Can she perform the vault of her life to save her loved ones—and herself? Sixteen-year-old gymnast Elizabeth Arlington doesn't care that her mother is older than the other girls' moms or that she doesn't look anything like her parents. She has too much to worry about like her body changing and how all of a sudden the balance beam is not as easy as it used to be. But when she makes a discovery that throws her entire identity into question, she turns to her ex-best friend Zach, who suggests a way for her to find the answers her mother won't give her: a time machine they found in an abandoned house. As Elizabeth catapults through time, she encounters a mysterious abandoned child, an elite gymnast preparing for Olympic Trials, and an enigmatic woman who seems to know more than she's revealing. Then when a thief makes off with an identical time machine, Elizabeth finds herself on a race to stop the thief before the world as she knows it—and her future—are destroyed.

In the age of #MeToo and a radical re-envisioning of cultural attitudes, Nancy McCabe sets out to re-examine and gain new understanding of her ill-advised marriage through the lens of multiple metaphors, images, and forms. Borrowing from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Kafka's 'Metamorphosis,' how-to essays and before-and-after weight loss ads, a curriculum guide, Bible study notes, an obsession with Tom Swiftie jokes, and women's magazine columns and quizzes that oversimplified women's lives and choices, McCabe examines the many influences that led to her youthful marriage - and out of it, into finally taking control of her life.

A typical travel book takes readers along on a trip with the author, but a great travel book does much more than that, inviting readers along on a mental and spiritual journey as well. This distinction is what separates Nancy McCabe's "From Little Houses to Little Women" from the typical and allows it to take its place not only as a great travel book but also as a memoir about the children's books that have shaped all of our imaginations.

McCabe, who grew up in Kansas just a few hours from the Ingalls family's home in "Little House on the Prairie," always felt a deep connection with Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the LittleHouse series. McCabe read "Little House on the Prairie" during her childhood and visited Wilder sites around the Midwest with her aunt when she was thirteen. But then she didn't read the series again until she decided to revisit in adulthood the books that had so influenced her childhood. It was this decision that ultimately sparked her desire to visit the places that inspired many of her childhood favorites, taking her on a journey that included stops in the Missouri of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Minnesota of Maud Hart Lovelace, the Massachusetts of Louisa May Alcott, and even the Canada of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

"From Little Houses to Little Women "reveals McCabe's powerful connection to the characters and authors who inspired many generations of readers. Traveling with McCabe as she rediscovers the books that shaped her and ultimately helped her to forge her own path, readers will enjoy revisiting their own childhood favorites as well.

Even before Nancy McCabe and her daughter, Sophie, left for China, it was clear that, as the mother of an adopted child from China, McCabe would be seeing the country as a tourist while her daughter, who was seeing the place for the first time in her memory, was "going home." Part travelogue, part memoir, "Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge" immerses readers in an absorbing and intimate exploration of place and its influence on the meaning of family.

A sequel to "Meeting Sophie," which tells McCabe's story of adopting Sophie as a single woman, "Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge" picks up a decade later with a much different Sophie--a ten-year-old with braces who wears black nail polish, sneaks eyeliner, wears clothing decorated with skulls, and has mixed feelings about being one of the few non-white children in the little Pennsylvania town where they live. Since she was young, Sophie had felt a closeness to the country of her birth and held it in an idealized light. At ten, she began referring to herself as Asian instead of Asian-American. It was McCabe's hope that visiting China would "help her become comfortable with both sides of the hyphen, figure out how to be both Chinese and American, together."

As an adoptive parent of a foreign-born child, McCabe knows that homeland visits are an important rite of passage to help children make sense of the multiple strands of their heritage, create their own hybrid traditions, and find their particular place in the world. Yet McCabe, still reeling from her mother's recent death, wonders how she can give any part of Sophie back to her homeland. She hopes that Sophie will find affirmation and connection in China, even as she sees firsthand some of the realities of China--overpopulation, pollution, and an oppressive government--but also worries about what that will mean for their relationship.

Throughout their journey on a tour for adopted children, mother and daughter experience China very differently. New tensions and challenges emerge, illuminating how closely intertwined place is with sense of self. As the pair learn to understand each other, they lay the groundwork for visiting Sophie's orphanage and birth village, life-changing experiences for them both.

After years as a drifting college instructor with no real home - her family and longtime friends scattered - Nancy McCabe yearned to settle down, establish a place she could call home, and rear a child there. A tough academic job market led her to accept a position at a church-connected college in the deep South, a move that felt like an uneasy return to the conservative environment of her childhood that she thought she had left behind. McCabe had many reservations about rearing a child alone in this climate, but the desire to become a mother would not go away. Meeting Sophie tells the story of McCabe adopting a Chinese daughter and the many obstacles she faced during the adoption and adjustment process. Especially poignant is her struggle to bond with a sick, grieving baby while in a foreign country during political unrest. Next she sought to renegotiate a role within her family and fought the difficulties she faced in her job as she learned to be a single mother. A series of crises tested her resolve - her father's sudden death, the subsequent deterioration of her mother's health, and the loss of her job. Before McCabe adopted her daughter, friends had told her that single parenthood would be difficult, but they offered few specifics. To cope with the process, she sought out other books about single parenthood; McCabe found some works that offered much-needed stories about other kinds of alternative families, but few that focused on the process of parenting alone. McCabe tells a story of people and identities and the aspects of human nature that bring us together and push us apart. Her memoir is both funny and touching, sharing experiences that are universal to anyone who has ever nurtured, or tried to nurture, a child.

A typical travel book takes readers along on a trip with the author, but a great travel book does much more than that, inviting readers along on a mental and spiritual journey as well. This distinction is what separates Nancy McCabe's From Little Houses to Little Women from the typical and allows it to take its place not only as a great travel book but also as a memoir about the children's books that have shaped all of our imaginations. McCabe, who grew up in Kansas just a few hours from the Ingalls family's home in Little House on the Prairie, always felt a deep connection with Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series. McCabe read Little House on the Prairie during her childhood and visited Wilder sites around the Midwest with her aunt when she was thirteen. But then she didn't read the series again until she decided to revisit in adulthood the books that had so influenced her childhood. It was this decision that ultimately sparked her desire to visit the places that inspired many of her childhood favorites, taking her on a journey that included stops in the Missouri of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Minnesota of Maud Hart Lovelace, the Massachusetts of Louisa May Alcott, and even the Canada of Lucy Maud Montgomery. From Little Houses to Little Women reveals McCabe's powerful connection to the characters and authors who inspired many generations of readers. Traveling with McCabe as she rediscovers the books that shaped her and ultimately helped her to forge her own path, readers will enjoy revisiting their own childhood favorites as well.