Sing-song verse and lively humor are paired with fun and energetic illustrations, and together they capture what makes family life so wonderful and unpredictable

Humorous and serious poems celebrate every kind of family member, including aunts and uncles, step-brothers and sisters, cousins, and even cats!

Humorous and serious poems celebrate every kind of family member, including aunts and uncles, step-brothers and sisters, cousins, and even cats!

In this essay collection in which feminist philosophy meets family memoir, the novelist and scholar moves effortlessly between stories of her mother, grandmother, and daughter to connect mothers to the broader meanings of maternity in a culture shaped by misogyny and fantasies of paternal authority.

What about the kids already there? How do they do when a child with a challenging past joins a family by adoption? When experienced parents decide to adopt an older child or a sibling group, they jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops â?? background checks, interviews, group meetings, reading assignments, classes, etc. But most often the typically developing children these adults are already parenting (whether through birth or adoption) are left out of the process, informed that a new kid is coming, and simply expected to â??adjustâ?? to the addition of another sibling. The addition of a child with a history of neglect or trauma cannot be a seamless transition. The expectations of everyone involved â?? parents, new siblings, and, yes, professionals facilitating the adoption â?? must be realistic, taking into account that the new child will need special attention that may take away time and attention from the already resident kids, that family life is likely to be turned topsy turvy until appropriate counseling and support are in place, that relationships will change. Therapist Arleta James is certainly not the first person to recognize this, but she is the first to do something about it. Brothers and Sisters in Adoption offers insights and examples and sturdy, practical, proven tools for helping newly configured families prepare, accept, react, and mobilize to become a new and different family meeting the practical, physical and emotional needs of all its members. These well prepared and supported families are the ones who thrive!

When ten-year-old girl Allie learns that her family will be moving from their two-family home to their very own house in the country, she's hesitant until she finds out they will be living on a street with the magical name of Strawberry Hill. That changes everything! From her struggle to find a new best friend, to her quest for acceptance at her new school, Allie takes readers on her journey to make Strawberry Hill feel like home. Strawberry Hill is a timeless story that will captivate readers, just as Mary Ann's picture books and poems have for the past fifty years.