Jean Thompson – författare

It is the summer of 1999, and something big and bad is coming to Springfield, Illinois, 'the place the Weather lived.' WIDE BLUE YONDER is a novel about weather in all its permutations, climatic, emotional, even metaphysical. Our guides through this season of blazing heat and fearsome storms comprise an unlikely quartet, each preparing in some measure for the end of the world. Uncle Harvey believes he is the Weather Channel's 'Local Forecast.' Yet even an arsenal of meteorological facts and figures can't stanch his existential fears. Harvey's niece, Josie, is fixed with a different predicament. She's seventeen with nowhere to go in the Land of Lincoln except into deep trouble. Josie's mother, Elaine, feigns cheerful efficiency, desperately masking a far more urgent quest. And then there's the loner Rolando, who hails from Los Angeles. A human storm system fueled by boundless rage, Rolando is on course to make Springfield the ground zero of his wrath. Newsweek's Jeff Giles memorably described Thompson's previous collection, WHO DO YOU LOVE, as 'a beautiful book, but a hell of a sad one' WIDE BLUE YONDER burns brighter, yet moves in the same mysterious ways.

The Early Years Intervention Toolkit provides a range of ready-made activities to enable early years practitioners and health visitors to address observed difficulties in a child’s development prior to starting school. It includes a checklist of observed behaviours which links to a range of effective and engaging activities to support children’s development across the three prime foundational areas of learning: Communication and Language; Physical Development; and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. Activities focus on a variety of crucial skills such as speaking and listening, moving and handling, and forming relationships, making use of materials that are readily available in every early years setting.This toolkit offers:A time-saving approach to interventions, with additional guidance on planning, providing, and recording appropriate interventionsAdvice and activities to share with parents for them to try at home A framework to enable early years practitioners to identify specific difficulties in key areas of developmentDownloadable resources to support activities and interventionsThe Early Years Intervention Toolkit is an inclusive programme and all children in the early years will benefit from taking part in the activities. It will be an essential resource for early years practitioners to effectively identify and support learning needs in child development and will boost the confidence of young children as they prepare for Key Stage One.

The Early Years Intervention Toolkit provides a range of ready-made activities to enable early years practitioners and health visitors to address observed difficulties in a child’s development prior to starting school. It includes a checklist of observed behaviours which links to a range of effective and engaging activities to support children’s development across the three prime foundational areas of learning: Communication and Language; Physical Development; and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. Activities focus on a variety of crucial skills such as speaking and listening, moving and handling, and forming relationships, making use of materials that are readily available in every early years setting.This toolkit offers:A time-saving approach to interventions, with additional guidance on planning, providing, and recording appropriate interventionsAdvice and activities to share with parents for them to try at home A framework to enable early years practitioners to identify specific difficulties in key areas of developmentDownloadable resources to support activities and interventionsThe Early Years Intervention Toolkit is an inclusive programme and all children in the early years will benefit from taking part in the activities. It will be an essential resource for early years practitioners to effectively identify and support learning needs in child development and will boost the confidence of young children as they prepare for Key Stage One.

A New York Times Notable Book | San Francisco Chronical Best Book of the Year A master of short fiction whose "best pieces are as good as it gets in contemporary fiction" (Newsday) returns, as Jean Thompson follows her National Book Award finalist collection Who Do You Love with Throw Like a Girl.Here are twelve new stories that take dead aim at the secrets of womanhood, arcing from youth to experience. Each one of Thompson's indelible characters—lovers, wives, friends, and mothers—speaks her piece—wry, angry, hopeful—about the world and women's places in it. This collection includes the following short stories:“The Brat”“The Five Senses”“It Would Not Make Me Tremble to See Ten Thousand Fall”“The Family Barcus”“Lost”“The Inside Passage”“Holy Week”“A Normal Life”“Hunger”“The Woman Taken in Adultery”“Pie of the Month”“Throw Like a Girl”

When Jean Thompson—“America’s Alice Munro” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)—is telling stories, “You cannot put the book down” (The Seattle Times), and her superlative new collection, Do Not Deny Me, is one to be savored, word by word. • Award-winning storyteller gaining popularity: Jean Thompson’s short fiction has been honored by the National endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation; Who Do You Love: Stories was a National Book Award finalist for fiction and was promoted by David Sedaris during his own lecture tour; and Throw Like a Girl: Stories was a New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. The collection is also in its sixth printing, as Thompson’s longstanding critical acclaim crosses over into a popular following. Do Not Deny Me is perfectly positioned to gain an even wider audience. • Do Not Deny Me: Here is a title that demands—and commands—attention in and of itself. Yet Thompson’s latest collection is no literary dare, delivering as it does twelve dazzling new stories that together offer, with wit, humor, and razor-sharp perception, a fictional primer on how Americans live day to day. In Thompson’s writing, The New York Times Book Review has noted, “some of the biggest satisfactions happen line by line, thanks to Thompson’s effortless ability to tip her prose into the universal.” Thompson succeeds as “one of our most astute diagnosticians of contemporary experience” (The Boston Globe).

“A closely observed, droll, coming-of-age story . . . An absolute keeper.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air"A page-turning narrative with laugh-out-loud scenes, and ultimately a hopeful, affirming book about how words can stir the mystery in us.” —Julia Alvarez, author of AfterlifeA warm and witty story of a young woman who gets swept up in the rivalries and love affairs of a dramatic group of writers. Carla is stuck. In her twenties and working for a landscaper, she’s been told she’s on the wrong path by everyone—from her mom, who wants her to work at the hospital, to her boyfriend, who is dropping not-so-subtle hints that she should be doing something that matters. ­Then she is hired for a job at the home of Viridian, a lauded and lovely aging poet who introduces Carla to an eccentric circle of writers. At first she is perplexed by their predilection for reciting lines in conversation, the stories of their many liaisons, their endless wine-soaked nights. Soon, though, she becomes enamored with this entire world: with Viridian, whose reputation has been defined by her infamous affair with a male poet, Mathias; with Viridian’s circle; and especially with the power of words, the “ache and hunger that can both be awakened and soothed by a poem,” a hunger that Carla feels sharply. When a fight emerges over a vital cache of poems that Mathias wrote about Viridian, Carla gets drawn in. But how much will she sacrifice for a group that may or may not see her as one of their own? A delightfully funny look at the art world—sometimes petty, sometimes transactional, sometimes transformative— ­The Poet’s House is also a refreshingly candid story of finding one’s way, with words as our lantern in the dark.

Carla is stuck. In her twenties and working for a landscaper, she's been told she's on the wrong path by everyone-from her mom, who wants her to work at the hospital, to her boyfriend, who is dropping not-so-subtle hints that she should be doing something that matters.­Then she is hired for a job at the home of Viridian, a lauded and lovely aging poet who introduces Carla to an eccentric circle of writers. At first she is perplexed by their predilection for reciting lines in conversation, the stories of their many liaisons, their endless wine-soaked nights. Soon, though, she becomes enamoured with this entire world: with Viridian, whose reputation has been defined by her infamous affair with a male poet, Mathias; with Viridian's circle; and especially with the power of words, the "ache and hunger that can both be awakened and soothed by a poem," a hunger that Carla feels sharply. When a fight emerges over a vital cache of poems that Mathias wrote about Viridian, Carla gets drawn in. But how much will she sacrifice for a group that may or may not see her as one of their own?A delightfully funny look at the art world-sometimes petty, sometimes transactional, sometimes transformative- ­The Poet's House is also a refreshingly candid story of finding one's way, with words as our lantern in the dark.