Author Sean Casey first conceived the story in 2004. The central premise—a dad who loses it on Christmas Eve and cancels the holiday—had his own three children in stitches so they put pen to paper. The story is narrated by the oldest of the children, a little girl who tells how her dad had a bad day that grew worse when he arrived home to a house in shambles. After rejecting their pleas and providing a stern lecture on the true state of the world, Dad banishes the two girls and boy to bed without them leaving out cookies and milk.The children huddle in bed, worrying what will happen when Santa shows up and Dad chases him away. Luckily, Mom drops in to say good night and provides sage advice as well as some much-needed lighthearted humor. Mom explains the true meaning of Christmas and lets the kids know she will put in a good word with Dad. In the morning, the kids wake to uncertainty. What if Mom failed? When they sneak downstairs, they see Dad sleeping on the couch by the tree, surrounded by presents. When the kids holler and wake him, Dad sits them down and recalls his meeting the night before, when Santa explained how lucky they all are to have each other.

"It's true, what many say. Time and age have a way of rounding off the edges and making jagged pieces of the past seem clear and smooth and bright. But for those of us growing up in the small prairie town of Mandan, North Dakota, in the 1950s, those truly were times when every day was an adventure, every neighbor was a story, and everyone belonged somewhere because we were all connected and trusted others to know that. Young Moose knows it's going to be an unusual year when his new teacher looks like a goat and is even ornerier, a neighborhood posse is hot on the trail of a felon, and the ancient ghosts are dancing in the light of a full moon. His days are full of trials including the cancelling of Christmas, tittering on the brink of flunking a grade, and losing his position as catcher on the baseball team. It's also a time of runaway horses and bucking pigs, a quest for the truth of the birds and the bees, and of taking a giant step towards manhood. Come follow Moose and his friends; an Indian Shaman, a Gypsy King, and a mystical boy named Mickey as they travel through the adventures."--Page 4 of cover

The Toolbox for Grief and Loss is an insightful and practical guide for anyone who is suffering, whether from a loss that is recent or long past. Grief does not have a timeline; however, prolonged pain and suffering can be avoided or healed, and the joy in living restored. From her twenty years as a registered psychologist and therapist, Valerie Umscheid brings personal and compelling true stories of how we can get stuck in grief, and effective tools to help us journey through to the other side of traumatic loss. She identifies the many ways loss can affect our lives, even when we do not realize that we are in a state of prolonged grief. This book is a balm for anyone who has experienced: • Loss of a loved one • Relationship loss or divorce • Career loss • Suicide of a loved one • Miscarriage or stillbirth • Loss related to a change in ability • Ambiguous loss due to a chronic illness • Loss of a pet The Toolbox for Grief and Loss outlines a recovery plan for each grief story, and details a number of therapeutic processes that are easy to learn on your own such as: journaling, grief processing letters, mindfulness, and a memory box. Other processes can be explored with a wellness professional such as: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), and self-hypnosis. Put an end to prolonged grief and rediscover hope for the future!

Just when things were starting to look up for Lottie her life's gone a bit pear-shaped, wonk-ways and downside up again. Her mum's all soppy over a bloke with a horrible shemo* daughter, her best pal Goose has disappeared in a cloud of nerd-gas and Lottie's in the midst of an existential crisis. There's only one thing to do - get the hell out of Cardiff and go on the road with the gorgeous Gareth Stingecombe (and his manly thighs). But things don’t go to plan, and Lottie starts to realise she might have been a bit me me me lately. . . *a female emo, obviously The wit of Louise Rennison with the depth of Jacqueline Wilson.

Two years after Walter R. Jacobs was forced to call his new stepmother "Mom," she cancelled what would have been his 13th Christmas. In the memoir Ghostbox Jacobs explores a life where family problems are blamed on "disrespectful" children who refused to accept "Mom's" authority. His stepmother is a "sociological ghost," a force that limited his thoughts and decisions until he filled a special shoebox with objects that evoke significant memories: good, bad, and ugly. This "ghostbox" has rendered his stepmother's seething presence benign. Jacobs investigates how just a relatively short stay in his stepmother's house (seven years with his stepmother, father, and younger brother) led to almost twenty years of questions about multiple facets of his identity, such as the proper rules and rhythms of life as an African-American college professor. In the end, he finds the key to finally and completely breaking away from the dysfunctions that threatened his self-esteem and ability to interact normally with others. Jacobs includes an appendix of guidelines readers may use to create their own ghostboxes. He invites readers into a world where they can reflect on troubling aspects of their lives, and create strategies for making empowering changes.

Who could drown a goldfish or talk directly to God? Use a jigsaw as a template for china restoration? End up in the village millpond? Who planned for future blindness with military precision and sampled many of the different religions?The answer to all these questions was Giddy Aunt Lillian. She made a bank manager carry her money to a rival bank and then checked on their security. She created a pets’ graveyard in the back garden, from which she wanted to start a new business. Fairies ‘really did exist’ at the bottom of her garden and she was the bane of all the churches in the vicinity. She was every child’s dream relative but every family’s nightmare. Great-aunt Lillian was blissfully unaware of the chaos she left in her wake and was the talk of the village who found her adventures a constant source of gossip.Oh My Giddy Aunt! is set in a gentler time, before the onslaught of health and safety rules and regulations or political correctness. It was a time when eccentricity was celebrated and social services was in its infancy. Today Lillian would be investigated and declared insane – and the family probably would have been advised to put her away. Her niece Jojo was much beleaguered by her unconventional aunt and was often innocently drawn into her schemes, but the magic stayed with Jojo as she went on to write this book – it is narrated from her point of view.The book is a laugh-out-loud read that will appeal to readers over 45 and resonate with anyone who has a quirky relative themselves.

‘My parents were now dabbling with drugs and Southern Comfort, even going so far as to put a selection of hallucinogens into my bottle to witness the effects for their own amusement. I only know this because my mum made no attempt to hide it, often speaking openly about their experiments with my milk supply. Her only regret being the time she added a small amount of speed to my formula to see how long it would take me to fall asleep.’ Set in the UK and Ireland in the late 1970s and early 1980s, You Shot My Dog and I Love You, is a harrowing story of horrific physical and mental abuse inflicted on the author at the hands of his parents. In addition, the author's parents demanded that he assist them in their life of crime, go on the run in Europe to evade the law, and hide out in a caravan from the local police force. This is just some of the trauma that the author writes about. The story is intertwined with darkly comic elements to provide relief from the disturbing events of a tumultuous childhood. Due to the nature of the content You Shot My Dog and I Love You is written anonymously.

For anyone who has loved and lost, loved and not had it reciprocated, tried and failed, tried something else and failed again, run from something, locked something away or set something free, hidden from the world, or reached for a dream, there is something in my life and thus this book to relate to.