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Showing posts with the label parenting

ARC BOOK REVIEW: How to Be A Girl by Marlo Mack

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  Publication Date:  October 26, 2021 Format:  Kindle Genre:   Memoir/ LGBTQ/Transgender  Publisher:  The Experiment       Length:  272 pages Buy:    Kindle  |  Paperback  Synopsis Mama, something went wrong in your tummy. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl. When Marlo Mack’s three-year-old utters these words, her world splits wide open. Friends and family, experts, and Marlo herself had long downplayed her “son’s” requests for pretty dresses and long hair as experimentation—as a phase—but that time is over. When little “M” begs, weeping, to be reborn, Marlo knows she has to start listening to her kid. Review:  I got this book free from The Experiment through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Marlo Mack wrote a no holds barred honest book about raising her transgender daughter.  Not understanding what was happening she found support groups, she grieved the child she though...

Book Review: How Open Should My Adoption Be?

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Title: How Open Should My Adoption Be?: Levels of Openness In Adoption (Guide to a Healthy Adoptive Family, Adoption Parenting, and Open Relationships Book 3) by Russell Elkins Publisher:  Inky's Nest Publishing Format: Kindle Pages: 50 Genre: Adoption, Synopsis:  This book is part of a four book series that can be purchased together as an ebook set. An open adoption relationship can be scary! Open adoption means that an adopted child has a relationship with his or her biological family. But just how “open” should that relationship be? There is nothing in this world like an open adoption. Because of that, it’s hard to foresee the many different scenarios that will come. You do your best to plan ahead, but you’ll still find yourself in situations you hadn’t fully considered. Should you connect with your child’s birthparents on social media? Should you allow face-to-face visits? How often should you share photos and letters? This book cannot answer these types ...

Book Review: Which one of you is the Mother?

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Title:  Which One of You is the Mother?: The Absolutely Positively True Adoption Story of Two Gay Dads by Sean Michael O'Donnell Publisher: Amazon Digital Services Format: Kindle Pages: 130 pages Genre: Adoption, LGBT Synopsis:  After fifteen years of up-all-night gay disco dance parties, Sean O'Donnell and his longtime partner Todd decided to trade in their leather chaps for mom jeans and start a family. In August 2012 the not-so ambiguously gay duo walked into a Pittsburgh-based adoption agency and said, "We'd like a child, please." For the next several months they attended parenting classes, subjected themselves to probing FBI background checks, and completed enough paperwork to reforest the whole of the Amazon River basin. Despite lacking a magical baby-making vagina the pair successfully made omelets without eggs when in July 2013 they flew to Oregon to meet their seven-year-old son for the first time. No longer Sean and Todd they would now be fore...

Book Review: Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen Driven World

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Title:  Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World by Gary Chapman & Arlene Pellicane Publisher:  Northfield Publishing Format: E-book Pages:  241 pages Genre:  Parenting/ Christian Synopsis: In this digital age, children are spending more and more time interacting with a screen rather than a parent. Technology has the potential to add value to our families, but it can also erode a sense of togetherness and hinder a child's emotional growth. In  Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World,  you'll learn how to take back your home from an over-dependence on screens. Discover the five A+ skills needed to give your child the relational edge in a screen-driven world: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention. Today's screens aren't just in our living rooms; they are in our pockets. Now is the time to equip your child to live  with  screen time, not  for...

(52) This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids: A Question & Answer Guide to Everyday Life

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Title:   This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids: A Question & Answer Guide to Everyday Life by Dannielle Owens-Reid (Author), Kristin Russo Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC Pages: 240 Genre: lgbt, parenting Synopsis: Written in an accessible Q&A format, here, finally, is the go-to resource for parents hoping to understand and communicate with their gay child. Through their LGBTQ-oriented site, the authors are uniquely experienced to answer parents' many questions and share insight and guidance on both emotional and practical topics. Filled with real-life experiences from gay kids and parents, this is the book gay kids want their parents to read. Review: This is a great book to help parents of lgbt kids and also for lgbt kids or adults to read.  While the questions are directed to parents the answers may help lgbt youth feel better about the reactions they may receive or questions that people ask.  This is all new to many people and while it may have taken a...

Imagine life in an 11X11 room

Title: Room by Emma Donoghue Publisher: Little Brown and Company 336 Pages Genre: Synopsis:  To five year old Jack, Room is the world. It's where he was born, its where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack's imagination - the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells, the imaginary world projected through the TV, the coziness of Wardrobe below Ma's clothes, where she tucks him in safely at night in case Old Nick comes. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held since she was nineteen - for seven years.  Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in that eleven by eleven foot space. But Jack's curiosity is building alongside her own desperation - and she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer. Review: Emma Donoghue has written a remarkable book.  Disturbing, uplifting and powerful, Room is a fabulous book about the power of a...

Homo Domesticus

Homo Domesticus - Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage by David Valdes Greenwood - before marriage was legal in Massachusetts David and Jason got married and this is the tale of their life. Recounting how his in-laws embraced the wedding while his family did not, instead opting to pray that he would change.  This isn't all roses and sunshine just like any marriage it is filled with ups and downs, and plenty of learning.  When gay marriage becomes legal in their state David and Jason don't jump at making their union a legal one, instead they sit back and decide whether or not they need or want a state sanctioned union.  In the end they decide that since one of their goals is parenthood that it would be in their best interest to tie the knot legally.  After that detail is out of the way they venture into the world of adoption and family.  I thought this book would be light and fluffy but I found that it had an underlying rawness that made it very real.  I...