Joan Esherick: 15 books

There are many kinds of physical challenges. Some of these are the result of an injury, while other challenges are caused by a condition with which the person was born. Many of these conditions will last forever, and some will get worse as the individual gets older. When fourteen-year-old Samantha...

Are you anxious? Irritable? Feeling depressed? Having trouble sleeping? Feeling tired all the time? If these symptoms describe you, you may have too much stress in your life! Stress is a fact of life. We all live with it. We all experience its effects. The exhilarated rider on a roller coaster experiences...

Everyone experiences the "blues" now and then as well as times of joy and self-confidence. Most people even experience mood swings—times when they move quickly from feelings like joy to opposite feelings like sorrow. But what happens when normal moods become so extreme that a person can't think,...

Millions of people with special needs experience problems like prejudice, limited opportunities, and difficulties accessing the facilities that should be freely available. Luckily, there are laws in place today to protect their rights. Maria, a beautiful young girl with dreams of becoming a model,...

You've been doing it since birth. You will do it till you die. You spend a full third of your life doing it. So why is it so hard sometimes? Sleeping seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world. Lie back, close your eyes, and drift off to dream land! But for some people, sleep is anything...

Russ committed thousands of dollars of damage during a two-hour drunken vandalism spree. He never saw the inside of a jail, yet in the thirty years since his first arrest he remains re-arrest free. He's a rehabilitation success story. Manny stole a car at thirteen years of age, a crime for which he...

Television programs and feature films present criminal psychology and profiling as a blend of psychic visions, supernatural intuition, and evidence analysis. The reality, however, is quite different. Using true-crime case studies from history and the present, examples from current and former FBI profilers,...

Imagine taking a medication meant to heal you only to discover that the drug rotted your bones, made your teeth fall out, and filled you with a radioactive element called radium. Pittsburgh industrialist Eben Byers didn't have to imagine. It happened to him, and he died as a result. Mr. Byers fell...

Many of us have looked in the mirror and thought, "If only I could change the way I look. If only I could be different." Most people have, at one time or another, wished to look more like someone else, someone we know or someone we've seen in movies or on TV. For many people, this desire stems from...

The human brain is a fragile organ, and as a result, brain damage is all too common. Tumors, strokes, accidents, gunshots, and impacts to the skull can all cause brain injury. These injuries can be minor—or they might cause memory loss or the inability to move normally. Many people who suffer brain...

We all need to eat. Food is a basic life necessity, but it can mean so much more to us than merely taking in enough food to keep hunger at bay. We eat when we're sad, happy, bored, lonely, excited, and for many other reasons. Many people have complicated relationships with food and their emotions....

Do you ever feel exhausted and drowsy, like you need more sleep? If you do, you're not alone. A recent study by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) found that 60 percent of people under the age of eighteen complained of daytime tiredness. Fifteen percent (one out of every seven) said they were so...

One in three adolescents who experiment with tobacco products will end up addicted to nicotine by the time he is twenty years old. If current trends continue, some five million kids who are currently under eighteen years of age will die one day because they chose to smoke cigarettes as adolescents....

As an adolescent, you'll have to make up your mind about a lot of things. Drugs and alcohol are among the most important. Using chemicals recreationally is a common aspect of many teen parties. No one sets out to become addicted. No one plans on any harmful side effects. But these things do happen....