Shelley Davidow

Two women. Two cultures. And a friendship that freed them both. ‘We don’t choose where we’re born. Geography ends up being everything.’ Shaimaa Khalil and Shelley Davidow met twenty years ago in the Middle East when Shaimaa was Shelley’s student at the University of Qatar. Strangers in a strange land where the silencing and oppression of women is deeply entrenched, they immediately formed a deep and abiding bond. Shelley saw Shaimaa as her ‘Rosetta Stone’, helping her decode a culture and world so foreign it appeared to be from another planet. Shaimaa saw Shelley and her apartment as her ‘Tardis’, a space where she could glimpse a world she dreamed of inhabiting. Born a decade apart on opposite ends of the African continent – Shaimaa, an Arab Muslim from Egypt and Shelley an Ashkenazi Jew from South Africa – tell the story of a friendship that has defied historical, geographic and temporal boundaries, mapping the vast emotional and geographic territories they have travelled as women pushing against patriarchal confines over the past two decades. In an exchange of words and memories, Shaimaa and Shelley recall what shaped them, what broke them, and how they made themselves whole again through their interwoven stories.

These warm and wonderful readers will delight both students and teachers as they guide young children along the path of written language one step at a time. Written in order and phonetically, each story focuses on specific word groups, sounds and sentence structures. Each story has a beginning, middle and an ending. Succeeding stories build on these skills and then move on to the next level of skill. The books are conceived in much the same way as the "Dick and Jane" readers of an earlier era, but with a very important difference: these stories have a touching "heart content" to them. The stories are gently humorous while honoring nature, animals and the environment. The illustrations in their warm simplicity are wonderful compliments to the stories Whether you are rewarding an eager reader with a first experience of reading something someone else wrote, or helping a struggling reader get the hang of all those letters, these readers are sheer joy for everyone. The six books use simple words that the early reader will easily grasp. They have been carefully chosen by a reading specialist to help students advance from the short vowels to the silent "e" to the vowel combinations. At the back of each book is a list of sight words that should be reviewed with the child before reading the book. Appropriate for Grades 1-3. Titles of the Books in the Set (must be ordered individually) are: Sam Cat and Nat Rat: Book 1, Ned and Fred: Book 2, Len Bug and Jen Slug: Book 3, Jake the Snake: Book 4, Tim's Boat: Book 5, Kay and Jay: Book 6.

These warm and wonderful readers will delight both students and teachers as they guide young children along the path of written language one step at a time. Written in order and phonetically, each story focuses on specific word groups, sounds and sentence structures. Each story has a beginning, middle and an ending. Succeeding stories build on these skills and then move on to the next level of skill. The books are conceived in much the same way as the "Dick and Jane" readers of an earlier era, but with a very important difference: these stories have a touching "heart content" to them. The stories are gently humorous while honoring nature, animals and the environment. The illustrations in their warm simplicity are wonderful compliments to the stories Whether you are rewarding an eager reader with a first experience of reading something someone else wrote, or helping a struggling reader get the hang of all those letters, these readers are sheer joy for everyone. The six books use simple words that the early reader will easily grasp. They have been carefully chosen by a reading specialist to help students advance from the short vowels to the silent "e" to the vowel combinations. At the back of each book is a list of sight words that should be reviewed with the child before reading the book. Appropriate for Grades 1-3. Titles of the Books in the Set (must be ordered individually) are: Sam Cat and Nat Rat: Book 1, Ned and Fred: Book 2, Len Bug and Jen Slug: Book 3, Jake the Snake: Book 4, Tim's Boat: Book 5, Kay and Jay: Book 6.

Write Now is an innovative resource for educators teaching creative writing to middle primary school students. Packed with 20 progressive lessons, this book offers a unique approach to literacy development through engaging writing exercises designed to ignite a love for words in young minds.Educators will gain access to sequential writing activities, freewriting techniques and editing strategies aimed at improving students' overall literacy while fostering individual voices. With a focus on craft rather than standardised testing, Write Now provides teachers with tools to create a vibrant writing community. Included are assessment rubrics and guidance for publishing students' work.

Grounded is a beacon of wisdom for parents navigating the complex landscape of modern childhood. Drawing on their extensive research and personal experiences as parents and educators, the authors have crafted a comprehensive guide that transcends age boundaries, offering practical insights from infancy to adolescence.Grounded provides a user-friendly introduction to neurological development and highlights that a parent's wellbeing is integral to supporting their children effectively. Rooted in neuroscience, psychology and education, it serves as a roadmap in parents' journey to foster optimal cognitive, emotional and physiological growth for their children.Informed by a blend of academic rigour and real-world parenting, this ground-breaking book challenges prevailing norms and calls for discernment in assessing home environments, schools, and the broader societal context. It is a call to action for parents who aspire to raise children who are not just academically successful, but resilient, happy and healthy - and well prepared to navigate an increasingly complex world.

For those that have mastered the basics of memoir and wish to probe this brand of creative nonfiction further, Writing the Radical Memoir uses salient theories about memory and the self to challenge assumptions about how we remember and tell the truth of our lives when we write about it. Innovative in approach and making new critical ideas accessible, each chapter maps out the key principles of such writers as Barthes, Lacan, Derrida, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Philippe Le Jeune and Joseph Campbell, invokes literary examples to show how other writers have mastered the idea before reflecting on how you can practically apply the theory to your writing. With original exercises and prompts for further reading that bridge the gap between the theoretical and how it might be put into practice, the book is attentive to the multiple facets of the genre of nonfiction writing generally, covering such topics as: - The writer/ reader contract- How to embark on a thematic/ symbolic exploration of themes and incidents in your life- How neuro-scientific theory can inform our understanding of memory and recall and what happens to our memories when we remember them- Character development and the ethics of writing about real people- How constructing your identity in memoir offers a chance to push back against traditional structures- That memoir might not be preservation of your past but a process of self-erasure- How J. M. Coetzee’s Autrebiography trilogy challenges traditional biographyBy bringing together lived experience, post-structuralist and postmodernist theories, praxis and artistic vision as a unique approach to writing memoir, this book encourages you to think the self, how it is portrayed, created, erased and made strange through the process of writing and remembering.

For those that have mastered the basics of memoir and wish to probe this brand of creative nonfiction further, Writing the Radical Memoir uses salient theories about memory and the self to challenge assumptions about how we remember and tell the truth of our lives when we write about it. Innovative in approach and making new critical ideas accessible, each chapter maps out the key principles of such writers as Barthes, Lacan, Derrida, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Philippe Le Jeune and Joseph Campbell, invokes literary examples to show how other writers have mastered the idea before reflecting on how you can practically apply the theory to your writing. With original exercises and prompts for further reading that bridge the gap between the theoretical and how it might be put into practice, the book is attentive to the multiple facets of the genre of nonfiction writing generally, covering such topics as: - The writer/ reader contract- How to embark on a thematic/ symbolic exploration of themes and incidents in your life- How neuro-scientific theory can inform our understanding of memory and recall and what happens to our memories when we remember them- Character development and the ethics of writing about real people- How constructing your identity in memoir offers a chance to push back against traditional structures- That memoir might not be preservation of your past but a process of self-erasure- How J. M. Coetzee’s Autrebiography trilogy challenges traditional biographyBy bringing together lived experience, post-structuralist and postmodernist theories, praxis and artistic vision as a unique approach to writing memoir, this book encourages you to think the self, how it is portrayed, created, erased and made strange through the process of writing and remembering.

These warm and wonderful readers will delight both students and teachers as they guide young children along the path of written language one step at a time. Written in order and phonetically, each story focuses on specific word groups, sounds and sentence structures. Each story has a beginning, middle and an ending. Succeeding stories build on these skills and then move on to the next level of skill. The books are conceived in much the same way as the "Dick and Jane" readers of an earlier era, but with a very important difference: these stories have a touching "heart content" to them. The stories are gently humorous while honoring nature, animals and the environment. The illustrations in their warm simplicity are wonderful compliments to the stories Whether you are rewarding an eager reader with a first experience of reading something someone else wrote, or helping a struggling reader get the hang of all those letters, these readers are sheer joy for everyone. The six books use simple words that the early reader will easily grasp. They have been carefully chosen by a reading specialist to help students advance from the short vowels to the silent "e" to the vowel combinations. At the back of each book is a list of sight words that should be reviewed with the child before reading the book. This book is a compilation of all 6 individual booklets in "The Early Reader Series" into one paperback book. Appropriate for Grades 1-3.

At forty-four, loyal English wife, Lara Winters discovers that Brock, her husband of 21 years, has been cheating on her. Devastated, desperate, she flees her home in London, and heads for the farthest place she can imagine, from her old, blinkered life. She heads for Australia.On her first day in the hippie town of Byron Bay, Lara almost runs over the red‐haired, slightly raddled Ruby in a car park. Relieved to be still alive, the warm‐hearted Aussie leases Lara a small cottage on her semi‐rural property where Lara's journey of self-discovery begins ...The is a cleverly crafted story of self-discovery, resolution, and exploration and resolution of a woman's essential values - loyalty, monogamy, and abiding love. The reader makes the journey with Lara in thisa delightful and affirming read, full of wry humour and witty learning. High Infidelity is a romance: commercial fiction for women over forty, who know that laughter and tears often go hand in hand, and who still dare to believe in love and happily-ever-after despite cellulite, sagging breasts and cruel infidelities.

During the terrifying years of Apartheid in South Africa, Shelley Davidow's family was a crime. At a time when it was illegal for black and white people to live together, Shelley's social activist parents took in Rosie, an abandoned black three-year-old. Rosie grew up as a beloved daughter and sister in a white household. Against the backdrop of racist laws and ever-present threats of violence, Shelley's parents did all they could to provide a safe, happy home for their five children. But when Rosie was sixteen, devastating truths came to light, shattering the family's understanding of the past.In this haunting memoir, Shelley Davidow unravels the memories of her early life, searching for truth and reconciliation. Shadow Sisters leaves us with a deeper understanding of family love - but what if, sometimes, love is not enough?

We all spend much of our lives trying to cope with failure; sometimes we try to assign value to it, but failure looms as a debilitating concept in millions of lives, affecting children and adults alike. Fail Brilliantly proposes a radical shift: erase the word and concept of failure from the realms of education and human endeavors. Replace it with new words and concepts. This shift in position has the potential to transform our lives and ultimately reshape our definition of success.

Drawing on years of experience of writing, teaching and publishing, this book offers essential tools for writers interested in honing their craft. Whether you’re a poet, non-fiction writer, novelist, journalist, student or simply a lover of words, it will take you on an exciting and challenging journey to becoming a sophisticated writer. As in the learning of any true craft or art, first the focus is on specific skills, then on consolidating those skills, which by the end will be innate. Through a variety of exercises and freewriting prompts, Playing with Words will help you develop your writing, trying out new styles and approaches along the way. Use this book in a class, in a group, or alone in a writer’s attic.

Drawing on years of experience of writing, teaching and publishing, this book offers essential tools for writers interested in honing their craft. Whether you’re a poet, non-fiction writer, novelist, journalist, student or simply a lover of words, it will take you on an exciting and challenging journey to becoming a sophisticated writer. As in the learning of any true craft or art, first the focus is on specific skills, then on consolidating those skills, which by the end will be innate. Through a variety of exercises and freewriting prompts, Playing with Words will help you develop your writing, trying out new styles and approaches along the way. Use this book in a class, in a group, or alone in a writer’s attic.

An exquisitely compelling story of courage, destiny and the search for home When orphan girl Bertha Frank gets onto a ship in New York in February 1937 to go to South Africa to marry a man she s never met, she doesn t know that she is repeating a journey to escape poverty and the persecution of the Pogroms made by her father from Lithuania to America in 1913, or that she is foreshadowing a journey Shelley Davidow, her granddaughter, will make from South Africa to America decades into the future. In 1937, she doesn t know that it will be fifty years before she returns to visit her home, nor that she will live through tumultuous social upheaval in an Africa on the brink of transformation. As a hopeful young adult, she cannot imagine the beauty, the love and the irreparable loss she will experience as a Jewish migrant in South Africa. Nor does she know that far in the future, her grandchildren will retrace her steps backwards to escape the violent, decaying outpost of white colonialism. In the 1980s, at the height of Apartheid in South Africa, Shelley Davidow decides to run from her country, and spends the next two decades searching for home. Then, in 2012 she discovers a box of Bertha s letters and diaries. Shelley realises that her life is an echo of patterns and repeating journeys; that there is a whispering in the blood of our forebears that tells the story of all our lives. From the Pogroms of Eastern Europe, to America s Great Depression, to the rise and fall of Apartheid South Africa and finally to Australia in the 21st century, " Whisperings in the Blood "explores the emotional legacy that we inherit from our immigrant ancestors and the complex heartache of leaving the land of one s birth."

These warm and wonderful readers will delight both students and teachers as they guide young children along the path of written language one step at a time. Written in order and phonetically, each story focuses on specific word groups, sounds and sentence structures. Each story has a beginning, middle and an ending. Succeeding stories build on these skills and then move on to the next level of skill. The books are conceived in much the same way as the "Dick and Jane" readers of an earlier era, but with a very important difference: these stories have a touching "heart content" to them. The stories are gently humorous while honoring nature, animals and the environment. The illustrations in their warm simplicity are wonderful compliments to the stories Whether you are rewarding an eager reader with a first experience of reading something someone else wrote, or helping a struggling reader get the hang of all those letters, these readers are sheer joy for everyone. The six books use simple words that the early reader will easily grasp. They have been carefully chosen by a reading specialist to help students advance from the short vowels to the silent "e" to the vowel combinations. At the back of each book is a list of sight words that should be reviewed with the child before reading the book. Appropriate for Grades 1-3. Titles of the Books in the Set (must be ordered individually) are: Sam Cat and Nat Rat: Book 1, Ned and Fred: Book 2, Len Bug and Jen Slug: Book 3, Jake the Snake: Book 4, Tim's Boat: Book 5, Kay and Jay: Book 6.