{"title":"Cris Beam","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the insightful and moving works of Cris Beam. From thought-provoking memoirs to groundbreaking explorations of identity, discover literature that challenges perceptions and fosters understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"to-the-end-of-june-book-cris-beam-9780544103443","title":"To the End of June","description":"A New York Times Notable Book, this intimate, authoritative look at the foster care system examines why it is failing the kids it is supposed to protect and what can be done to change it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system--the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents, the terrifying push out of foster care and into adulthood. Humanizing and challenging a broken system, To the End of June offers a tribute to resiliency and hope for real change.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"[A] powerful . . . and refreshing read.\"--Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"A sharp critique of foster-care policies and a searching exploration of the meaning of family.\"--Publishers Weekly, starred review\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Heart-rending and tentatively hopeful.\"--Salon","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49518463746321,"sku":"CIN0544103440G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49755753644305,"sku":"CIN0544103440A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50127719792913,"sku":"CIN0544103440VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51003355496721,"sku":"NIN9780544103443","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0544103440.jpg?v=1751198061"},{"product_id":"i-am-j-book-cris-beam-9780316053600","title":"I Am J","description":"J spun. His stomach clenched hard, as though he'd been hit. It was just the neighbour lady, Mercedes. J couldn't muster a hello back, not now; he didn't care that she'd tell his mother he'd been rude. She should know better. Nobody calls me Jeni anymore.    J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was: a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up a 'real boy' and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible - from his family, from his friends...from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he's done hiding - it's time to be who he really is. And this time he is determined not to give up, no matter the cost.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548616007953,"sku":"GOR006668218","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49726238818577,"sku":"NGR9780316053600","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50349931397393,"sku":"CIN0316053600G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52390537822481,"sku":"CIN0316053600VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53597515120913,"sku":"GOR006640501","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0316053600.jpg?v=1773313385"},{"product_id":"i-feel-you-book-cris-beam-9781911617068","title":"I Feel You","description":"Every generation, a phrase enters our consciousness. In the sixties it was civil rights; in the eighties it was self-esteem; now our word is empathy.    But what actually is empathy? Is it just one thing? Is it inherited? Can it be taught? Is ‘corporate empathy’ an oxymoron? And is empathy always a desirable human value?    Cris Beam tackles these questions and more as she journeys from neuroscience labs, to classrooms; from a reconciliation program in the US, to South Africa, where the first children born since Apartheid are coming of age. She talks to scientists studying mirror neurons and to teachers helping children identify emotions, to victims of childhood abuse, and to those attempting the most difficult empathy of all: empathy for the genocidal state. Along the way, she examines her own past and family relationships, and discovers what it means to ‘feel you’ — and how we can all apply empathy in our complex lives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606769049873,"sku":"GOR009187105","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50049645347089,"sku":"GOR013845829","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52729385189649,"sku":"GOR014602997","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911617060.jpg?v=1751419796"},{"product_id":"to-the-end-of-june-book-cris-beam-9780151014125","title":"To the End of June","description":"\u003cb\u003eA triumph of narrative reporting and storytelling. . . . Beam gives  foster children] a much-needed voice and does what too many adults in the foster-care system can't, or won't: She advocates for them. -- New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is \u003ci\u003eTo the End of June\u003c\/i\u003e, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book mirrors the life cycle of a foster child and so begins with the removal of babies and kids from birth families. There's a teenage birth mother in Texas who signs away her parental rights on a napkin only to later reconsider, crushing the hopes of her baby's adoptive parents. Beam then paints an unprecedented portrait of the intricacies of growing up in the system--the back-and-forth with agencies, the shuffling between pre-adoptive homes and group homes, the emotionally charged tug of prospective adoptive parents and the fundamental pull of birth parents. And then what happens as these system-reared kids become adults? Beam closely follows a group of teenagers in New York who are grappling with what aging out will mean for them and meets a woman who has parented eleven kids from the system, almost all over the age of eighteen, and all still in desperate need of a sense of home and belonging. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFocusing intensely on a few foster families who are deeply invested in the system's success, \u003ci\u003eTo the End of June\u003c\/i\u003e is essential for humanizing and challenging a broken system, while at the same time it is a tribute to resiliency and offers hope for real change.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49794612494609,"sku":"CIN0151014124A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49947479114001,"sku":"CIN0151014124G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51423479202065,"sku":"CIN0151014124VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0151014124.jpg?v=1751389354"},{"product_id":"transparent-book-cris-beam-9780151011964","title":"Transparent","description":"Beam does an admirable job grappling with the complexities of gender, race, and class that shape the lives of transgender teens. Beam also manages to draw out warmth, love, and good humor in her empathetic narrative.--Out \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChristina, Dominique, Foxxjazell, and Ariel s world is a dizzying mix of teenage cliques, crushes, and far less familiar challenges-- like how to morph your body on a few dollars a day. These transgender girls bravely struggle to reconcile the way they feel inside with the way the world sees them. Funny, defiant, and sometimes heartbreaking, Cris Beam s exceptional story of how these girls survive and maybe even thrive despite a world that wants to ignore them, is a wonder of storytelling and passionate engagement. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a serious piece of investigative reporting. [and] will prove indispensable to the small but growing literature on transgender teens.--Curve \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeam built a deep understanding of the psyche of disadvantaged transgendered youth, and her richly detailed, sympathetic book attempts to paint a picture of their complex lives.--Bitch \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCRIS BEAM\u003c\/b\u003e, a journalist who has written for several national magazines as well as for the public radio program This American Life, has an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University and teaches creative writing at Columbia and the New School. She lives in New York.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49899183636753,"sku":"CIN0151011966G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345720873233,"sku":"CIN0151011966VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51479341269265,"sku":"GOR009094126","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51715092381969,"sku":"CIN0151011966A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0151011966.jpg?v=1750812101"},{"product_id":"i-feel-you-book-cris-beam-9780544558168","title":"I Feel You","description":"A cogent, gorgeous examination of empathy, illuminating the myths, the science, and the power behind this transformative emotion\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Empathy has become a gaping fault line in American culture. Pioneering programs aim to infuse our legal and educational systems with more empathic thinking, even as pundits argue over whether we should bother empathizing with our political opposites at all. Meanwhile, we are inundated with the buzzily termed \"empathic marketing\"--which may very well be a contradiction in terms.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In I Feel You, Cris Beam carves through the noise with a revelatory exploration of how we perform empathy, how it is learned, what it can do--indeed, what empathy is in the first place. She takes us to the labs where the neural networks of compassion are being mapped, and the classrooms where children are being trained to see others' views. Beam visits courtrooms and prisons, asking how empathy might transform our justice system. She travels to places wracked by oppression and genocide, where reconciliation seems impossible, to report on efforts to heal society's deepest wounds through human connection. And finally, she turns to how we, as individuals, can foster compassion for ourselves.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Brimming with the sensitive and nuanced storytelling that has made Beam one of our most respected journalists, I Feel You is an eye-opening affirmation of empathy's potential.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50002296963345,"sku":"CIN0544558162VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50265489932561,"sku":"CIN0544558162G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0544558162.jpg?v=1751007680"},{"product_id":"transparent-book-cris-beam-9780156033770","title":"Transparent","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Cris Beam moved to Los Angeles, she thought she might volunteer just a few hours at a school for gay and transgender kids. Instead, she found herself drawn deeply into the pained and powerful group of transgirls she discovered. Transparent introduces four: Christina, Dominique, Foxxjazell, and Ariel. As they accept Cris into their world, she shows it to us--a dizzying mix of familiar teenage cliques and crushes and far less familiar challenges, such as how to morph your body on a few dollars a day. Funny, heartbreaking, defiant, and sometimes defeated, the girls form a singular community. But they struggle valiantly to resolve the gap between the way they feel inside and the way the world sees them--and who among us can't identify with that? Beam's astute reporting, sensitive writing, and passionate engagement with her characters place this book in the ranks of the very best narrative nonfiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345249669393,"sku":"CIN0156033771G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52734450893073,"sku":"NIN9780156033770","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0156033771.jpg?v=1751164049"},{"product_id":"i-am-j-book-cris-beam-9780316053617","title":"I am J","description":"An emotional, heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring story of a transgender teen.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347816026385,"sku":"CIN0316053619G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347852431633,"sku":"CIN0316053619A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52696048271633,"sku":"GOR007697865","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53233330880785,"sku":"GOR005894473","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0316053619.jpg?v=1751071015"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-cris-beam.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}