Unlikely Heroes

Author: Jennifer S. Holland
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 0761174419
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
In her heartwarming New York Times bestsellers Unlikely Friendships and last year’s Unlikely Loves, Jennifer Holland revealed the surprising emotional bonds that exist between animals of different species. Her books spent dozens of weeks on bestseller lists and caught the attention of major media from CBS This Morning to USA Today. Why? Because she opened our eyes to the rich inner lives of animals, showing us that the power of love and friendship is not for humans only. In Unlikely Heroes, Ms. Holland uncovers and celebrates yet another side of animals that we often think belongs primarily to people—heroism, that indefinable quality of going above and beyond, often for altruistic reasons, often at great personal risk. These 37 inspiring true tales show animals whose quick acts have saved lives, like the pod of dolphins who protected swimmers in New Zealand from a great white shark by forming a screen around them. There are stories of animals who simply and unselfishly give, like Rojo the llama, who shines his very special light of lovingkindness on the elderly patients in an Oregon rehab center. And there are compelling stories of heroic resilience: like Naki’o, the abandoned puppy who lost all four paws to frostbite but found the grit not only to overcome that terrible hardship but to reclaim the joy of life—that’s him, smiling on the cover of the book.

Unlikely Heroes

Author: Ari Kohen
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496208927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Classes and books on the Holocaust often center on the experiences of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, but rescuers also occupy a prominent space in Holocaust courses and literature even though incidents of rescue were relatively few and rescuers constituted less than 1 percent of the population in Nazi-occupied Europe. As inspiring figures and role models, rescuers challenge us to consider how we would act if we found ourselves in similarly perilous situations of grave moral import. Their stories speak to us and move us. Yet this was not always the case. Seventy years ago these brave men and women, today regarded as the Righteous Among the Nations, went largely unrecognized; indeed, sometimes they were even singled out for abuse from their co-nationals for their selfless actions. Unlikely Heroes traces the evolution of the humanitarian hero, looking at the ways in which historians, politicians, and filmmakers have treated individual rescuers like Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler, as well as the rescue efforts of humanitarian organizations. Contributors in this edited collection also explore classroom possibilities for dealing with the role of rescuers, at both the university and the secondary level.

Twelve Unlikely Heroes

Author: John MacArthur
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 1400202086
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
Describes the lives of biblical heroes, including Enoch, Joseph, Esther, and Jonah.

Unlikely Friendships

Author: Jennifer S. Holland
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 0761165312
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
It is exactly like Isaiah 11:6: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . . ” Written by National Geographic magazine writer Jennifer Holland, Unlikely Friendships documents one heartwarming tale after another of animals who, with nothing else in common, bond in the most unexpected ways. A cat and a bird. A mare and a fawn. An elephant and a sheep. A snake and a hamster. The well-documented stories of Koko the gorilla and All Ball the kitten; and the hippo Owen and the tortoise Mzee. And almost inexplicable stories of predators befriending prey—an Indian leopard slips into a village every night to sleep with a calf. A lionness mothers a baby oryx. Ms. Holland narrates the details and arc of each story, and also offers insights into why—how the young leopard, probably motherless, sought maternal comfort with the calf, and how a baby oryx inspired the same mothering instinct in the lionness. Or, in the story of Kizzy, a nervous retired Greyhound, and Murphy, a red tabby, how cats and dogs actually understand each other’s body language. With Murphy’s friendship and support, Kizzy recovered from life as a racing dog and became a confident, loyal family pet. These are the most amazing friendships between species, collected from around the world and documented in a selection of full-color candid photographs.

Unlikely Spiritual Heroes

Author: Brennan Hill
Publisher: Franciscan Media
ISBN: 9780867169249
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In his third Heroes volume, Brennan Hill profiles eight improbable candidates for the great things they did: - Thomas Merton, at first glance, a party-going lady's man, becomes a Trappist monk and peace activist; - Helen Prejean, a quiet religious sister, befriends and advocates for the seemingly most monstrous among us--murderers on death row; - Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a bookish, shy son of Italian immigrants, becomes one of the most outspoken prelates of our time; - Pedro Arrupe, a medical student then priest, survives nuclear holocaust and becomes a great Jesuit leader; - Jean Donovan, a Harley-riding businesswoman, turns missionary and is martyred; - Dorothy Stang, a religious sister and schoolteacher, champions the environment and loses her life doing so; - Maximilian Kolbe, a sickly, eccentric Franciscan, turns publisher and "warrior" for peace and dies in Auschwitz trading his life for a Jewish prisoner; - Karol Wojtyla, a young Polish actor whose election to pope makes him one of the most famous men on the world stage. These unlikely heroes saw great injustice, sorrow, and violence in the world and, in their own ways--some small, some universal--sought and created love, justice, peace, and hope for our time.

Untangling Heroism

Author: Ari Kohen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317964586
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
The idea of heroism has become thoroughly muddled today. In contemporary society, any behavior that seems distinctly difficult or unusually impressive is classified as heroic: everyone from firefighters to foster fathers to freedom fighters are our heroes. But what motivates these people to act heroically and what prevents other people from being heroes? In our culture today, what makes one sort of hero appear more heroic than another sort? In order to answer these questions, Ari Kohen turns to classical conceptions of the hero to explain the confusion and to highlight the ways in which distinct heroic categories can be useful at different times. Untangling Heroism argues for the existence of three categories of heroism that can be traced back to the earliest Western literature – the epic poetry of Homer and the dialogues of Plato – and that are complex enough to resonate with us and assist us in thinking about heroism today. Kohen carefully examines the Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus and Plato’s Socrates, and then compares the three to each other. He makes clear how and why it is that the other-regarding hero, Socrates, supplanted the battlefield hero, Achilles, and the suffering hero, Odysseus. Finally, he explores in detail four cases of contemporary heroism that highlight Plato’s success. Kohen states that in a post-Socratic world, we have chosen to place a premium on heroes who make other-regarding choices over self-interested ones. He argues that when humans face the fact of their mortality, they are able to think most clearly about the sort of life they want to have lived, and only in doing that does heroic action become a possibility. Kohen’s careful analysis and rethinking of the heroism concept will be relevant to scholars across the disciplines of political science, philosophy, literature, and classics.

Unlikely Heroes

Author: Daniel R. Lockwood
Publisher: Daniel R Lockwood
ISBN: 0615657575
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Is it possible for broken, ill-equipped, faltering, or average people to merit God's highest commendation?For him to say they lived "by faith"? Yes, it is.In Unlikely Heroes: Ordinary People with Extraordinary Faith, Daniel R. Lockwood presents a cast of Old Testament characters from Hebrews 11-seriously flawed people with stories that teach us about genuine, biblical faith.Biblical insights, historical significance, and engaging storytelling carry readers across generations of faith into the adventure that is ours today, with guidance for traveling wisely and courageously. So strap on your dusty sandals, shoulder your trail-worn knapsack, pick up your reliable walking stick, and get ready to travel in the footsteps of some remarkably unremarkable individuals. You will meet people whom God himself calls faithful and discover they are people like us!

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

Author: Teresa Toten
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 0385678355
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Two-time Governor General's Award nominee Teresa Toten is back with a compulsively readable new book for teens! When Adam meets Robyn at a support group for kids coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, he is drawn to her almost before he can take a breath. He's determined to protect and defend her--to play Batman to her Robyn--whatever the cost. But when you're fourteen and the everyday problems of dealing with divorced parents and step-siblings are supplemented by the challenges of OCD, it's hard to imagine yourself falling in love. How can you have a "normal" relationship when your life is so fraught with problems? And that's not even to mention the small matter of those threatening letters Adam's mother has started to receive . . . Teresa Toten sets some tough and topical issues against the backdrop of a traditional whodunit in this engaging new novel that readers will find hard to put down.

Unlikely Heroes

Author: James Slagle Mcclintock
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781517688349
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
They were the youngest US Army Division to serve in Europe in World War II. They were called the "Diaper Division," averaging just 18 or 19 years old. They had limited training and were considered unsuitable for combat. This is the story of the men of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 291st Regiment, 75th Infantry Division: their bravery, sacrifices, and the bonds of friendship that kept them alive and helped them to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny. These young men entered combat at a critical point in the Battle of the Bulge, lacking food, supplies, and winter clothing; in fact the only thing they did not lack was courage. The 75th Division defended the American Army's flank from a direct assault by two German SS Panzer Divisions. Their contribution to the battle resulted in the collapse of the German Bulge, earning their place in history as the "Bulge Busters." They went on to fight a fierce battle high in the Vosges Mountains of Colmar, France and pushed out the remnants of the German Army from French soil. They moved through Holland, crossed the Rhine, and fought a major battle in Central Germany in a town called Castrop-Rauxel, that was the center of German industry in the Ruhr Valley. They went to war as green kids, but truly became unlikely heroes.

Swords for Hire

Author: Will Allen
Publisher: Centerpunch Press
ISBN: 9780972488204
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
This BookSense Top 10 Fantasy Pick teams young Sam Hatcher with Rigby Skeet, a wisecracking Royal Guardsman. The two must rescue King Olive, who was betrayed by his odd, worm-loving brother, and is imprisoned in the dungeon of the superhuman Boneman. "Readers will revel in the story's charm, humor, and numerous twists and turns."--"ForeWord."