Ride along with "Burb," the trusty family SUV, as he recounts the journeys of the lively Carpenter family. Fishing trips, vacations, flash floods, scary wrecks, and more. Have you ever wondered what he might say about those crazy adventures? Get ready to hear first-hand about the adventures of this fun-loving family of six through the eyes of the ever-faithful? "Burb."
In this "refreshingly relatable" (Outside) memoir, perfect for the self-isolating family, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family on a journey around the world to change their lives together. What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family? Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together? In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble. HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go? A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.
Becca Pennington couldn't believe what she had gotten herself into! She was just supposed to be applying for a grandma's helper position. But when she meets the grandma, Mrs. KG, Becca soon finds out that both the grandma and her creepy old mansion are anything but ordinary! Not only does the mansion have edible furniture and interactive wallpaper, but it also has very unusual hallways, one through which transports Becca to another dimension. From having a wild and wacky shopping cart chase to learning how to dance herself up into the air, Becca's adventures in other dimensions are definitely beyond what her wildest dreams could have ever imagined! Joining her on this fantastically funny and crazy trip are Mrs. KG's grandchildren and the mischievous, goggle-wearing iguana, Señor Greco. Warning: Don't read this book unless you are ready to go on a truly exciting journey that is so crammed full of humor and fantasy it won't fit inside even the largest black hole in the whole universe!
This book is based on real-life story. This is a documentation of the life of a Kurdish girl, which reflects the struggle she faced and the people who were around her. This book is an example how one person with the will to live can overcome all obstacles.When death,rape,and poverty can ́t stop your will to live,What will you do Although it seems greater than they are, it is filled with heartbreaking, thrilling, and sometimes impossible situations; it is a book that reveals the hidden secrets of many years of one’s life struggle, through a roller coaster of emotions and spirituality. It will affect those that are in the story and compels the ones who read it, Read this book however you want, from the end or the beginning. You can go anywhere with this book or get one for someone special; it will give inspirations. To those who are going through a hard time, there will be several chapters that will relate to your life in some shape or form, or you might have some special interest in love, relationships, family, and friends, anything that you can think of in your life; perhaps you might be going through a rough time and overcoming a loved one’s death. Feel free to go there first. Let this story help you grow and develop your mind, and it might help you with your future dreams by associating yourself with the relevant situations in your life. You might be able to make better decisions; for example, take a look at others who make better choices, people that can teach us the greater things about life and direct us to the right path so we can choose our lifestyle wisely. This book is my life. I am so grateful to write the stories of my life to be able help people in hard, crazy times. I am certain that this book will be your best friend; it will carry you through the weakest moments you feel.
This boxed set includes all 5 paperback books from the brand-new, very special Boxcar Children Great Adventure miniseries. Launched to time with the 75th Anniversary of the beloved brand, this is the first new series to debut under The Boxcar Children name in nearly 20 years. After finding a ceramic turtle in an old trunk, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are introduced to the Reddimus Society, a secret guild whose mission is to return lost artifacts to the museums and historic sites they were taken from. They just need the Aldens’ help in delivering them, along with the turtle, to the first return point at Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. The siblings ride an antique train across the country to deliver the treasures to the special agent in New Mexico, encountering enemies of Reddimus along the way. The trip is a success...but just as they are set to return home, there’s a last-minute change in plans. The kids must continue the mission—they’re headed around the world! With stops in all seven continents, this is the Alden’s greatest adventure yet and a perfect, modern introduction to the Boxcar Children for new-to-chapter book readers. Includes: Boxcar Children Great Adventure #1: Journey on a Runaway Train Boxcar Children Great Adventure #2: the Clue in the Papyrus Scroll Boxcar Children Great Adventure #3: The Detour of the Elephants Boxcar Children Great Adventure #4: The Shackleton Sabotage Boxcar Children Great Adventure #5: The Khipu and the Final Key
“A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane” (Kirkus Reviews), Don’t Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road trips—before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps. The birth of America’s first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming—sans seatbelts!—to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of them—from being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didn’t believe in bathroom breaks. Now, decades later, Ratay offers “an amiable guide…fun and informative” (New York Newsday) that “goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day” (The Wall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot “land yachts,” oasis-like Holiday Inn “Holidomes,” “Smokey”-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson’s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a “good buddy” on the CB radio. An “informative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips” (Publishers Weekly), Don’t Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the country’s, and why those magical journeys that once brought families together—for better and worse—have largely disappeared.
Advance praise for Farewell, My Subaru “Fine is Bryson Funny.” ——Santa Cruz Sentinel “Fine is an amiable and self-deprecating storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams. If you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style humor -- and also looking to find out how to raise your own livestock to feed your ice-cream fetish -- Farewell may prove a vital tool.” —— The Washington Post “Fine is an eco-hero for our time..” —— Miami Herald “An afterward offers solid advice and sources for learning more.” —— On Earth Magazine, Natural Resources Defense Fund “This is Green Acres for the smart set—: a witty and educational look at sustainable living. Buy it, read it, compost it.” –A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically “The details of Doug Fine’s experiment in green living are great fun——but more important is the spirit, the dawning understanding that living in connection to something more tangible than a computer mouse is what we were built for. It’ll make you want to move!” –Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well they keep him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and still reduce his carbon footprint? In an attempt to find out, Fine up and moves to a remote ranch in New Mexico, where he brazenly vows to grow his own food, use sunlight to power his world, and drive on restaurant grease. Never mind that he’s never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he has no mechanical or electrical skills. Whether installing Japanese solar panels, defending the goats he found on Craigslist against coyotes, or co-opting waste oil from the local Chinese restaurant to try and fill the new “veggie oil” tank in his ROAT (short for Ridiculously Oversized American Truck), Fine’s extraordinary undertaking makes one thing clear: It ain’t easy being green. In fact, his journey uncovers a slew of surprising facts about alternative energy, organic and locally grown food, and climate change. Both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action, Farewell, My Subaru makes a profound statement about trading today’s instant gratifications for a deeper, more enduring kind of satisfaction.
This book is an easy reading biography of the amazing life of Scott J. Harden and how he survived being shot at as a child because his mother was one of the first female union presidents, and again later in life in a second attempt against him by a mad woman. It tells of his living in the forest in a Girl Scout camp as a child, then later living with people like the president of a European country, then becoming a merchant marine officer sailing in the oceans, dropping bombs from helicopters on secret targets, and helping the communist empire to fall. All these are part of his biography and life. He also built the first US satellites that went into space, and he secretly put his autographs inside so they would be there two thousand years later for someone to see and wonder about when the first US spacecraft will finally fall to Earth.
