For anyone who wants to turn his dreams of singing into reality, for anyone who is self-conscious about speaking or singing in public, for anyone who hates the sound of her own voice on answering machines–SET YOUR VOICE FREE offers the solution.
As Canada came to terms with its new role as an independent nation following Confederation in 1867, there was a call for a new literary voice to express the needs and desires of a new country. Children's literature was one of the means through which this new voice found expression. Seen as a tool for both entertaining and educating children, this material is often overtly propagandist, and addresses some of the key political, economic, and social concerns of Canada as it struggled to maintain national unity in the years following Confederation.
David Sedaris' new collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech-therapy classes ("There was the lisp, of course, but more troubling than that was my voice itself, with its excitable tone and high, girlish pitch") and unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget. From budding performance artist ("The only crimp in my plan was that I seemed to have no talent whatsoever") to "clearly unqualified" writing teacher in Chicago, Sedaris' career leads him to New York City and eventually, of all places, France. His move to Paris poses a number of challenges, chief among them his inability to speak the language. Arriving a "spooky man-child" capable of communicating only through nouns, he undertakes language instruction that leads him ever deeper into cultural confusion. Whether describing the Easter bunny to puzzled classmates or watching a group of men play soccer with a cow, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter.
The BFG (which stands for "Big Friendly Giant") is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, first published in 1982. An animated film based on the book was released in 1989 with David Jason providing the voice of the BFG and Amanda Root as the voice of Sophie (a character Dahl based on his own granddaughter). The book was an expansion of a story told in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier Dahl book. The book won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.
Powerful Pedagogy: Self-Study of a Teacher Educator’s Practice is the outcome of the author’s systematically questioning her assumptions about teaching and, in various ways, gives voice to the many individuals who have had an impact on the development of the author’s pedagogy as a mathematics teacher educator. Using self-study as both a lens and a methodology to research her practice over the past three years, the author examines the impact of reflection and reflective practice in pre-service teacher education; voice, silence and that which remains “unsaid”; the ways in which teacher identities emerge and develop, and the role of authority and power in learning about teaching.
Roald Dahl - The BFG 
