Foster children live in nearly every community, waiting in silent anonymity for someone to welcome them into their life.Sometimes all it takes is exposure to prompt change.Faith to Foster is a candid and vulnerable look into the life of ordinary foster parents TJ and Jenn Menn. It is a comprehensive journey chronicling their decision making process, how the children arrived, the birth parents' struggle to rehabilitate, help from friends and family, emotional goodbyes, and how faith in Jesus empowered them through it all. This is a story they wished they'd read before starting their foster parenting adventure.TJ and Jenn share of their experiences and feelings in a way that encourages readers to serve their neighbors. Faith to Foster reminds Christians how God can use them to make a difference in their community. He can strengthen our congregations to change lives and redeem innocent children from harmful situations.Indeed, Faith to Foster inspires believers to rely on the mighty power of our God as they seek to change their neighborhoods one child at a time.

    From the factory line to the family table, the two of them - the very definition of modern women - cut a path for their granddaughter by demonstrating courage and skill in their fearless approach to life, love and overcoming obstacles.Trigiani visits the past to seek answers to the essential questions that define the challenges women face today: how we hold on to the values that make life rich and beautiful, how we can take risks and reap the rewards, how to stand resilient in the face of tragedy. 'Be bold; 'be direct'; 'be different'!

    Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can only ascend to Heaven by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible. After Ruth's father—the man who had been the founding prophet of the colony—is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries, becoming the second wife of another faithful congregant.In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where her mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs. Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realizing that perhaps the community into which she was born is not the right one for her. As Ruth begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, she struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.Recounted from the innocent and hopeful perspective of a child, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of a girl fighting for peace and love. This is an intimate, gripping tale of triumph, courage, and resilience.

    When she was young, Lisa's father was a mythical figure who was rarely present in her life. As she grew older, her father took an interest in her, ushering her into a new world of mansions, vacations, and private schools. His attention was thrilling, but he could also be cold, critical and unpredictable. When her relationship with her mother grew strained in high school, Lisa decided to move in with her father, hoping he'd become the parent she'd always wanted him to be.Small Fry is Lisa Brennan-Jobs's poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents' fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, Small Fry is an enthralling book by an insightful new literary voice.

     Now, the author of many best-selling books on raising children has combined his two most successful volumes into a single revised and updated edition for new parents -- and those who need new ideas. John Rosemond's New Parent Power!, presents the renowned family psychologist's complete philosophy and methodology from the original Parent Power! supported by the details of his Six-Point Plan For Raising Happy, Healthy Children. As always, Rosemond delivers with a highly readable and refreshing tone, urging parents to listen to their hearts and their gut.

    Americans Tsh and Kyle met and married in Kosovo. They lived as expats for most of a decade. They’ve been back in the States—now with three kids under ten—for four years, and while home is nice, they are filled with wanderlust and long to answer the call, so a trip—a nine-months-long trip—is planned.At Home in the World follows their journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost—yet at home—in the world.

    Of course, in middle school and high school, almost everyone is an outsider: the nerds, the new girls, the band geeks, the loners; even the "popular" cheerleaders. Alexandra Robbins' The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth takes us inside the hallways of real schools to show us how shifting cliques and permanent marginalization affect children. Following individual students over the course of a year, she tracks the plight and possibilities of self-confessed nerds, freaks, punks, Goths, and weirdos. Her central message is heartening: Our increasingly homogenized society ultimately needs and welcomes the cafeteria fringe.

    

    society—the National Center for Education Statistics recently reported that in the last decade it grew at twelve times the rate of public school enrollments. Yet information about this population is terribly incomplete. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Kunzman uses his unprecedented access to six conservative Christian homeschooling families to explore the subset of this elusive world that most influences public perception and rhetoric about the homeschooling movement, from its day-to-day life to its broader aspirations to transform American culture and politics.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    A plainspoken account of living in Asia."  --San Francisco ChronicleAnyone who has heard his weekly commentary on NPR knows that T. R. Reid is trenchant, funny, and deeply knowledgeable reporter and now he brings this erudition and humor to the five years he spent in Japan--where he served as The Washington Post's Tokyo bureau chief.  He provides unique insights into the country and its 2,500-year-old Confucian tradition, a powerful ethical system that has played an integral role in the continent's "postwar miracle."Whether describing his neighbor calmly asserting that his son's loud bass playing brings disrepute on the neighborhood, or the Japanese custom of having students clean the schools, Reid inspires us to consider the many benefits of the Asian Way--as well as its drawbacks--and to use this to come to a greater understanding of both Japanese culture and America.

    Then her life was irreversibly transformed—and so was her philosophy. In this wholly unexpected personal account, the author of A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century (2009) offers us a Vindication of Life as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. The story of Cristina and her little daughter, Eurydice, is a tale of redemption and self-reinvention. It is about expanding definitions of love--and it is about confronting death. Not least, it speaks to us of life’s sweeping ironies: Sometimes bad luck is the new good luck, and the realization of your worst fears may be the greatest gift you can receive.Biography: Nehring first acquired national attention through her fiery criticism in the pages of Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times Book Review. A "compassionate contrarian," she won many awards for her politically incorrect cultural and literary essays. Her first book, A Vindication of Love (Harper Collins, 2009) argues for a bolder, braver, wilder form of modern loving, drawing extensively on literary and historical analysis. It was published to wide acclaim and translated into several languages. Nehring also works as a travel writer for Condé Nast Traveler, and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. She lives in Paris and Los Angeles.

    Toddler - the story of what happens when your little one is transformed from an innocent bundle of joy into a creature that walks, talks... and craps in a plastic bucket in the middle of your living room.Man vs Toddler exposes the lie that, that when it comes to parenting 'it gets easier'. But it is just as honest, foul-mouthed and heart-warming as Matt's first book, and will have you laughing and crying with recognition as he shares his observations and advice on everything from tantrums to the horrors of soft-play.

    Recent studies show that today’s teenagers are more anxious and stressed and less independent and motivated to grow up than ever before. Twenty-five is rapidly becoming the new fifteen for a generation suffering from a debilitating “failure to launch.” Now two preeminent clinical psychologists tell us why and chart a groundbreaking escape route for teens and parents.Drawing on their extensive research and practice, Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen show that most teen problems are not hardwired into teens’ brains and hormones but grow instead out of a “Nurture Paradox” in which our efforts to support our teens by shielding them from the growth-spurring rigors and rewards of the adult world have backfired badly. With compelling examples and practical and profound suggestions, the authors outline a novel approach for producing dramatic leaps forward in teen maturity, including• Turn Consumers into Contributors Help teens experience adult maturity–its bumps and its joys–through the right kind of employment or volunteer activity.• Feed Them with Feedback Let teens see and hear how the larger world perceives them. Shielding them from criticism–constructive or otherwise–will only leave them unequipped to deal with it when they get to the “real world.”• Provide Adult Connections Even though they’ll deny it, teens desperately need to interact with adults (including parents) on a more mature level–and such interaction will help them blossom!• Stretch the Teen Envelope Do fewer things for teens that they can do for themselves, and give them tasks just beyond their current level of competence and comfort. Today’s teens are starved for the lost fundamentals they need to really grow: adult connections and the adult rewards of autonomy, competence, and mastery. Restoring these will help them unlearn their adolescent helplessness and grow into adults who can make you–and themselves–proud.

    He’s practicing his handshake and hello: “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President.” When the couple in front of us steps forward for their picture, my teenager with sky-blue eyes and a soft heart looks up at me and says, “I hope I don’t let you down, Dad.” What kind of father raises a son to worry about embarrassing his dad? I want to tell Tyler not to worry, that he’d never let me down. That there’s nothing wrong with being different. That I actually am proud of what makes him special. But we are next in line to meet the president of the United States in a room filled with fellow strivers, and all I can think about is the real possibility that Tyler might embarrass himself. Or, God forbid, me.LOVE THAT BOY is a uniquely personal story about the causes and costs of outsized parental expectations. What we want for our children—popularity, normalcy, achievement, genius—and what they truly need—grit, empathy, character—are explored by National Journal’s Ron Fournier, who weaves his extraordinary journey to acceptance around the latest research on childhood development and stories of other loving-but-struggling parents.

    You discover that she has the same birthday, the same allergies, the same tics, and the same way of laughing. Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA as you and is essentially your clone.We don’t have to imagine.Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth. As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother’s past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature. Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives.