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| DVD and Books for Sale | |
We no longer have these fundraiser items for sale in our office or on our web site. | |
| Fifty Years in Polygamy: | |
| Big Secrets and Little White Lies | |
| By Kristyn Decker (Author) | |
| Book Description | |
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There is much ado about polygamy these days. Media coverage, HBO's Big Love, TLC's Sister Wives, the acts committed by cult leader Warren Jeffs and his followers — all of these keep a slew of polygamy-related issues at the forefront of society. But none can depict the ongoing, daily atrocities and heartaches that are hidden behind the scenes, behind closed doors, within the hearts and souls of thousands of smiling faces.
Kristyn Decker's memoir recounts the harsh realities of being born and raised in the second largest polygamist sect in America — the Apostolic United Brethren, or the AUB (Allred Group). For five decades, Kristyn, then Sophie, was caught up in a cult of plural marriage ... and lived it until she thought it would kill her. When she finally had the courage to leave, she knew she had to share her story. | |
| Zero Chance: | |
| Power of Love...Love of Power | |
| By Jason Williams (Author), JM and Anthus Williams (Contributor) | |
| Book Description | |
| When religion and family turn on you, what is left? This is the amazing story of a young man willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain a relationship with his children. After growing up in a polygamist family and life-style, Jason Williams is given zero chance for salvation from the leaders of the FLDS. His wife and children are kidnapped from him and he is instructed to have nothing to do with them. Instead of giving in, read the true story of how Jason took on the FLDS leaders and saved his children. | |
| What Peace There May Be: A Memoir | |
| By Susanna Barlow | |
| Book Description | |
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Young Susanna doesn’t know anything other than the family environment that has been created for her — a system without regard for society or man’s laws. Raised in a sequestered home in a busy city neighborhood, everything beyond the front gate is off-limits.
The isolation proves to be a breeding ground for abuse, and Susanna struggles to reconcile her desire to escape and her need to belong. The book recounts six critical years in Susanna’s life as she comes to terms with her conditions. This coming-of-age story is as much a testament to survival as it is to surrender. Pushed to the limits of her coping abilities, Susanna tries anything she can to bring about the peace that seems always out of reach. | |
| "What Peace There May Be" by Susanna Barlow | |
| When Men Become Gods, Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and The Women Who Fought Back | |
| By Stephen Singular | |
| Book Description | |
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In When Men Become Gods, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Singular casts a light on a dark corner of religious extremism. He reveals a group of fundamentalists operating in the present-day United States, where teenage girls are kept in virtual bondage in the name of upholding the "sacred principle" of polygamy.
As the leader and self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a sect of Mormonism based in isolated southern Utah, Warren Jeffs held sway over thousands of followers for nearly a decade. His rule was utterly tyrannical. In addition to coercing young girls into polygamous marriages with older men, Jeffs reputedly took scores of wives, many of whom were his father's widows. Television, radio, and newspapers were shunned, creating a hidden community where polygamy was prized above all else. But in 2007, after a two-year manhunt that landed him on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, Jeffs's reign was forcefully ended. He was convicted of rape as an accomplice for his role in arranging a marriage between a fourteen-year-old girl and her nineteen-year-old first cousin. In When Men Become Gods, Edgar Award nominee Stephen Singular traces Jeffs' rise to power and the concerted effort that led to his downfall. It was a movement championed by law enforcement, private investigators, the Feds, and perhaps most vocal of all, a group of former polygamous wives seeking to liberate young women from the arranged marriages they'd once endured. The book offers new revelations into a nearly impenetrable enclave --- place of nineteenth-century attire, inbreeding, and eerie seclusion --- providing readers with a rare glimpse into a tradition that's almost a century old, but that has only now been exposed. | |
| Banking on Heaven | |
| Polygamy in the heartland of the American West | |
| Director: Dot Reidelbach Producer, Writer, Narrator: Laurie Allen Director of Photography: Thomas McArthur | |
| DVD Description | |
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BANKING ON HEAVEN is the inside story of the largest polygamous enclave in the United States, written, produced, and narrated by Laurie Allen, who escaped a similar polygamous sect at age sixteen.
While the media sensationalize this story, BANKING ON HEAVEN takes you INSIDE, takes you where no one has gone before, behind closed doors in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. Beautifully filmed and at times difficult to watch, BANKING ON HEAVEN exposes a primitive culture that mocks our Constitution, enslaves thousands of women and children, and uses mind-control and fear, clearly violating democratic and human rights. | |
| His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy | |
| A true story of violent fanaticism | |
| By Susan Ray Schmidt | |
| Book Description | |
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His Favorite Wife details the experiences of a young girl raised in a fundamentalist polygamist sect. At the age of 14, Susan becomes the sixth wife of Verlan LeBaron, one of the sect leaders. Woven with jealousies, and heartache, her story leads the reader through a murderous power struggle between the LeBaron brothers. Polygamist women are taught that obedience and unquestioning acceptance of polygamy will assure them a crown in heaven as a goddess. Few search out truth for themselves. Living a cloistered, sheltered life and giving birth to many children, traps them. Susan's book deals with these issues, as she too, was one of these women.
Cascading with well-developed characters, this true story will capture your soul and imagination as the author reveals how a group of kind-hearted, sincere people are led to embrace this controversial lifestyle in their pursuit of the highest degree of glory. Laced with surprising brush-strokes of humor, this heart-rending saga will take its readers on a journey that outsiders whisper of and shudder about. It answers the question that a polygamist's wife is asked countless times: How can you tolerate sharing your husband? | |
| Keep Sweet: Children of Polygamy | |
| By Debbie Palmer and David Perrin | Winner of the 2005 VanCity Prize for the best book published in British Columbia on women's issues. |
| Book Description | |
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Best Selling Author, Dr. David Perrin, co-authored Keep Sweet with Debbie Palmer so that readers could understand what it would be like to be a young girl growing up in the polygamous Mormon community of Bountiful. The foreword was written by Jon Krakuer, author of Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven.
Although the book is set in the early 50s and 60s, Debbie's experiences are representative of those that many children of polygamous groups are currently experiencing. Keep Sweet is non-fiction, but names have been changed to protect the safety and privacy of people mentioned. Based on Palmer's early memories, letters, and diaries, the memoir takes the reader inside the daily lives of children, sister-wives, husbands and leaders and provides an in-depth insight into the teachings of the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Palmer's story begins when her father takes her to the polygamous community near Creston, BC in 1957. We follow Debbie from age two as she struggles to integrate into a strange society and culture. At age fifteen she becomes the sixth wife to the community's fifty-five year old leader. Keep Sweet follows Debbie's trials until the death of her husband in 1974. Palmer remained in the community until 1988 when, pregnant with her seventh child, she managed to escape. | |
| Holy Murder: Polygamy's Blood | |
| By James R. Spencer | |
| Book Description | |
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HOLY MURDER is a look into the dark underground of polygamous Fundamentalism, practiced by more than 50,000 people in the West. Here sex and blood mix in religious excess. Men driven to obey God's devotion to "The Principle" live and die for their beliefs. Sometimes the violence spills over and touches people outside the system.
HOLY MURDER is set in the Wyoming of the Author's youth and describes the saga of Jan Kucera, a retired AP Bureau Chief who retires to the old homestead along the Bighorn River in Wyoming. Now freelancing, he writes a story for the New York Times about a polygamous sect located on a compound near the mouth of Shell Canyon at the foot of the Bighorns. Shortly after that account is published, a car bomb meant for him kills his wife. Now Jan has to face down his fears and the head of the cult, Prophet Hansen. Hansen is wealthy, politically savvy, and stealthy. State authorities are unable to connect the prophet, convincingly, to the crime. | |
| MURDER OF A PROPHET - The Dark Side of Utah Polygamy | |
| By John R. Llewellyn | |
| Book Description | |
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A riveting story of intrigue, murder, and sex. Lusting for worldwide power and recognition, the fanatical leader of a Utah polygamist cult launches a plan to become "the prophet" of all the polygamist cults—and then to take over the entire Mormon Church. Detectives fear a doomsday Waco-type standoff with women and children. Investigator John Llewellyn, polygamy expert, creates a fascinating tale of fiction based on real-life events.
As the drama unfolds, the personal background stories of individuals portray a realistic portrait of —
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| Click here for our suggested reading on polygamy and the FLDS | |
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