Don Berg

Author: Schooling For Holistic Equality

Don Berg is the author of Schooling for Holistic Equality, winner of the 2023 Independent Press Award in Psychology and a Distinguished Favorite in Education.

Don is a psychologist with more than twenty years of experience in leading children in self-directed educational settings. He earned a degree in Psychology from Reed College in Portland Oregon. A researcher, alternative education practitioner, leader, and author. Don’s work has been published in numerous journals and he has presented at conferences worldwide. Don is the founder of Attitutor LLC and the Executive Director of Deeper Learning Advocates. A self proclaimed recovering faux achiever, Don lives in West Linn, Oregon on The Joyful Llama Ranch.

Schooling for Holistic Equality details how the the American School System is in crisis due disengagement among students and staff. Don maintains that students go through the motions of learning without actually mastering the material. He has labeled it “fauxachievement”.

He believes that a possible solution is psychological expertise on all levels to make things equitable in the classroom. Policy makers, teachers and students will be engaged and feel a sense of belonging resulting in an excitement about learning which will ultimately lead to a deeper understanding and grasp of subject matter.

The goal is to achieve optimal student engagement and make “Deeper Learning become the norm, not the exception”. “Learning is deeper when needs are satisfied and shallower when they are not.”

Don created the Attitutor Classroom Climate: a new tool that can be used by educators to ensure their students are optimally engaged. It provides feedback on how classroom leadership affects students. Information which is essential to ensuring student engagement. A formative assessment for classroom management. The tool can be found on https://www.holisticequity.org/.

Listen to the full interview: https://bit.ly/3VHAiSx

Mary H Reed, author of One for the Ark

On reading One for the Ark: I hope that readers are entertained and that some of the divisiveness around transgender issues is diffused by increased empathy on all sides.

Heavenly Blues (The Brainbow Chronicles)

By John Albedo

Will Glendenning is a medical school drop-out, a PhD dropout, and very nearly a drop-out from life itself. Will returns home for a friend’s funeral. However, his trip home is to lay the groundwork for a large family foundation that, oddly enough, is restricted to cancer research based on a ludicrous premise originating from Will’s deceased physician-father. Years later, to everyone’s surprise, the research agenda turns productive, largely through anonymous tips received online. When Will connects these tips to his friend’s suicide note from years earlier, an investigation is launched and a cold case turns hot.

Available on Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other online retailers www.johnalbedo.com

978-1685131135

FICTION

Purchase Price: $22.95

Nutshell (The Brainbow Chronicles)

By John Albedo

In 1932, Neva Pettibone, who endured six stillborn births, is in labor again. Doc” Callaway is a pharmacist, who practices medicine illegally, delivers Neva’s baby. Ivy, the baby, struggles with multiple congenital issues and ends up as a ward of the state. Years later, “Doc’s” grandson Chase, a med school graduate, works at the State Mental Hospital where Ivy happens to live & the two lives intertwine. Observing a surgical procedure where there is instantaneous success, Chase alters his path toward general surgery. Relationships shift and coincidences abound, raising the question of metaphysical explanations. Is the Callaway family haunted by a 13-generation curse? Is Ivy a designated guardian angel? Or, is the saga a simple tale made complex by quirky events?

Available on Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other online retailers www.johnalbedo.com

978-1684337163

Purchase Price: $21.95

FICTION Conspiracy

By Norma A. Wyman

Carrie Franklin has no knowledge of her past. She cannot develop relationships with there adult. She puts herself in danger searching for answers about her past.

Available at Amazon

ISBN 978-1649526250

Fiction

One for the Ark

Purchase Price: $6.50

By Mary H Reed WINNER! Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, General Fiction, Bronze (2016)

For a small-town conservative mayor and his liberal activist wife, politics, principles and personalities collide when the Blessed Virgin Mary appears on an underpass, a long-standing citizen builds an exact replica of Noah’s Ark, and their daughter makes a life-altering decision, causing both her feminist mother and her traditional father to confront the contradictions in each of their long-held beliefs and civic values.

Touching, amusing, and ultimately poignant, this novel plays out in a quirky Wisconsin town and claims the reader’s affection from the very first page.

Available on Amazon.com, Blurb.com or author’s website maryhutchingsreed.com

ISBN 978-0996252553

Purchase Price: $16.95

The Last Professional

By Ed Davis

If you long to indulge your wanderlust, to see America as you’ve never seen it before, and to meet characters you’ll never forget, this is the book for you.

Lynden Hoover, a young man on the brink of a new beginning, cannot embrace it without confronting the traumas of his past. Help comes from e Duke, an old loner who calls America’ s landscape his home. He clings to an honor code, but in eeing from Short Arm, his merciless enemy, his code is being tested. e Duke mentors Lynden, enlisting old traveling friends to keep himself and his apprentice just ahead of Short Arm’ s relentless pursuit. When two of those friends are murdered, the stakes become life or death.

Bonds are formed, secrets exposed, sacri ces made, trusts betrayed; all against a breathtaking American landscape of promise and peril. ree unforgettable characters, hurtling toward a spellbinding climax where pasts and futures collide, and lives hang in the balance.

Available on Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, all major online sellers, and many bookstores; Distributed by IPG www.eddavisbooks.com

ISBN 978-1951122256

Purchase Price: $15.95

HISTORICAL FICTION Incident at San Miguel

By Alan Sidransky

Havana, Cuba. December 1958. Two brothers find themselves on opposite sides of Castro’s revolution. One dark night, after rescuing a leader of the revolt under house arrest, one brother finds himself hunted. The other, an influential attorney, must make a choice. Help his brother, placing the whole family at risk, or let Batista’s forces capture him. His decision will haunt them both for the rest of their lives. How far will we go to protect those we love? Based on a true story, Incident at San Miguel takes us there.

Available on KPD, Amazon and B&N; Trade distribution through Ingram. https://ajsidransky.com/

Purchase Price: $16.99

HISTORICAL FICTION / SPY THRILLER

Trilogy: A Storm Before The War, The Soul of a Stranger, The Price of Betrayal

By Phillip Otts

e Harvey-McCrary trilogy is both a work of historical ction and a spy thriller set in the Civil War era.

e rst novel, A Storm Before the War, sets the stage, as two half-brothers nd common ground during their adventures in Cuba and the North Atlantic, where they uncover a plot to dismantle the United States of America.

e Soul of a Stranger, is set in Charleston, South Carolina as the Civil War begins. e brothers nd themselves involved in a desperate struggle to preserve the Union and barely escape with their lives.

e nal novel, ePriceofBetrayal, is set in Haiti, where Harvey sought refuge following the failure of Reconstruction, and forged an alliance of sorts with Fredrick Douglass, who was serving as the U.S. Ambassador in Port-au-Prince at the time. In 2022, e Soul of a Stranger was selected as a Distinguished Favorite in the historical ction category by the Independent Press Award.

Available to order from your favorite bookseller, or direct from the publisher at dxvaros.com

HISTORY-BIOGRAPHY / WOMEN’S INTEREST

Destiny’s Daughter

By Frances Altman

Destiny’s Daughter is a creative chronology of the life of suffragist Mary Edwards Walker. It emphasizes a woman’s personality, resilience and achievements. She found camaraderie among soldiers on the battlefield, in Congressional hallways and patrons of Dime Museums. An extraordinary woman whose philosophy, advice and activities parallel the goals of women today. Only woman recipient of Medal of Honor.

Available at most bookstores nationwide, Amazon and B&N; Apprentice House Press. Distributed by Ingram. https://www.facebook.com/frances.altman.77/

ISBN 978-1627204231

Purchase Price: $17.99

Frances Altman, author of Destiny’s Daughter

In Destiny’s Daughter I wanted to blend historical facts about Mary Walker while drawing out her inspirational guidance, personality and the society she lived in. She persevered as a strong, spirited advocate for women’s rights and welfare. Often forgotten, she is a role model whose advice and common sense is still a guide for women today. A timely read for summer or review year around.