Families | FrogenYozurt.Com - Online Literature Magazine

Dad Is Fat, Stories from the Frontline of Urban Parenting by Jim Gaffigan

On May 7, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald’s, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins (“celebrities for little kids”) to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds.

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother – A Funny Look at Being an Adoptive Parent by Julia Sweeney

On April 6, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

While Julia Sweeney is known as a talented comedienne and writer and performer of her one-woman shows, she is also a talented essayist. Happily for us, the past few years have provided her with some rich material. Poignant, provocative, and wise, this is a funny, and at times powerful, memoir by a woman living her life with originality and intelligence.

The Red House: A Novel Full of Surprising and Deeply Moving Results by English Author Mark Haddon

On June 11, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, by Editor

The Red House is a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of family in a profoundly empathetic manner — a novel sure to entrance the millions of readers of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The set-up of Mark Haddon’s brilliant new novel is simple: Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Richard has just re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over.

The Most Expensive Game in Town: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families by Mark Hyman

On June 10, 2012, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Sports, by Editor

Through extensive interviews and original reporting, The Most Expensive Game in Town looks beyond the high-energy ad campaigns, the supposedly performance-enhancing sneakers, and the cute baby-sized jerseys to explain the causes and effects of the commercialization of youth sports—and to reveal how these changes are distorting and diminishing family life. The proof is in the price tag. Happily, Hyman unearths promising examples of individuals and communities bucking this destructive trend and using youth sports to uplift and enrich kids’ lives, rather than to fill their own pockets.

The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times – Service-For-Pay Instead of Family Support by Arlie Russell Hochschild

On May 26, 2012, in Book Reviews, Business & Investing, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and original research, Hochschild follows the incursions of the market into every stage of intimate life. From dating services that train you to be the CEO of your love life to wedding planners who create a couple’s “personal narrative”; from nameologists (who help you name your child) to wantologists (who help you name your goals); from commercial surrogate farms in India to hired mourners who will scatter your loved one’s ashes in the ocean of your choice—Hochschild reveals a world in which the most intuitive and emotional of human acts have become work for hire.

Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

On September 15, 2011, in Book Reviews, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, by Editor

In Mind in the Making, Ellen Galinsky has grouped this research into seven critical areas that children need most: (1) focus and self control; (2) perspective taking; (3) communicating; (4) making connections; (5) critical thinking; (6) taking on challenges; and (7) self-directed, engaged learning. For each of these skills, Galinsky shows parents what the studies have proven, and she provides numerous concrete things that parents can do—starting today—to strengthen these skills in their children.

My Dyslexia – A Memoir by Philip Schultz

On September 7, 2011, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2008, Philip Schultz could never shake the feeling of being exiled to the “dummy class” in school, where he was largely ignored by his teachers and peers and not expected to succeed. Not until many years later, when his oldest son was diagnosed with dyslexia, did Schultz realize that he suffered from the same condition.

The Hour that Matters Most: The Surprising Power of the Family Meal

On September 5, 2011, in Book Reviews, Cooking, Food & Wine, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, by Editor

The facts are on the table. Dinnertime is truly the most important hour in a day that a family can spend together. Focusing on the family meal, this book will help strengthen families by showing them how to reclaim this important time in order to build relationships, draw closer to one another, and restore a sense of peace in their homes. Millions of parents in America can picture the kind of home life they want but don’t know how to make it a reality. The Hour That Matters Most will help readers strengthen and transform their own families—specifically around the dinner table.

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd

On August 5, 2011, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

A Book of Secrets is a treasure trove of hidden lives, uncelebrated achievements, and family mysteries. With grace and tender imagination, Holroyd brings a company of unknown women into the light. From Alice Keppel, the mistress of both the second Lord Grimthorpe and the Prince of Wales; to Eve Fairfax, a muse of Auguste Rodin; to the novelist Violet Trefusis, the lover of Vita Sackville-West—these women are always on the periphery of the respectable world.

Patrimony : A True Story About His Father by Philip Roth

On June 16, 2011, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

With the honesty of a skilled biographer and the sensitivity of a caring son, Roth chronicles the life of his father, Herman, in this gripping work which won a 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award. Roth holds little back in describing his father as a man of rare intensity and fierce independence who, for better or worse, stood by his principles and held others to his own rigorous standards. Writes Roth, “His obsessive stubbornness–his stubborn obsessiveness–had very nearly driven my mother to a breakdown in her final years.” Frank throughout, Roth calls his father “a pitiless realist, but I wasn’t his offspring for nothing, and I could be pretty realistic, too.”