not make it easy. Anderson struggled with its infamous rain, humidity, insects, and steep grades for fifty-four days. But because she had to fight for every step, she knew when she reached the summit of Springer Mountain, the AT’s southern terminus, that she had fully earned the trail. Of greater value, she learned to love herself and her body, and to feel the depth of her power. Examining emotional scars as well as her relationship with her mother, Anderson’s deeply internal yet highly physical journey in Mud, Rocks, Blazes is an essential story.