This hardcover keepsake journal corrals inspiring quotes and questions in one beautiful location and encourages a grandmother to share about her life as a country girl. Artist Donald Zolan’s sweet paintings of girls swinging in apple trees, playing with kittens in the barn, and feeding the hens add delight to each grandmother’s journey down memory lane. Plenty of space is provided for Grandma to write down memories and stories as well as her answers to questions such as: How did country life teach you to help others? Describe your childhood home. What did you love most about growing up country? Best of all, Grandma can express her prayers and dreams for her grandchild. This celebration of country living and a life well–lived will be a family treasure for many generations.

Growing Up Country: A Demlow Family History By: Carl Demlow Growing Up Country: A Demlow Family History is the result of fifteen years of research, travel to several states, and many hours of writing and rewriting. It began with the simple goal of providing our children and grandchildren with a short history of the Demlow family and, specifically, the author’s experiences on the family farm in the 1950s. But it didn’t end there: the book took on a life of its own as it grew to include the Moeller, Ganun, and Roekle families as well as historical tidbits from the 1880s to the present.

Grandpas have so much to share with their grandkids. And now they have the wide–open space of a keepsake journal to record their stories, ideas, and milestones alongside Donald Zolan’s charming paintings depicting the fun of growing up country—riding tractors, fishing with a wood pole and a can of worms, and pulling hay in red wagons. This adventure through golden memories invites a grandpa to answers questions such as: Who were your best friends? What did you do for fun when you finished your chores? How did growing up country teach you about life’s goodness? When the last page is turned, grandfathers will have created a treasury of the heart filled with the legacy of their lives and their hopes, dreams, and wisdom for their grandchildren. This personalized celebration of family, joy, and country living is transformed into an heirloom the moment a grandfather gives it to his grandchild.

*Finalist for the National Book Award* *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize* *Instant New York Times Bestseller* *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, New York Post, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly* An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country and “a deeply humane memoir that crackles with clarifying insight”.* Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through her experiences growing up on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are given a unique and essential look into the lives of poor and working class Americans living in the heartland. During Sarah’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, she enjoyed the freedom of a country childhood, but observed the painful challenges of the poverty around her; untreated medical conditions for lack of insurance or consistent care, unsafe job conditions, abusive relationships, and limited resources and information that would provide for the upward mobility that is the American Dream. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves with clarity and precision but without judgement, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country. Beautifully written, in a distinctive voice, Heartland combines personal narrative with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, challenging the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. “Heartland is one of a growing number of important works—including Matthew Desmond’s Evicted and Amy Goldstein’s Janesville—that together merit their own section in nonfiction aisles across the country: America’s postindustrial decline...Smarsh shows how the false promise of the ‘American dream’ was used to subjugate the poor. It’s a powerful mantra” *(The New York Times Book Review).

The New York Times Bestseller From one of the country’s most recognizable journalists, Lesley Stahl of CBS's 60 Minutes: How becoming a grandmother transforms a woman’s life. After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl’s most vivid and transformative experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or researching stories at 60 Minutes. It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it—as though it were a news flash. And so, using her 60 Minutes skills, she explored how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing friends like Whoopi Goldberg, colleagues like Diane Sawyer (and grandfathers, including Tom Brokaw), as well as the proverbial woman next door. Along with these personal accounts, Stahl speaks with scientists and doctors about physiological changes that occur in women when they have grandchildren; anthropologists about why there are grandmothers, in evolutionary terms; and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on both grandmothers and grandfathers. Throughout Becoming Grandma, Stahl shares stories about her own life with granddaughters Jordan and Chloe, about how her relationship with her daughter, Taylor, has changed, and about how being a grandfather has affected her husband, Aaron. In an era when baby boomers are becoming grandparents in droves and when young parents need all the help they can get raising their children, Stahl’s book is a timely and affecting read that redefines a cherished relationship.

About the Book In the tradition of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse, these two grandmas live in two different worlds. The funny part is, when they were young, they lived in the opposite situation! Country Grandma grew up in the city and City Grandma grew up in the country. But wherever they live, they still love spending time with their grandchildren. About the Author Kerry Maltzman is a retired teacher and parent educator as well as a singer. She has two adult children, a super supportive husband, two adorable grandchildren, and a lovable German Shepherd. She and her husband recently moved from the city to the foothills of the Ozark mountains where they love to spend time outdoors with their grandchildren.