Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.

The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.

Celebrates the many different ways that families show their love for one another, in a text with a mirror and fill-in family tree.

This riveting, nuanced memoir about unforgettable individuals thrown together by chance and DNA tells a story of nature, nurture, and coming to terms with one's true inheritance. What is a “normal family,” and how do you go about making one? Chrysta Bilton’s magnetic, larger-than-life mother, Debra, yearned to have a child, but as a single gay woman in 1980s California, she had few options. Until one day, while getting her hair done in a Beverly Hills salon, she met a man and instantly knew he was the one she’d been looking for. Beautiful, athletic, artistic, and from a well-to-do family, Jeffrey Harrison appeared to be Debra’s ideal sperm donor. A verbal agreement, a couple of thousand in cash, and a few squirts of a turkey baster later, and Chrysta was conceived. Over the years, Jeffrey would make regular appearances at the family home, which grew to include Chrysta’s baby sister. But how much did Debra really know about the man she’d chosen to father her daughters? And as a single mother torn between ferocious independence and abject dependence—on other women, alcohol, drugs, and the adrenaline of get-rich-quick schemes—what secrets of her own was she keeping? It wasn’t until Chrysta was a young adult that she discovered just how much her parents had hidden from their daughters—and each other—including a shocking revelation with far-reaching consequences not only for Debra, Chrysta, and her sister, but for dozens and possibly hundreds of unsuspecting families across the country. After a lifetime of longing for a “normal family,” can Chrysta face the reality of her own, in all its complexity? Bringing us into the fold of a deeply dysfunctional yet fiercely loving clan that is anything but “normal,” this emotional roller coaster of a memoir will make you cry, laugh, and rethink the meaning of family. Named a 'Best Book of the Summer' by LA Times, People, USA Today, Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon, Apple, Cup of Jo, Kirkus, Parade, & Today

Roma Downey, star of the heartwarming television series Touched by an Angel, has a beautiful message for all families."Sometimes I wish I had sisters, or a dad who lived with me, or at least a brother or something! "said Lily. "I know, " said Mama. "Sometimes I wish that, too. But most of the time our little family feels just right to me. Love is what makes a family, and we've got plenty of that." Irrepressible young Lily loves her mother dearly. But when it's time for Family Fun Night at her school, she worries...and worries. What will the other kids think when she just brings her mother? Will they be the strangest family there? But when they arrive at Family Fun Night, Lily sees all her friends having fun with their families -- of every shape, size, and-color. She learns that there are as many ways of showing love as there are stars in the sky. In this enchanting, beautifully illustrated story, beloved actress Roma Downey shows children that family should not be defined by mother, father, and child, but by love.

1938. Britain and Germany are on the brink of war, and the tension and fear is felt throughout Europe. In the small Hampshire Village of North Camp, the lives of Tom Munday, his family and friends will be changed forever. Their stories of romance, both lawful and illicit, loss, hope and the will to endure are all inextricably linked and transformed by wartime England. For the Munday family, the effects of war echo on for generations.

Just as much entrepreneurial activity is embedded within families, many families are embedded in business enterprising. And both are embedded in broader economic, institutional and cultural environments that shape their experience and development. <

Meet the JacMar family: successful, committed, and--like every other business family--trying to strike a balance between their professional and personal lives. The JacMars are a composite of actual business families. As Gerald Le Van follows them from the bedroom to the board room, he identifies the key issues and problems faced by every business family today. Le Van, a highly sought-after speaker and consultant, has helped many business families successfully navigate through times of turbulence and transition. In The Survival Guide for Business Families, he makes his secrets available to the public for the first time. He leads the reader step-by-step through thirty-nine questions that everyone involved with a family operated business must address in order to plan for the future. Designed as a self-help book, The Survival Guide for Business Families teaches families to recognize the emotional and organizational work that only they--and not their lawyers, accountants or financial advisors--can do to secure their future. It gives them the communication and coping skills to get through crises, such as a leadership transition. Le Van shows that business families are not alone in their struggle, and that they can not only survive, but prosper.

Social Work with the Aged and Their Families presents the functional-age model (FAM) of intergenerational treatment, an integrative theoretical framework for social workers practicing with older adults and their families. In keeping with the Council on Social Work Education’s curriculum mandate of 2015, social workers are now encouraged to use human behavior theories in working with their geriatric clients. This fourth edition incorporates much-needed additional techniques to address the mental health assessments of the elderly. FAM addresses the assessment of older adults’ biological, psychological, socio-cultural, and spiritual age. It also incorporates an evaluation of the family system, family roles, and family development in this assessment. Interventions at the individual, family, group, and community levels are discussed. This volume, augmented with recent concepts related to successful aging, spirituality, and resiliency, presents the major converging conceptual trends that constitute a model for twenty-first century social work practice in the field of aging. It is an indispensable text for those training in social work practice with the elderly, or those currently in practice.

This book focuses on the key issues that affect military families when soldiers are deployed overseas, focusing on the support given to military personnel and families before, during and after missions. Today’s postmodern armies are expected to provide social-psychological support both to their personnel in military operations abroad and to their families at home. Since the end of the Cold War and even more so after 9/11, separations between military personnel and their families have become more frequent as there has been a multitude of missions carried out by multinational task forces all over the world. The book focuses on three central questions affecting military families. First, how do changing missions and tasks of the military affect soldiers and families? Second, what is the effect of deployments on the ones left behind? Third, what is the national structure of family support systems and its evolution? The book employs a multidisciplinary approach, with contributions from psychology, sociology, history, anthropology and others. In addition, it covers all the services, Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force, spanning a wide range of countries, including UK, USA, Belgium, Turkey, Australia and Japan. At the same time it takes a multitude of perspectives such as the theoretical, empirical, reflective, life events (narrative) approach, national and the global, and uses approaches from different disciplines and perspectives, combining them to produce a volume that enhances our knowledge and understanding of military families. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, war and conflict studies and IR/political science in general.