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"In the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, "as if the wood commanded me, " Giuseppe--better known as Geppetto--carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, the woodcarver screams at him . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories--whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by agreat fish--and consumed by guilt, as he hunkers in the creature's belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away."--Publisher.

"When thirteen-year-old Zuri begins cutting herself, psychologist Ana is called in to help. Is the troubled girl trying to relieve the tension of being black in a predominantly white private school? And how healthy is Zuri's relationship with Helen, the white single mom who adopted her? Struggling to soften Zuri's defences during the course of the therapy, Ana must piece together the puzzles of both Helen and her daughter including the truth of what happened to Zuri's biological mother. But reckless, alcoholic Ana carries within her an old trauma of her own."-- Back cover

"Maternity and Other Corsets is the story of Maebh Murray as she chases the bohemian life through Europe with a French alcoholic painter she meets in Prague the summer after the Velvet Revolution. They move to Paris and have a child, and Maebh becomes breadwinner by day and breast feeder by night. They try life in Greece, Ireland, and Spain, where she ponders her artistic pretensions, bad marriage, and parenting and how difficult it is, in an atmosphere of western arrogance that is blind to its own contradictions, to make it all work."-- Provided by publisher

"This is how a family keeps a secret ... and how that secret ends up keeping them. This is how a family lives happily ever after ... until happily ever after becomes complicated. This is how children change ... and then change the world. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren't panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until one day it explodes. This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it's about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again; parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts; children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don't get to keep them forever"-- Provided by publisher.

"In 1920, when she graduated from Vassar College with her degree in psychology, Rosalie Rayner took a coveted position at the Johns Hopkins research lab to assist the charismatic John B. Watson, the man who pioneered behaviorist psychology. Together, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner conducted experiments on hundreds of babies to prove behaviorist principles of nurture over nature. They also embarked on a scandalous affair that cost them both their jobs. The Watson's bestselling parenting book, Psychological Care of Infant and Child, which emphasized emotional detachment, affected the upbringings of generations of American children but Rosalie, now a mother herself, had to confront its tenets personally. With Behave, Andromeda Romano-Lax offers a fictional biography of Rosalie Rayner Watson, a woman whose lab work is now widely repudiated but who in her time was at the cutting edge of parenting psychology. This novel is in turns moving and horrifying, a thought-provoking and page-turning read about the meaning of motherhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Moving, insightful, lyrical and also at times very funny, this novel is a supple, disarmingly frank exploration of parenthood. Liam and Iris have one son- Billy, a bright 'toddler puddling about like a penguin, leaving surrealist art installations all over the house- a tiny cow in a teapot in a hat on the doorstep, of course! A stuffed crocodile in a silk camisole perched beside a woollen chick in a beanie on the bread-bin, why not!' Just as they are despairing about being able to conceive another child, Jason comes into their family. He arrives under fraught circumstances, but might just make a perfect sibling for Billy. Jason is a ' lovely, poor, sad, unfortunate, ordinary, annoying, delightful nuisance of a ratbag of a hoot of a kid ' and the boys grow close over the ensuing years. But after a terrible accident, Billy turns into a bird. He utterly believes it- and as his behaviour becomes increasingly worrying, Liam and Iris must find a way to stop their family flying apart. When extracts of Billy Bird won the NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship, the judges said the project was 'inventive, joyful and beautifully written'. Ripe with playfulness, yet also unforgettably poignant, this novel will unstitch - and then mend - your heart several times over.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Walter and Alice are expecting their first baby, but their timing is a bit off: Walter, once a successful loan officer, has been unexpectedly downsized. They've had to relocate to Florida so that they can live rent-free-in Alice's deceased aunt's condo. When Alice's brother-in-law Mid offers Walter a job, he literally can't refuse. But what he doesn't know - about the nature of the job, about the depth of Mid's shady dealings, about what he's really supposed to be doing - far outweighs what he does know. And soon enough, things escalate so out of control that Walter is riding shotgun with Mid in a bright yellow Camaro - chased by the police.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Originally published in 1982 to wide acclaim, The Good Son remains Craig Nova's undisputed masterpiece. This classic explored the complicated entanglements of fathers and sons --expressed in the story of nouvue-riche father Pop Mackinnon, who used his wealth to manipulate his son Chip into the 'right' kind of marriage upon the young man's return from World War II. Chip eventually gave up the love of his life and married to secure his future -- and what were the consequences of that decision? All the Dead Yale Men answers that question in telling the story of Frank Mackinnon, son of Chip, a prosecutor in Boston with a happy marriage and a daughter set to follow his footsteps into law school. Chip's death throws Frank into his family's legacy, where he must contend with the inheritance of the Mackinnon's beloved land and a bevy of secrets that dates back three generations. And when Frank's daughter Pia falls under the sway of local bad boy Aurlon Miller, his grief over his father's death triggers the family legacy of social standing and manipulation to begin anew, leading Frank to the darkest edges of what a father will do to protect the ones he loves. All the Dead Yale Men examines the end of an era, how privilege and inheritance often crumble in the face of the modern world, a story enriched by the setting and mythology of Boston and its surroundings. The novel not only moves the Mackinnon's story forward but will recast historical elements of the classic novel as well, heralding the arrival of a new American classic.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A young boy describes to two other children how his two mommies help him with all his needs.

At first glance, Dr. Lucy Weiss looks like the typical high-achieving, upper-middle-class working mother who, along with her husband, is bringing up much-beloved children in a world of Saturday morning soccer, private-school teacher conferences, and hyperaggressive classroom mommies. But Lucy's own history makes her an anomaly. Having overcome a difficult childhood in foster care, she is what's called a super-survivor, a kid who grew up in the margins. Now a pediatrician, Lucy finds herself working with some of these same at-risk patients and their families. The Mercy Rule is a novel about the all-important job of taking care of children. Lucy's work takes her back into the world of families living on the edge, where every day she must decide whether parents' actions are so incompetent--or so flaky--that their children are in danger. It's her job to make the call and to step in when she has to. As she moves between her disparate worlds--from worrying about her own brilliant but odd son being labeled with a diagnosis to worrying about parents struggling with drugs and impossible living situations--Lucy must judge herself as a parent, critique other parents, and also deal with the echoes of her childhood. Watching Lucy try to keep the balance, enjoy her own children, and look at other families with humor and justice and mercy, readers will understand why Chris Bohjalian said of Perri Klass, "Few writers write as beautifully or as authentically about parenting.".
(source: Nielsen Book Data)