There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children


Melissa Fay Greene - 2006
    When Haregwoin Teferra’s husband and daughter died within a few years of each other, her life is shattered and she becomes a recluse. But then a priest delivers an orphan to her door. The another, and another... and together they thrive.The distinguished author of Praying for Sheetrock and two-time National Book award finalist puts a human face on the AIDS crisis in Africa. When Haregwoin Teferra’s husband and 23-year-old daughter died within a few years of each other, her middle-class life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was shattered. Bereft and with little to live for, Haregwoin became a recluse. Her self-imposed exile to a hut near her daughter’s grave was interrupted when a priest delivered first one, then another, orphaned teenager into her care. To everyone’s surprise, the children thrived, and so did Haregwoin. As word spread, children of all ages began to appear at her modest home: an infant brought by a dying mother, an orphaned brother and sister whose grandfather was too poor to feed them, a baby left on her doorstep. Haregwoin’s small compound became known as the rare place where ailing parents and impoverished families could safely leave their children. Soon Haregwoin was caring for sixty children, running an unofficial orphanage and day school, and learning first-hand about her country’s and her continent’s greatest challenge: the AIDS pandemic that is leaving millions of children without parents to care for them. With the flair and grace of a novelist and the reportorial instincts of a seasoned journalist, Melissa Fay Greene gets to the heart of the AIDS crisis, in a story that is nevertheless one of hope. There Is No Me Without You is the story of Haregwoin and her children: a story of struggle and despair, but also of the triumph of saved lives, and the renewed happiness of children welcomed by adoptive parents in Ethiopia, America, and around the world. Haregewoin’s remarkable story convinces us that the crisis in Africa touches every one of us in some fundamental way. At heart, this book is about children and the parents they need to care for them.

Coming home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up


Nancy Verrier - 2003
    It is written for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents as well as those who are in relationship with them, including professionals. It explains the influence imprinted upon the nuerological system and, thus, on future functioning. It explains how false beliefs create fear and perpetuate being ruled by the wounded child. It is a book which will help adoptees discover their authentic selves after living without seeing themselves reflected back all their lives.

The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift


Carew Papritz - 2014
    His words of wisdom, interwoven between deeply personal stories and poignantly-told memories, ultimately become the practical, moral, and spiritual guidebook for his children he’d never live to see, and for his wife, his redemptive act of love.“Live Life to the Fullest” becomes the father’s passionate plea to his family—and to all of us desiring to live the same way. Woman’s World Magazine writes, “This inspirational classic is the perfect comfort book for people hungry to find meaning in their lives.” Combining the best elements of such inspirational bestsellers as Tuesdays with Morrie, The Last Lecture, and Chicken Soup for the Soul, author Carew Papritz creates a timeless work that The Huffington Post calls, "A Must-Read Book of Wisdom for Life...exquisite, intimate, passionate, humorous, and genuine..."Back Cover Description of The Legacy LettersA tragedy begins.A husband and wife separate.He’s dying. She doesn’t know.She’s pregnant. He can’t return.Now he races against time—In the solitude of a mountain cabin.In a faraway mountain range.Trying to finish . . .For his children— his captivating stories and memories, turned into practical, moral, and spiritual instructions,now their “guidebook to life.”For his wife—his intimate words of great love and deep regret,now his journey of redemption, now her passage to forgiveness.Ultimately, he gives his final giftto her, to them, and now, to us all.The Legacy Letters

One of the Family: 40 Years with the Krays


Maureen Flanagan - 2015
    Told with humour and insight, it looks back across the decades at the life of this close knit, notorious East End family. Maureen Flanagan, a then 20 year old hairdresser started visiting the Kray family home in Vallance Road each week to give the twins’ mother, Violet, her weekly shampoo and set. Over the cups of tea and the rollers and hairpins, Violet began to confide in ‘Flan’ about her life, her incredible pride in her twins, the celebrities who visited her at their humble East End home - and her troubled relationship with her husband.

Babies with Down Syndrome: A New Parents' Guide


Susan Skallerup - 2008
    Covering the best practices for raising and caring for children with Down syndrome through age five, this book is invaluable to new parents who have welcomed a baby with Down syndrome into their lives. This new edition incorporates the latest scientific, medical, educational research, and practical information available, as well as parents' suggestions and feedback. Existing chapters have been revised, some completely rewritten by new authors, and in keeping with its parent-friendly reputation, most of the book's contributors are parents of children with Down syndrome Chapters cover: - What Is Down Syndrome?: A primer on the causes, characteristics, and diagnosis, including the latest information on genetics and prenatal testing;- Adjusting to Your Baby: Advice from an experienced mother on coping with common emotions and announcing the news to friends and family;- Medical Concerns & Treatments: An overview of possible health issues including celiac disease, sleep apnea, diabetes, reflux, and skin problems, with an emphasis on detecting signs early for needed treatment;- Daily Care: The gamut of care from feeding to bathing, with expanded information about toilet training;- Family Life: The impact on siblings and couples, discipline issues, and new material to help everyone understand that a child's behavior is a form of communication;- Development & Learning: Expectations about development plus new material on variability in development, learning styles, using reading todevelop language, memory strengths and weaknesses, and using play to encourage learning;- Early Intervention: An overview of services and therapies for babies & toddlers with new information on the transdisciplinary approach, providing services in the natural environment, transitioning preschool, and common questions & answers;- Legal Rights & Financial Issues: Explains your child's educational and legal rights, and financial information, including the latest on federal education and civil rights laws, sources of financial assistance, health insurance, trusts, and guardianship.Full of new photos, parent statements, updated and expanded resources and reading lists, this build everything parents need to build a bright and healthy future for their child with Down syndrome.

Who Peed on My Yoga Mat?


Lela Davidson - 2012
    In other words, she’s got it all. Who Peed on My Yoga Mat? peels back the curtain on family life to show that happiness is really a matter of perspective. Between watching adorably annoying toddlers transform into text-obsessed teens, and facing inevitable moments of marital “for worse,” a girl’s got to carve out time for inner peace. As she did in Blacklisted from the PTA, Davidson shows us once again that laughing at yourself and your family is the surest path to tranquility–or at least the most fun.

My Story: Justice in the Wilderness


Tommy Thomas - 2021
    His authentic voice is captured in this candid memoir and is recommended reading for anyone interested in Malaysian politics and the law.

Balance & Other B.S. : How to Hold it Together When you are doing it all


Felicity Harley - 2020
    She pays a high price for this . . .' - Jane CaroThere's never been a better time to be a woman - we can have it all! That's what feminism promised, didn't it?When Felicity Harley, founding editor of Women's Health magazine and whimn, felt really off kilter, she started talking to other women about their overwhelm. The floodgates opened. Turns out her girlfriends, colleagues and other mums at the school gate were also drowning in feminist guilt while trying to keep everything afloat; plagued by perfectionism, riddled with doubt, ruled by screens and hurtling towards burnout.As we juggle the roles of partner, boss, friend, mother and employee (plus a side hustle), balance has never been more crucial. We're obsessed with 'wellness', yet women's mental health and wellbeing are in decline.Using her own experiences, research and insights from leading Australian experts in health, sociology and feminism, and wisdom from smart women like Tanya Plibersek and Fifi Box, Felicity calls out the crap in 'cult wellness'. In her warm and inspiring way, she shows how you can cut through the B.S. to find clarity in the chaos, shed some of your mental load, and feel truly empowered in the middle of your wonderfully messy life.

In Her Own Sweet Time: Egg Freezing and the New Frontiers of Family


Rachel Lehmann-Haupt - 2009
    Women are making massive strides in gender equality, edging out men as the new majority in the workforce. But, because of their brief window for childbearing, this also means a drastically shifting paradigm for motherhood and family planning. In this 2nd edition, Lehmann-Haupt has updated the inspiring, honest account of her own efforts to reconcile modern love with modern life with the latest medical research. In Her Own Sweet Time will resonate with a generation of young women who want it all—career, family, and the perfect partner— but haven’t yet figured out how it all fits together. Join Lehmann-Haupt as she interviews women and travels the world to explore and understand the new frontiers of family.

One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir


Suzy Becker - 2013
    Then it took her fifteen years to resolve to go ahead and have just one. One Good Egg is a funny, warmhearted, twenty-first century tale of making a family, illustrated with hundreds of her witty cartoons, clippings, charts, and pseudographs.When Suzy Becker finally decided she had everything she needed--the home, the savings, the friends, the family, and the gumption--to have a baby alone, she was thirty-nine, which catapulted her into the ranks of the six million other American women who need medical help to conceive. In One Good Egg, she chronicles her travels through the maze of fertility treatments, considering and reconsidering how far she was willing to go and inwardly convinced none of it would ever work. Five months after she learned she was pregnant, Suzy got married.While none of us can adequately plan or prepare for certain realities like giving birth or parenthood, Suzy Becker's One Good Egg reminds us we are not alone on our journeys.

LACTIVATE!: A User's Guide To Breastfeeding


Jill Krause - 2019
    Lactivate! is a judgment-free advice book with the latest knowledge of breastfeeding, supporting you to make the best decisions for yourself and your family.From solving everyday breastfeeding problems to clearing a plugged milk duct, this guide will help you create the ultimate biological synchronization between you and your child.Unlike other breastfeeding books, Lactivate! includes: First 90 days—Learn helpful information, like how to optimize your breast pump and how to monitor your milk supply. FAQ—When will your milk come in? Are there foods you can’t eat? All your questions are answered. Helpful illustrations—Images show you how your baby should latch and how to identify the fungal infection thrush. The breastfeeding strategies and principles in Lactivate! will allow you to raise your child with confidence.

On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family against the Grain


Debra Monroe - 2010
    Its isolation—miles from her teaching job in a neighboring city—feels right. She buys the house and ultimately doubles its size as she waits for the call from the adoption agency to tell her she’s going to be a mom. Now in her forties, she is swept into the strange new world of single motherhood, complicated by the fact that she’s white and her daughter is black. As Monroe learns to deal with her daughter’s hair and to re-enter the dating scene, all the while coping with her own and her daughter’s major illnesses, they live under the magnified scrutiny of the small, conservative town.  Confronting her past in order to make a better life for her daughter, Monroe rebuilds not only a half-ruined cabin in the woods but her sense of what it is that makes a sustainable family.“Having driven across the country to see her brand-new adopted granddaughter, Debra Monroe’s mother says the first thing that comes into her head: ‘I knew she’d be black, but not this black.’  Monroe simply says, ‘Mom, there’s a blank in the baby book called Grandma’s First Words.’  The sly, dry humor of this, the offering of the second chance, the reminder that everything, even the mistakes, will be written down—tells you most of what you need to know about Monroe’s approach to life, and to memoir. Her generosity of spirit never fails her.”—Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love“Monroe’s memoir forges a remarkable canniness about motherhood and its twin perils, grief and love.”—Karen Brennan, author of Being with Rachel

The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic


Emma - 2018
    Most women carry some form of mental load--about their work, household responsibilities, financial obligations, and personal life, but what makes up that burden and how it's distributed within households and understood in offices is not always equal or fair. In her strips, Emma deals with themes ranging from maternity leave (it is not a vacation!), domestic violence, the clitoris, the violence of the medical world on women during childbirth, and other feminist issues, and she does so in a straightforward way that is both hilarious and deadly serious. Her comics also address the everyday outrages and absurdities of immigrant rights, income equality, and police violence.

The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival


Sara Tuval Bernstein - 1999
    She was born into a large family in rural Romania?and grew up feisty and willing to fight back physically against anti-Semitism from other schoolchildren. She defied her father' s orders to turn down a scholarship that took her to Bucharest, and got herself expelled from that school when she responded to a priest/teacher' s vicious diatribe against the Jews by hurling a bottle of ink at him?After a series of incidents that ranged from dramatic escapes to a year in a forced labor detachment, Sara ended up in Ravensbruck, a women' s concentration camp, Aand? managed to survive?she tells this story with style and power." --Kirkus Reviews

Love and Fury: The Magic and Mayhem of Life with Tyson


Paris Fury - 2021