The Book Report by Rebecca Traver - Our Online Bookshop Curator

Welcome to the Book Report! I’m so pleased to be meeting you here to share the latest featured list, The Path of Parenting. Whether or not any of us choose to be a parent, we have all had parents in one form or another. From what I know about parenting, feeling supported, guided, and informed is everything! Hopefully, the books you encounter here will serve you and yours well – wherever you may find yourself on the path.

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Also included in this report is a selection of New + Newly Discovered titles; a special group of Books for Young and Young at Heart Readers; and a couple of Just Because + Just for Fun offerings. 

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I hope you enjoy what you find here and know that, as always, 

I am honored by the privilege of taking up space in your inbox.

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“Having a child is like getting a tattoo on your face. You better be committed.”

~Elizabeth Gilbert

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Featured List - The Path of Parenting

Journey to Parenthood: The Ultimate Guide for Same-Sex Couples by Eric Rosswood is a welcome guide for prospective LGBTQIA+ parents looking to explore adoption, foster care, assisted reproduction, surrogacy, and/or co-parenting. Each section in the book includes a description of a specific family-building approach, followed by personal stories from same-sex couples and individuals who have chosen that particular path.

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Good Enough Parenting: A Six-Point Plan for a Stronger Relationship with Your Child from Timothy A. Cavell and Lauren B. Quetsch is written for parents of children from toddlers to teens, giving parents a science-based plan to help their children grow up to be emotionally literate and healthy adults.

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Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child: Your Guide to Essential Systems, Services, and Supports by Kelley Coleman offers an honest, relatable, and actionable roadmap to navigate the practicalities of parenting a disabled child, featuring personal stories, expert interviews, and the foundational information parents need to know about topics including diagnosis, school, doctors, insurance, financial planning, disability rights, and what life can look like as a parent / caregiver.

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Releasing the Mother Load: How to Carry Less and Enjoy Motherhood More from therapist and founder of the Momwell community Erica Djossa shares guidance to help you break free from the often crushing burden of unrealistic expectations and reclaim the joy of motherhood while staying true to your own values. 

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Wanting What's Best: Parenting, Privilege, and Building a Just World by Sarah W. Jaffee includes the wisdom gleaned from the author’s interviews with dozens of parents who are resisting the cultural pressures to seek “the best” for their kids while navigating some of the major decisions that parents make – about childcare, schools, how they use their time and money, and the legacy they hope to leave their kids, These may not feel like political decisions, but each either contributes to a system where only a few can thrive or takes a small step toward building a better, more inclusive world for everyone.

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Very Intentional Parenting: Awakening the Empowered Parent Within from Destini Ann Davis is a practical and relatable approach to parenting based on fresh, down-to-earth methods designed to help you become the parent you aspire to be with a more connected, collaborative relationship with your child and yourself.

The Parenting Map: Step-by-Step Solutions to Consciously Create the Ultimate Parent-Child Relationship from Dr. Shefali Tsabary addresses the modern challenges facing parents in the age of social media, the fears that come with our fast-changing cultural landscape, and often unconscious generational expectations. Complete with paradigm- shifting wisdom, illuminating client stories, and detailed practices, this is a robust guide to empower our children while transforming ourselves.

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The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself by Sarah Ezrin with a foreword by Jennifer Pastiloff  brings the wisdom of yoga to your parenting journey. Each chapter highlights a yoga posture and theme and explores how it relates to parenting, including presence, boundaries, balance, and non-attachment. The author also features the stories and insights of a wide range of yoga practitioners whose experiences include single parenting, grandparenting, and passing on intergenerational yoga traditions.

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To view the entire list, click here.

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“Turn towards the day, grieve out the fantasy of another. You are here. It is now. Life must be lived forwards.

Touch the simplicity of a single exhale. Find gratitude for existence itself, even if it breaks your heart.

A new life will be built from today. Out of the rubble of the old. Through cleansing tears, you awaken: No other past was possible.”

~Jeff Foster

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New + Newly Discovered

Touch Matters: Handshakes, Hugs, and the New Science on How Touch Can Enhance Your Well-Being by Michael Banissy unfolds the research behind why touch is essential to our well-being, combining expert findings with notable touch points in pop culture to explore the role it plays in our physical and digital social life, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and more.

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The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World from Judith Orloff presents an inspiring guide not only for highly sensitive people, but for anyone with the desire to develop the gifts of empathy that we all possess. Each chapter is filled with Dr. Orloff’s most valuable insights and tools for living with greater connection, safety, and empowerment as your empathic abilities blossom.

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Another wonderful book about the gifts of empathy is Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered from Maia Szalavitz and Bruce D. Perry which interweaves research and stories from Dr. Perry’s private practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how to raise kids with empathy while navigating the impacts of technological change and other forces in the modern world.

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The Higher Help Method: Stop Trying to Manifest and Let the Universe Guide You from spiritual teacher Tammy Mastroberte is for you if you’ve been struggling to see the changes you desire in life, but no matter how hard you try to manifest them, you feel discouraged and defeated. Never fear, dear reader, within these pages we learn to invoke the aid and wisdom of the Divine with confidence, receptivity, and trust. 

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Wise Confidence: Overcome Self-Doubt and Build Lasting Self-Esteem by teacher and life coach Giovanni Dienstmann brings together lessons and research from psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and mindfulness into a practical framework for genuine self-belief and inner strength.

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On Giving Up by Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and connections between the many ways of giving up and helps us address the central question: What must we give up in order to feel more alive?

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Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living from Kamilah Majied offers inspired meditation practices drawn from Black cultural traditions and Buddhism to bring forth courage, transform grief, defeat injustice, and manifest joy. 

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The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions by Michael Norton draws on a decade of original research to illustrate how rituals play a key role from healing communities experiencing a great loss to marking our more personal  transitions. 

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The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age by Meg Jay, author of The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them, addresses the young adult mental health crisis in America. So many twentysomethings are struggling – especially with anxiety, depression, and substance use – yet, as a culture, we are not sure what to think or do about it. Here, Dr. Jay offers help and hope to millions of young adults – and to the friends, parents, partners, teachers, and mentors who care about them – just when they need it the most.

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The Shining Tribe Tarot from Rachel Pollack is a wonderful deck and guidebook inviting readers to join the “shining tribe” of diviners and embark upon a sacred journey of self-discovery.

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Cat and Bird: A Memoir by Kyoko Mori is anchored around the author’s relationship with the six house cats who defined the major eras of her life as a writer: Dorian, Oscar, Ernest, Algernon, Miles, and Jackson. As she details the rhythms and routines of their days together, she weaves a rich tapestry out of her past.

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The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape from Katie Holten with an introduction by Ross Gay, invites readers to discover an unexpected and imaginative language to better read and write about the natural world around us and reclaim our relationship with it. With writings from over fifty contributors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Ada Limón, Robert Mcfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Gleik, Elizabeth Kolbert, Plato, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

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Rebels of Kindness: How Loving-Care Transforms Self, Others, and Planet by Aaron Ableman and Justin Wilkenfeld is a wonderful, interactive, fun, and timely celebration of the power of human kindness. Centering on 40 stories of people who have enlivened themselves, others, and the planet with basic goodness, this book challenges us to not only “look for the helpers”, but also become one yourself.

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Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World from Alison Zak invites you into an embodied exploration of the animals that have inspired yoga poses. Drawing on wildlife science, anthropology, Hindu mythology, Eastern philosophy, and personal stories, this insightful guide illuminates the connections among our bodies, our minds, and the animals whose wisdom we can learn from.

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My Body, My Home: A Radical Guide to Resilience and Belonging from Victoria Emanuela and Caitlin Metz is an inclusive, interactive guided meditation and workbook for recovering and appreciating your body’s resilience. With a variety of soothing meditations and prompts for reflection, this book focuses on the relationship between you and your body. 

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Books for Young Readers + the People Who Love Them

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“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”

~Emilie Buchwald

Doris by Lo Cole is a charming picture book about a very shy elephant dealing with her fear of standing out. Her problem is that as a red elephant, no matter where she hides, she is easily spotted. As the story progresses, we find that, with a little guidance and support, she finds her way.

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The Crayons Love Our Planet by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, is a humorous mini hardcover book illuminating the beauty of our colorful planet – and why it needs all of us to be complete.

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My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story by George Takei with illustrations by Michelle Lee is a moving, beautifully illustrated true story for children ages 6 to 9 about growing up in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II. The author looks back at his own memories to help children today understand what it feels like to be treated as an enemy in your own country.

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I Would Love You Still by Adrea Theodore with illustrations by Ken Wilson-Max is a book you and the children in your life will turn to again and again for bedtime book cuddles. 

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The Book That Can Read Your Mind from Marianna Coppo is a perfect choice for kids and families looking for joyful interactive games and experiences.  

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The YA novel Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley takes us back to the land and characters from Firekeeper's Daughter as our heroine Perry Firekeeper-Birch continues to discover and reclaim her Anishinaabe tribe’s stolen history.

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For more books for young readers click here!

Para libros para lectores jóvenes en Español haga clic aqui!

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Just Because + Just for Fun

Zen and the Art of Crossword Puzzles: A Journey Down and Across by Nikki Katz is a fun and philosophical look at why we love crossword puzzles, how they benefit us in unexpected ways, and how puzzle solving can be a spiritual practice.

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Shitty Craft Club: A Club for Gluing Beads to Trash, Talk About Our Feelings, and Making Silly Things by Sam Reece with photographs by Lizzie Darden is a solid gold permission slip to have fun and be as weird, wild, and wonderful as you want to be. It’s about aiming for your best, not for perfection.

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Please visit our online Bookshop to see our full selection of lists and titles.

Thank you for supporting local, independent bookstores! 

We love connecting with you in the shop and online.

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May you be inspired, supported, and enriched by what you find here.