What kid hasn't wanted to make their parents feel sorry for treating him badly? And how better to accomplish this than to run away? Here's a guide showing how, from what to pack (gum--then you won't have to brush your teeth) to how to survive (don't think about your cozy bed). Ultimately, though, readers will see that there really is no place like home. Like Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, here's a spot-on portrait of a kid who's had it. And like Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, it's also a journey inside a creative kid's imagination: that special place where parents aren't allowed without permission.
Perhaps you've dreamed of escaping the stress of your everyday routine by taking a year off to explore the world with your loved ones. Maybe you've thought about changing your life - getting out of the rat race - but dismissed it as impossible. Well it's not. The Dailey family did it. Now your family can also. When Adam Dailey put his professional life on hold and took a twelve month "family sabbatical," the future of his business was uncertain. But instead of waiting for a "right time" that would never come, Adam, his wife, and their four children set off on an epic trek across Latin America, Australia, Asia, and Europe that brought the family closer together than ever before. At once a fascinating memoir of a life-altering adventure and an essential how-to guide, this volume supplies all the information you'll need for your own successful family sabbatical-from how to plan and finance it to schooling on the road to dealing with the unexpected and managing obligations back home. There are risks, but the rewards are enormous. All it takes is spontaneity, flexibility, and the courage to take the leap!
A middle class, Midwestern family in search of meaning uproot themselves and move to their ancestral village in Croatia. "We can look at this in two ways," Jim wrote, always the pragmatist. "We can panic and scrap the whole idea. Or we can take this as a sign. They're saying the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe this is the kick in the pants we needed to do something completely different. There will always be an excuse not to go..." And that, friends, is how a typically sane middle-aged mother decided to drag her family back to a forlorn mountain village in the backwoods of Croatia. So begins author Jennifer Wilson's journey in Running Away to Home. Jen, her architect husband, Jim, and their two children had been living the typical soccer- and ballet-practice life in the most Middle American of places: Des Moines, Iowa. They overindulged themselves and their kids, and as a family they were losing one another in the rush of work, school, and activities. One day, Jen and her husband looked at each other–both holding their Starbucks coffee as they headed out to their SUV in the mall parking lot, while the kids complained about the inferiority of the toys they just got–and asked themselves: "Is this the American dream? Because if it is, it sort of sucks." Jim and Jen had always dreamed of taking a family sabbatical in another country, so when they lost half their savings in the stock-market crash, it seemed like just a crazy enough time to do it. High on wanderlust, they left the troubled landscape of contemporary America for the Croatian mountain village of Mrkopalj, the land of Jennifer's ancestors. It was a village that seemed hermetically sealed for the last one hundred years, with a population of eight hundred (mostly drunken) residents and a herd of sheep milling around the post office. For several months they lived like locals, from milking the neighbor's cows to eating roasted pig on a spit to desperately seeking the village recipe for bootleg liquor. As the Wilson-Hoff family struggled to stay sane (and warm), what they found was much deeper and bigger than themselves.
A perfect family is shattered when their daughter goes missing in this "brilliantly executed" New York Times bestselling thriller from a "master storyteller" (Providence Sunday Journal). You've lost your daughter. She's addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she's made it clear that she doesn't want to be found. Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she's not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble. You don't stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home. She runs. And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.
Cara directs the movers to pack everything in the penthouse so they can pick it up the next day. Exhausted, she falls asleep remembering forty years ago when she was a private investigator of white-collar crime and took on an industrial theft case she could not forget. She had been a childhood friend of the company owner’s son James. The year she entered college, he left town without telling her. Despite her trying to forget him, she still cares deeply for him. He returns to town but worries that her job is too dangerous. Insisting on helping on the case at his company, his actions put them in jeopardy when they face a gun in the criminal’s hands. When a gun goes off, their lives are changed forever.
