Since 100 Top Picks was published in 2005, many great new products have been introduced. While many of Cathy's Top Picks from 2005 remain, many others have been replaced with even better options.Cathy's book makes the job of selecting the right curriculum easy! It includes extensive reviews of each of her Top Picks.101 Top Picks is a must-have for new home educators.

    Part of the bestselling Emotionally Healthy Spirituality book collection, this 40-day devotional by Peter Scazzero will help you nurture the kind of healthy relationships you long for.Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day by Day--just like its sister devotional, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day--is your invitation into the ancient yet powerful discipline of the Daily Office, the practice of pausing morning and evening to reflect on God's work in your life.Each devotional will reflect on emotionally healthy relational themes, such as:Clarifying expectationsDeep listeningClean fightingAnd moreYou'll will be ushered into a transformational practice that will deepen your daily walk with Jesus, and along the way, you'll discover the spiritual nourishment, joy, and peace that comes from meeting with him every day.Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day by Day is also available in Spanish, Relaciones emocionalmente sanas Día a día.

    Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which-after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing-gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

    Going beyond traditional marriage counseling which can often discount the influence of ADHD, this discussion offers advice from the author's personal experience and years of research and identifies patterns of behavior that can hurt marriages—such as nagging, intimacy problems, sudden anger, and memory issues—through the use of descriptions of actual couples and their ADHD struggles and solutions. The first third of the book is dedicated to helping couples identify how ADHD impacts their relationship. The last two-thirds provides a specific set of steps couples can move through to overcome their hurt and anger, once again develop loving ways to interact with each other, and find the joy they’ve lost in their struggles. This book encourages both spouses to become active partners in improving their relationship.

      Do you remember your first visit to where the wild things are? How about curling up for hours on end to discover the secret of the Sorcerer’s Stone? Combining clear, practical advice with inspiration, wisdom, tips, and curated reading lists, How to Raise a Reader shows you how to instill the joy and time-stopping pleasure of reading.   Divided into four sections, from baby through teen, and each illustrated by a different artist, this book offers something useful on every page, whether it’s how to develop rituals around reading or build a family library, or ways to engage a reluctant reader. A fifth section, “More Books to Love: By Theme and Reading Level,” is chockful of expert recommendations. Throughout, the authors debunk common myths, assuage parental fears, and deliver invaluable lessons in a positive and easy-to-act-on way.

    Women have been demonstrating resiliency and resolve since forever. They have incredibly strong shoulders to bear loss, hope, grief, and vision. She laughs at the days to come is how the ancient wisdom writings put it.But somehow women have gotten the message that pain and failure mean they must be doing things wrong, that they messed up the rules or tricks for a seamless life. As it turns out, every last woman faces confusion and loss, missteps and catastrophic malfunctions, no matter how much she is doing "right." Struggle doesn't mean they're weak; it means they're alive.Jen Hatmaker, beloved author, Big Sister Emeritus, and Chief BFF, offers another round of hilarious tales, frank honesty, and hope for the woman who has forgotten her moxie. Whether discussing the grapple with change ("Everyone, be into this thing I'm into! Except when I'm not. Then everyone be cool.") or the time she drove to the wrong city for a fourth-grade field trip ("Why are we in San Antonio?"), Jen parlays her own triumphs and tragedies into a sigh of relief for all normal, fierce women everywhere who, like her, sometimes hide in the car eating crackers but also want to get back up and get back out, to live undaunted "in the moment" no matter what the moments hold.

    So after a few years of dating, Jill Andres and Brook Silva-Braga built The Marriage Test to confirm their compatibility before saying “I do.”   Forty revealing challenges simulate the issues that could tank or strengthen their union. For a month, they swap credit cards, for a weekend they borrow a baby. An embarrassing lunch with their exes tests their trust issues. Sexual gymnastics are required to recreate TV love scenes. From a night of speed dating to 24 hours handcuffed together, the crazy, awkward, emotional trials fling them headfirst into assorted marital minefields.   Is their love strong enough to weather real life? Only forty dates will tell...

    Chock-full of the wisdom, wit, and whimsy that have made Mister Rogers a beloved friend to so many, this Miniature Edition™ is the perfect gift for any graduate -- or a nostalgic homecoming for anyone who's ever "visited" the Neighborhood.

    Two veteran home educators outline the classical pattern of education—the trivium—which organizes learning around the maturing capacity of the child's mind: the elementary school "grammar stage," the middle school "logic stage," and the high school "rhetoric stage." Using the trivium as your model, you'll be able to instruct your child in all levels of reading, writing, history, geography, mathematics, science, foreign languages, rhetoric, logic, art, and music, regardless of your own aptitude in those subjects.Newly revised and updated, The Well-Trained Mind includes detailed book lists with complete ordering information; up-to-date listings of resources, publications, and Internet links; and useful contacts.An excellent resource for any family with a desire to incorporate a classical education in their home, whether as a curriculum or as a reference. (Educational Freedom Press)

    Children of the Self-Absorbed helps readers sort out what happened to them as the result of a destructive childhood living with a self-absorbed parent. Through challenging self-exploration exercises, Brown helps readers to work toward building healthy self-esteem and to develop a new repetoire of protective and coping strategies. Readers learn how to identify destructive patterns that their parents may have had, evaluate attitudes and behaviors that may be hampering their own adult relationships, deal with self-doubt and other negative feelings, and explore techniques and stragegies for rebuilding their confidence and self-esteem.

    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

    In the mid-80s, Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo took big-wave surfing's spiritual home, Waimea Bay on Hawaii's legendary North Shore, and in their relentless quest for supremacy turned it into an arena of personal combat. Bradshaw was in pole-position. The muscular, square-jawed Texan already commanded respect through a combination of strength, gritty determination, and infamous temper – he was known to bite chunks out of fellow surfers' boards whenever he felt disrespected in the water. Mark Foo was the new kid on the block, and his polar opposite. The icon of the next generation, openly challenging the old guard, this slim Chinese-American wowed Waimea's winter crowds with his prowess, speed, moves, looks, and thirst for the biggest waves. But Foo's talent for self-marketing was anathema to surfing veterans and purists, and above all to Bradshaw. Foo was driving surfing in a new, commercial direction, while Bradshaw saw himself as the heir and guardian of a great tradition. And then one fine day Foo stole a wave from right under Bradshaw's nose, arousing his wrath, and firing up a feud that would span a decade.Their unforgiving rivalry would ultimately evolve into a grudging mutual admiration which was, however, doomed to end in death on a giant swell at Maverick's, just south of San Francisco, on Christmas Eve of 1994. Stealing the Wave is the intimate history of the conflict between two remarkable men that gets to the heart of what it means to compete, and examines what happens when competition, passion and belief go too far.

     “If you’re kicking yourself for not having accomplished all you should have by now, don’t worry about it. Even without any ‘big’ accomplishments yet to your name, you are enough.”   In this expansion of the 2017 commencement speech she gave at her hometown Langley High, Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, reflects on growing up, pursuing your dreams, and living in the here and now. “Whatever path you choose, whatever career you decide to go after, the important thing is that you keep finding joy in what you’re doing, especially when the joy isn’t finding you.” In her hilarious, relatable voice, Graham reminds us to be curious and compassionate, no matter where life takes us or what we’ve yet to achieve. Grounded and inspiring—and illustrated throughout with drawings by Graham herself—here is a comforting road map to a happy life.   “I’ve had ups and downs. I’ve had successes and senior slumps. I’ve been the girl who has the lead, and the one who wished she had the bigger part. The truth? They don’t feel that different from each other.”

    Love Sense presents new scientific evidence that tells us that humans are meant to mate for life. Dr. Johnson explains that romantic love is an attachment bond, just like that between mother and child, and shows us how to develop our "love sense" -- our ability to develop long-lasting relationships.Love is not the least bit illogical or random, but actually an ordered and wise recipe for survival. Love Sense covers the three stages of a relationship and how to best weather them; the intelligence of emotions and the logic of love; the physical and psychological benefits of secure love; and much more. Based on groundbreaking research, Love Sense will change the way we think about love.

    First published a decade ago, it is still the book that motherless daughters of all ages look to for understanding and comfort and that they press into each other's hands. Building on interviews with hundreds of mother-loss survivors, this life-affirming book is now newly expanded to reflect the author's personal experience with the continued legacy of mother loss; now married and a mother of young children herself, Edelman better understands how the effects of mother loss change over time and in light of new relationships. A work of stunning courage and honesty, Motherless Daughters is a must read for the millions of women whose mothers have gone, but whose need for healing, mourning, and mothering remains. It is a timeless classic.