During the coronavirus pandemic, many of us are caring for others, both professionally and personally – while also attending to our own health and well-being. This book helps those who care for others navigate the subtle but important difference between caretaking and caregiving. In a time when tens of millions of people provide care for family members, older adults, and people with special needs, we should all be experts at it. Instead, we often struggle with caring for others while taking care of ourselves. "Cynthia Orange’s newest gem is a rare combination of inspiration and information that invites us to examine our behavior and feelings with an open heart, free from judgment, as we care for others and ourselves. Take Good Care offers valuable care suggestions throughout—from how to navigate difficult conversations to what contact numbers to post on the refrigerator. This manual for living will enlighten any caregiver’s experience, and Cynthia holds your hand through the process as only she can." —Lisa Sue Woititz, author of Unwelcome Inheritance: Break Your Family’s Cycle of Addictive Behaviors In Take Good Care, author Cynthia Orange brings together compelling testimonies from a wide range of caregivers, advice from leading experts in the field, and her own hard-won wisdom to capture the subtle differences between caretaking and caregiving. With a foreword by Susan Allen Toth, the critically acclaimed author of No Saints around Here: A Caregiver’s Days, this book shows us how and why caring for each other can be a mutually rewarding experience. It’s easy to become overinvolved in another person’s life and needs when giving care. Feeling burdened with expectations and resentments in a codependent relationship hinders a sense of joy, purpose, and engagement. Relationships require empathy and boundaries; with them, a codependent caretaker can transform into an intentional, self-aware, and compassionate caregiver.

“Here is the real thing — good old-fashioned American values coming from small-town Alaska.” —The Boston Globe The Alaskan landscape—so vast, dramatic, and unbelievable—may be the reason the people in Haines, Alaska (population 2,400), so often discuss the meaning of life. Heather Lende thinks it helps make life mean more. Since her bestselling first book, If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, a near-fatal bicycle accident has given Lende a few more reasons to consider matters both spiritual and temporal. Her idea of spirituality is rooted in community, and here she explores faith and forgiveness, loss and devotion—as well as raising totem poles, canning salmon, and other distinctly Alaskan adventures. Lende’s irrepressible spirit, her wry humor, and her commitment to living a life on the edge of the world resonate on every page. Like her own mother’s last wish—take good care of the garden and dogs—Lende’s writing, so honest and unadorned, deepens our understanding of what links all humanity. Heather Lende's new book, Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics is available now.

If you have a friend or relative or even someone in your office that is feeling a little under the weather and needs some cheering up, let Mary Engelbreits new gift book, Take Good Care, do the cheering up for you. Being sick and stuck in bed is no fun for anyone, but this book, filled with light-hearted text and Marys classic images shown at a larger size, is sure to make anyone whos feeling a little green feel good in no time.

From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School

This simple verse story relays that kindness to the world is as easy as planting trees, tending to flowers, and being nice to animals. And being kind to others can be as simple as choosing nice words and sharing a smile. Because the world belongs to all of us!

Everything has a place. Things last longer when we take care of them. Respect, responsibility, and stewardship are concepts that even young children can relate to—because they have things they value. This book encourages children to pick up after themselves, put things back where they belong, and ask permission to use things that don’t belong to them. It also teaches simple environmental awareness: respecting and taking care of the earth. Includes ideas for adult-led activities and discussions.

"Published in 2018 by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc."--Title page verso.