Location:Cocoa Beach Public
Library
550 North Brevard Avenue
Melbourne, Florida
When: September 25, 2009
Starts
at: 2:00 PM
This is not an all day event
Description:Hothouse Orchid is a
brand-new page-turning Holly Barker novel from the perennially bestselling author Stuart Woods. The 6th Holly Barker novel,
which will be released on Sept. 22, will be available for $25.95.
Some South Florida Schools Help Train
Future Entrepreneurs
Flordia -- According to business experts, entrepreneurship is the heart of the U.S. economy.
There are nearly 26 million companies in the U.S. and about 97 percent have fewer than 20 employees.
That's why some
South Florida schools have recognized the need to teach students how to become entrepreneurs.
Michael Perez, 15, is
a sophomore at John A. Ferguson Senior High in Kendall. He is also the president of Tail Times, a business he created through
the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship or NFTE.
"This is my business, Tail Times. It is a doggie
day care service run out of my home," said Perez.
Executive director of NFTE, Alice Horn, said South Florida has
been part of the program for a year and already 2,500 students and 28 schools are involved.
"South Florida is a
hotbed of entrepreneurship. Every child learns how to recognize an opportunity that is exciting and motivating to that child,"
said Horn.
"Since I started the program I've learned about target markets, who you're trying to sell your products
to, loans, how would you get a loan, plus business plans," said student Sean Sierra.
At 15, Sierra, a sophomore
at Coral Gables Senior High, is also an entrepreneur. He invented a product to keep his mother from cutting her finger while
curling ribbons.
"It's just this little wooden box you never touch the razor at all," said Sierra.
Eddy
Bayardelle, president of The Merrill Lynch Foundation, said the program inspires creativity.
"The whole idea is
that we want to expose kids to new ideas, new role models and new places, so that learning takes place everywhere not just
in the classroom," said Bayardelle.
Students learn every aspect of managing a company like Perez who was named
2007 Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
"Both my parents are entrepreneurs so they're kind of like my inspiration,"
said Perez.
They also learn how to build a non-profit organization from the ground up.
"I had this idea to
have an art therapy session." said student Andrea Martines.
The 16-year old junior from Coral Gables Senior High
envisioned an art program that would help abused teens that is now a reality.
"I think it's amazing that we get
this opportunity so young in life," said Martines.
To learn if your school qualifies to be part of The National
Foundation for Teaching Entrepeneurship visit www.nfte.com.
NEWS DAILY:
90 Years Old and Loves to write
{books}
"I didn't know what the heck to do with myself. ... You know when you get into your 90s like I am,
there's nowhere else to think except the past. There's no future to think about. There's very little present," says Bernstein,
who gets around his New Jersey house slowly, with the aid of a cane, and is the sole survivor in his family.
"So
you think of the past, particularly at nighttime when you're lying in bed. And it all came back. So I began to write, and
I was occupied, and it was really the best therapy I could have had."
Bernstein first sent the finished manuscript
to New York publishers but, having no luck, he sent it to a London office for review. There the book sat for about a year
until it came across the desk of the editor, who described it as "unputdownable."
"I think he's a most
fantastic writer," Elton said. "He creates the characters of his family so vividly and tells such a moving story."
The book's title refers to the barrier that divides Bernstein's side of the street - the Jewish side - from the Christian
side in his hometown of Stockport, near Manchester, a separation he likens to two enemy camps that have an uneasy truce. About
the only thing that united the two sides of the street was poverty, with most people working in the mills on salaries that
only allowed them to get by week to week.
"We understood we were not to involve ourselves with them, and they likewise
with us. The Jewish boys and girls had their games on their side. They (the Christians) played their games on their side.
It was two separate worlds," Bernstein says.
In his book, he recalls a childhood often spent running from Christian
kids intent on beating him up or drunken Gentile neighbors who would stand on the street, yelling, "Who killed Christ?
Bloody Jews."
The bias went both ways. Bernstein recalls that when his family walked by a church, they were instructed
to spit as a way to show contempt.
The book is centered on one relationship that crosses the religious divide: Bernstein's
sister, Lily, falls in love with a schoolmate, Arthur Forshaw. The couple is drawn to each other by their love of books and
learning, but when Bernstein's family finds out about the relationship they try to send her away to the United States. When
Lily and Arthur marry in secret, the family sits shiva for her, meaning that in their eyes, she is dead.
"Could
there be anything more cruel than that kind of bigotry, that if a girl or a boy marries in the other faith, he's considered
or she's considered dead?" says Bernstein, who speaks clearly in a steady voice that rarely wavers, and vividly remembers
many details of his childhood.
If there is a heroine in "The Invisible Wall," says Bernstein, it is his mother,
who struggled to provide for the family and protect them from a father who preferred to spend his time and money at neighborhood
pubs.
Like his sister, Bernstein always loved reading and literature; besides writing freelance articles throughout
his life, he edited trade magazines and read prospective movie scripts for motion picture companies in New York.
His
mother always dreamed of moving to America and a better life, but many of the problems that plagued them in England, such
as poverty and her husband's drinking and abuse, followed them to Chicago and eventually New York City.
"The first
25 years of my life were very sad," Bernstein says. "But the years that followed made up for it, after I got married.
They were wonderful years."
Bernstein's two-bedroom house near the Jersey shore is covered with reminders of his
life with his wife, including pictures of the two in Mexico where they vacationed every winter and the artwork they collected.
Harry and Ruby Bernstein met at a dance in New York City, and after dating for a year, got married. While Ruby Bernstein
was also Jewish and the two were married by a rabbi, Harry Bernstein hasn't been to synagogue since he was about 12 and doesn't
consider himself a practicing Jew.
Since the two were married during the Great Depression and money was scarce, their
honeymoon consisted of a weekend walking through Central Park before Ruby Bernstein had to be back at work the following Monday.
The Bernsteins had two children, Adraenne and Charles. His daughter, who lives in Brooklyn, said she had the sense that
her father had a story inside him that he needed to get out.
"For people who don't know him, I think it would it
would be surprising," she said, referring to the fact that he wrote his first book so late in life. "For me as his
daughter, knowing how disciplined, and hardworking, and talented he is, it was not a surprise."
"The Invisible
Wall" has already been published in England and Sweden and will also be released in Germany, Italy, Finland and Norway
this year. Due to the age at which he wrote the book and his challenging childhood, "The Invisible Wall" has led
to inevitable comparisons with Frank McCourt's memoir, "Angela's Ashes," a book about McCourt's Irish upbringing.
Now that he's got the hang of book writing, Bernstein says he could probably write a few more and is considering writing
about his marriage. His second book, "The Dream," is almost finished and centers on the family's move to the United
States;
Bernstein cranks out his pages on a typewriter in his bedroom, saying that the computer nearby is too complicated
for anything more than checking his e-mail. And at his age, he allows himself a certain latitude in the writing process, meaning
that instead of worrying about deadlines he just writes until he doesn't feel like writing anymore.
"I've been
trained to finish something you start, don't leave anything undone," he says. "I just feel I'm not satisfied until
I finish what I start. And I will not be satisfied until I start something new."
Visit : www.nfte.com "Wouldn't YOU want to tell Everyone....Ya know!"
