“I wanted to tell the secret stories that my great-grandmother Blanche whispered to me on summer nights in a featherbed in Iowa. I was eight and she was eighty . . .” At the age of four, a little girl stands on a cold, windy railroad platform in Wichita, Kansas, watching a train take her mother away. For the rest of her life, her mother will be an only occasional—and always troubled—visitor who denies her the love she longs for. Linda Joy Myers’s compassionate, gripping, and soul-searching memoir tells the story of three generations of daughters who, though determined to be different from their absent mothers, ultimately follow in their footsteps, recreating a pattern that they yearn to break. Accompany Linda as she uncovers family secrets, seeks solace in music, and begins her healing journey—ultimately transcending the prison of her childhood and finding forgiveness for her family and herself. This edition includes a new afterword in which Myers confronts her family’s legacy and comes full circle with her daughter and grandchildren, seeding a new path for them.

A Prize-winning MemoirDont Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother-Daughter Abandonment I wanted to tell the secret stories that my great-grandmother Blanche whispered to me on summer nights in a featherbed in Iowa. I was eight and she was eighty Dont Call Me Mother is an inspiring chronicle of perseverance, healing, and the unquenchable power of forgiveness. Acclaimed author and therapist Linda Joy Myerss compelling, compassionate, and often heart-wrenching memoir shares the story of her mothers abandonment of her, part of a generations-long tradition in her family. Myers uncovers the layers of a painful secret she carried with her for years, transporting us on a journey that is both familiar and uncompromising in its honesty a journey into the inner heart of a home shattered by abandonment and undiagnosed manic-depressionand a quest for the fulfillment of a childhood dream for a peaceful and loving family.

Don't Call Me Pig! uses a delightful rhyme and clever, colorful illustrations chock full of detail to tell the javelina's story. What exactly is a javelina? The hairy little animal is shaped much like a pig. It has a snout like a pig. But is it really a pig? No way. Is it some type of large, hairy rodent? Nope. Not at all. Not even close! Javelina is just one name for a creature that lives in large families and roams in herds across Southwestern deserts. Collared Peccary is another. One thing is certain, after reading this amusing story, readers of all ages will know why they should never, ever call them pigs!

Perfect for fans of Jennifer E. Smith and Huntley Fitzpatrick, Don't Call Me Baby is a sharply observed and charming story about mothers and daughters, best friends and first crushes, and our online selves and the truth you can only see in real life. All her life, Imogene has been known as the girl on that blog. Imogene's mother has been writing an incredibly embarrassing, and incredibly popular, blog about her since before she was born. The thing is, Imogene is fifteen now, and her mother is still blogging about her. In gruesome detail. When a mandatory school project compels Imogene to start her own blog, Imogene is reluctant to expose even more of her life online . . . until she realizes that the project is the opportunity she's been waiting for to define herself for the first time.

Don't Call Me Jupiter is a true-story memoir about an All-American family that becomes all hippied out. It's about the pros and cons that kids growing up in hippie environments encountered and how their early experiences continue to shape them later in life. This "First Family" story begins in 1961 in Cincinnati, Ohio with Dr. Sabin as they're selected to demonstrate the oral vaccine for polio. They are the paragon of midwestern, conservative, white-bread, Catholic idealism. And yet, led by an eccentric mother, the Martha Stewart of hippies, the family transforms into a clan of liberal, pot-smoking, psychedelic-bus-tripping, nature-loving California free spirits. Told through the wide-eyes of a middle child; a reluctant hippie kid who loves his family as much as he is embarrassed by them, this is a hilarious book about abandonment. Climb aboard their magic yellow bus for an unforgettable ride with colorful characters caught in situations that will make you laugh, cry, and cringe. Don't Call me Jupiter is a page-turning ride down memory lane when many parents went in search of themselves and lost their children along the way. "Growing up in this era was groovy and far out. We believed in the power of the people. We felt we could save the whales and make the world a better place. But there was bad craziness too."The '60s were a pivotal time. It revolutionized the way people looked at the world and their place in it. People challenged tradition, experimented with new lifestyles - and drugs. The very definition of family was stretched. Many people share unforgettable memories connected to the hippie movement and want to know how it's affecting them today. What was gained? What was lost? Are any of our adult disorders and anxiety tied to our unusual childhoods? This book presents a strong case in favor of the "fuck yea - of course it does!"In this first book of three in the series, you'll get an intimate understanding of the main characters, the changes they embrace, and how it affects their decisions and behaviors. Years later, this disbanded group is forced back together to deal with a family crisis. Similar memories about surviving dysfunctional families include: Running with Scissors, The Glass Castle, Let's Pretend this Never Happened, The Liar's Club, This Boy's Life, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It's like a 70's version of Shameless but with less booze, more weed, and way more hallucinogenics. This book needs to be read because it expands our understanding of the hippie movement and its continuing impact on society. Don't Call Me Jupiter provides an accurate, visceral, entertaining, real-life perspective into the ups and downs of surviving a hippie childhood.

Great-grandmother Nell eats fish for breakfast, she doesn't hug or kiss, and she does NOT want to be called grandma. Her great-granddaughter isn't sure what to think about her. As she slowly learns more about Nell's life and experiences, the girl finds ways to connect with her prickly great-grandmother.

The New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter delivers her first ever collection of essays—funny, poignant, deeply personal and sharply observed pieces, drawn from three decades of writing, which trace girls’ and women’s progress (or lack thereof) in what Orenstein once called a “half-changed world.” Named one of the “40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years” by Columbia Journalism Review, Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls’ sexual pleasure. Her unique blend of investigative reporting, personal revelation and unexpected humor has made her books bestselling classics. In Don’t Call Me Princess, Orenstein’s most resonant and important essays are available for the first time in collected form, updated with both an original introduction and personal reflections on each piece. Her takes on reproductive justice, the infertility industry, tensions between working and stay-at-home moms, pink ribbon fear-mongering and the complications of girl culture are not merely timeless—they have, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, become more urgent in our contemporary political climate. Don’t Call Me Princess offers a crucial evaluation of where we stand today as women—in our work lives, sex lives, as mothers, as partners—illuminating both how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

**A New York Times Editor's Choice selection!** This outrageous and hilarious memoir follows a film and television director’s life, from his idiosyncratic upbringing to his unexpected career as the director behind such huge film franchises as The Addams Family and Men in Black. Barry Sonnenfeld's philosophy is, "Regret the Past. Fear the Present. Dread the Future." Told in his unmistakable voice, Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother is a laugh-out-loud memoir about coming of age. Constantly threatened with suicide by his over-protective mother, disillusioned by the father he worshiped, and abused by a demonic relative, Sonnenfeld somehow went on to become one of Hollywood's most successful producers and directors. Written with poignant insight and real-life irony, the book follows Sonnenfeld from childhood as a French horn player through graduate film school at NYU, where he developed his talent for cinematography. His first job after graduating was shooting nine feature length pornos in nine days. From that humble entrée, he went on to form a friendship with the Coen Brothers, launching his career shooting their first three films. Though Sonnenfeld had no ambition to direct, Scott Rudin convinced him to be the director of The Addams Family. It was a successful career move. He went on to direct many more films and television shows. Will Smith once joked that he wanted to take Sonnenfeld to Philadelphia public schools and say, "If this guy could end up as a successful film director on big budget films, anyone can." This book is a fascinating and hilarious roadmap for anyone who thinks they can't succeed in life because of a rough beginning.

Junior high is where things really start to happen. Cliques form and break apart. Couples are made and destroyed. And a reputation is solidified that you won’t ever be able to escape. Everything you do and say, and everyone you spend your time with, matters. Katie Mills knows that. She gets it. That’s why she tried so hard to get in with the cool girls at school. And why she was so devastated when those efforts found her detained for shoplifting and laughed out of cheer squad tryouts. But Katie has more to worry about than just fitting in. Her parents are divorced and always fighting. Her sister never has time for her. And her friends all seem to be drifting apart. Even worse? The boy she has a crush on is dating the mean girl at school. Everything is a mess, and Katie doesn’t feel like she has control over any of it. Certainly not over her weight, which has always topped out at slightly pudgier than normal—at least, according to her mother. So when she happens to catch one of the popular girls throwing up in the bathroom one day, it sparks an idea. A match that quickly engulfs her life in flames. Is there any going back once she gets started down this path? And would she even want to if she could?

Danger and intrigue of the US Army Bomb Disposal teams in the European Theatre of Operations, as young Eric Pedersen from Little Falls, Minnesota, enlists in the Army at the outbreak of World War 2, and volunteers for the newly established Bomb Disposal program. He is quickly shipped to North Africa with his squad, takes part in the victory of the desert campaign, then moves on to Sicily and Italy, and finally becomes embroiled in the landing at Normandy and the march through France, culminating with the final victory in Germany. As Eric moves through the combat arenas, he befriends men of the famous Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team and forges a lasting relationship with his new friend from the 3rd Infantry Division, Audie Murphy.