A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS BY MOTHERS WHO STRUGGLE TO BALANCE FAMILIES AND CREATIVITY With a history of amazing women behind them (Toni Morrison, Kim Gordon and Diana Arbus to name but a few), the women in this anthology demonstrate that having a child isn't the end of creativity, but another beginning. MAMAPHONICS collects confessions and conversations about the exhilarating, entertaining, and difficult aspects of remaining creative while raising children. Essays range from the hilarious, such as "The Rudest Muse" by Lisa Peet, an illustrator and specialty baker who, by listening to her teenage son, finds new directions for her work; to the heart-wrenching "Childish Things" by Lori Pfeiffer, a writer diagnosed with a terminal illness during her pregnancy, who asks, "If you had only six months to live, what would you write?" Including voices as diverse as a transgendered teenage couple, an academic feminist, a punk rocker, and a poet, this eclectic mix of musings proves that becoming a mother is not the end but a beginning. Contributors include Ingrid Wendt, Phoebe Gloeckner, Jen Thorpe and Gayle Brandeis.

Adolescence can be a challenging period under normal circumstances, but for five troubled boys, 1963 is a particularly difficult year. As social worker Airdrie Thompson-Guppy and her family settle in Waterloo, Ontario, Airdrie's life is about to dramatically change when those five boys are placed in her home by the Children's Aid Society.

One by one, the boys cautiously move into the home Airdrie shares with her husband and one-year-old daughter. Lefty is the unwitting victim of his father's anger. Bob has endured constant abuse from his alcoholic parents. Johnny struggles academically, is fatherless and is clearly troubled. Val sports an impish grin and is quick to argue. Dan is a cheery lad who is easily led by others. As Airdrie shares how she cared for the boys despite their inner turmoil and troubled backgrounds, she provides an eye-opening glimpse into one family form that focuses on rescuing and protecting children from the atrocities of a dysfunctional life.

"Airdrie's Boys" is a poignant story for anyone who cares about children; for families who need to know that lives can change and mend; and for all those who dedicate their professional lives to helping children discover a better life.

From a child development specialist comes a unique guide to parenting children aged two to six, featuring practical advice on how to handle the "hard stuff" - from sibling rivalry and the food wars to questions about death, sex, and "Whyyyy?". "Just Tell Me What to Say" gives parents sensible language and explanations for handling specific situations inevitable in raising young children.Parents are often perplexed by their children's typical behaviours and endless questions. In this book, down-to-earth advice is delivered with humour and derived from her expertise as a child development specialist and parent educator who has worked with hundreds of children and families. Through her 'Tips and Scripts,' she offers parents tools and confidence to deal with: How do I make my child listen? discipline do's and don'ts; How did the baby get in your tummy? learning about the birds and the bees; Why is my goldfish floating in the toilet? learning about death; Is the fire coming to our house? and, talking about natural disasters, terrorism, and war.

When Molly's and Becca's parents can no longer afford to keep their house, the family moves into an apartment. The parents try to hide their pain over the loss of their home, and the girls struggle with their emotions as they leave behind their friends, bedrooms, school, and playhouse in the house's beautiful backyard. All too late, Becca remembers she left her hidden treasure chest in the tree house. Will another child find her treasure? Would that child care about it or throw it away? As the family unpacks and adjusts to their new lives, they find their most valuable possession-a possession that can never be lost or taken away. With help from an unexpected source, Becca discovers that even if she never returns to her old house, the contents of the treasure chest will always be hers.A story about losing what we love, the upheaval of moving, and the surprise of delightful discoveries, "The Treasure Chest" helps both children and adults address difficult issues in today's world.

They go by many names: helicopter parents, hovercrafts, PFHs (Parents from Hell). The news media is filled with stories of well-intentioned parents going to ridiculous extremes to remove all obstacles from their child's path to greatness . . . or at least to an ivy league school. From cradle to college, they remain intimately enmeshed in their children's lives, stifling their development and creating infantilized, spoiled, immature adults unprepared to make the decisions necessary for the real world. Or so the story goes.

Drawing on a wealth of eye-opening interviews with parents across the country, Margaret K. Nelson cuts through the stereotypes and hyperbole to examine the realities of what she terms "parenting out of control." Situating this phenomenon within a broad sociological context, she finds several striking explanations for why today's prosperous and well-educated parents are unable to set realistic boundaries when it comes to raising their children. Analyzing the goals and aspirations parents have for their children as well as the strategies they use to reach them, Nelson discovers fundamental differences among American parenting styles that expose class fault lines, both within the elite and between the elite and the middle and working classes.

Nelson goes on to explore the new ways technology shapes modern parenting. From baby monitors to cell phones (often referred to as the world's longest umbilical cord), to social networking sites, and even GPS devices, parents have more tools at their disposal than ever before to communicate with, supervise, and even spy on their children. These play important and often surprising roles in the phenomenon of parenting out of control. Yet the technologies parents choose, and those they refuse to use, often seem counterintuitive. Nelson shows that these choices make sense when viewed in the light of class expectations.

Today's parents are faced with unprecedented opportunities and dangers for their children, and are evolving novel strategies to adapt to these changes. Nelson's lucid and insightful work provides an authoritative examination of what happens when these new strategies go too far.

In "If I Knew it Was Going to Be This Much Fun, I Would Have Become a Grandparent First Willard Scott, along with celebrities and ordinary people, will write about all the joys of becoming a grandparent. "If I Knew it Was Going to Be This Much Fun will be similar in format to "The Older the Fiddle, The Better the Tune-a long introduction by Willard, followed by shorter pieces by each contributor. This is a great follow-up book for Willard who was married for almost 50 years and has two grandchildren.

Raven's Roost is a story about Halloween. A mother and her three children relocate to a small town on the eastern seaboard to be closer to her parents and sister who live in the small town. It is fall and Halloween is fast approaching. The relocated children become friends with the two little boys who live next door to them. The two little boys harbor a dark secret about the old house on top of a hill called Raven's Roost. The two little boys have already discovered a secret cave and tunnel under the old house and they believe from what they have discovered that the house is haunted. There is further evidence that something mysterious is going on up at the old house and the children believe it is haunted. A mysterious floating light appears sometime after dark and there are sounds coming from the top of the hill that suggests a ghost does live at the house. The children set out to discover exactly what is going on up at the old house. On Halloween night they sneak off to go up to the old 'haunted' house under the guise of trick or treating the occupants of the house if there are any. Much to the dismay of the children's parents, the children have found a gold coin in the cave beneath the old mansion. The children's plot to trick or treat the house goes awry when a monstrous form appears at the house and an apparent ghost does appear during their Halloween night trip to the house.