Widowed musician and single-father Wishes thought he'd never get his life Bach together again. Enter Ronan stage left. Balancing his career, his mental health, and getting his daughter to school on time, Wishes longs for another set of hands to duet life with. When Ronan proposes a childcare trade off, Wishes leaps at the opportunity. After all, single dads need to support each other, right?Spending time with Ronan and his son gives Wishes' life harmony, and thrusts him into panic mode. The timing between his grief and desire for Ronan is offbeat. He doesn't know if he's ready for a new love song, or if Ronan can Handel his secrets. Little does Wishes know, Ronan has a cacophony of secrets of his own...One widowed single-father + One divorced single-father = dad jokes, adorableness, steamy times, and a boatload of baggage. Content warnings:Canadian spelling. We love to mix and match US and UK spelling with a smattering of French words. This book, while funny and endearing, discusses heavy topics such as mental health (on-page panic attacks), death, addictions (historical), abuse (historical with flashbacks), suicide (flashbacks), and homophobia and transphobia (historical and on page).There's swearing. A good smattering of F-bombs.

An all-encompassing guide to entertaining, amazing, and possibly even educating children, Be the Coolest Dad on the Block provides the perfect excuse to stand on a balloon, play with grated cheese in the microwave, and unroll an entire roll of toilet paper, all in the name of spending time with your kids. Written by a comedy writer and a cartoonist with thirty years’ combined experience as dads, Be the Coolest Dad on the Block is a cornucopia of practical parenting advice, like how to skip stones or teach a kid to ride a bike. It has answers to the pesky questions kids love, such as “Why is the sky blue?” or “Where do babies come from?” And it can help dads entertain large groups of kids with slapstick gags (“burp the alphabet”) or cool tricks (“the hole in the head”). Be the Coolest Dad on the Block also contains spooky myths for telling around the campfire and loads of quizzes and jokes for rainy days or endless car rides. With a range of ideas to suit all situations and sensibilities, Be the Coolest Dad on the Block gives any dad the right stuff to be the wackiest and smartest guy in the room.

The author traces his parents' lives, marriage, and decline into old age, recounting his father's achievements as a Glaswegian jazz musician and his mother's work as a Shakespearean actress.

Children expect the earth from their fathers. They have to be able to conjure up games from thin air, to answer every question under the sun, to skim stones, and tell bedtime stories. Such perfect dads may exist. For the rest of us, there is DAD STUFF. DAD STUFF is packed with great things to do with kids. Some new, some traditional: how to learn to ride a bike without tears; how to play the spoons; a rainy afternoon's supply of knock knock jokes; a selection of magic tricks and how to answer 'Dad, where do babies come from?' There is a range of ideas to suit all situations -- games, puzzles, practical jokes and spooky urban myths. Not all dads are walking encyclopaedias and DAD STUFF will provide an easily recalled mine of useful and useless information with which kids can amaze their friends. Dads never need to be stuck for ideas again.

Here is a small group of students, hailing from different walks of life, yet managing to come together and pledge to make a difference in each other’s lives and in those they encounter along the way. They are able to do so because of their willingness to come out of their comfort zones, put aside preconceived ideas about one another, and acknowledge the equality of all. Such a commitment to humanity cannot occur in the absence of a meaningful and sincere meeting of the minds. Some of our best and lifelong friends are made during college. It's an exciting time of coming into adulthood and learning who we are -- and who we want to be. Meeting of the Minds follows a group of Northern University students from disparate backgrounds as they learn the meaning of friendship and how the people in their lives may become the most important influences in their futures. This unique coming-of-age novel explores individual stories that, together, reveal how friendship is complex and -- when we need it the most -- a collective group effort can save us from ourselves. A powerful novel you won't soon forget, Nathaniel Hill's Meeting of the Minds explores many universal themes of friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and the power of connecting with others to achieve personal redemption.

A classic he-said-she-said romantic comedy! This updated anniversary edition offers story-behind-the-story revelations from author Wendelin Van Draanen. The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says: “My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss.” He says: “It’s been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.” But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down: just as Bryce is thinking that there’s maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she’s thinking that he’s not quite all he seemed. This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny voices. The updated anniversary edition contains 32 pages of extra backmatter: essays from Wendelin Van Draanen on her sources of inspiration, on the making of the movie of Flipped, on why she’ll never write a sequel, and a selection of the amazing fan mail she’s received. Awards and accolades for Flipped: SLJ Top 100 Children’s Novels of all time IRA-CBC Children’s Choice IRA Teacher’s Choice Honor winner, Judy Lopez Memorial Award/WNBA Winner of the California Young Reader Medal “We flipped over this fantastic book, its gutsy girl Juli and its wise, wonderful ending.” — The Chicago Tribune “Van Draanen has another winner in this eighth-grade ‘he-said, she-said’ romance. A fast, funny, egg-cellent winner.” — SLJ, Starred review “With a charismatic leading lady kids will flip over, a compelling dynamic between the two narrators and a resonant ending, this novel is a great deal larger than the sum of its parts.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

"Hazel Frankel's multi-layered new book takes you into the search for meaning that lies at the heart of an apparently comfortable life in suburban Johannesburg. It's simultaneously an evocation of the Highveld, of hadedahs and sprinklers and night-time meals under the Milky Way, of traditional Jewish food like teygl and cheese cake ... and an exploration of the heritage of violence."--Back cover.

The colorful boyhood of a popular author comes to life in this personal account Imagine learning from a nosy classmate that your mother is having yet another baby. To Ralph's classmates, news of one more Fletcher baby is just "scuttlebutt." But for Ralph, the oldest of nine, being part of a large family means more kids to join in the fun—from making tripods in the woods and "snicking" up the rug, to raising chicks and even discovering a meteor (well, maybe). It doesn't feel like there's life beyond Marshfield, Massachusetts. Then one day Dad's new job moves the family to Chicago, and there's so much Ralph has to leave behind. In this humorous and captivating memoir, Ralph Fletcher traces the roots of his storytelling.