Book Reviews

• Executive Function & Child Development
  Working with children with ADHD, Tourette's Syndrome, or other challenges isn't easy. Various issues can make it hard for these kids to get through everyday tasks. In their book, Executive Function & Child Development, Marcie Yeager and ...
• Hopping Roller Coasters: A Tale of Forgiveness and Healing
    So many times we think we know where we’re headed; then we’re taking an unexpected turn. ~ Hopping Roller Coasters Rachel Pappas’s memoir, Hopping Roller Coasters, details the unpredictable story of a mother and daughter ...
• Hopping Roller Coasters
  Stories about mothers and their daughters tend to be sweet. Admittedly, there is usually some sort of tension. Still, whether that is teenage angst or the daughter trying to gain more independence and freedom from ...
• Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating
  When a child has an emotional or behavioral problem, their school often recommends that they see a psychiatrist. This psychiatrist typically labels the child with a disorder, then advises the parents that the child should ...
• Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults
  Dr. Tim Elmore is the founder of Growing Leaders, an organization that teaches middle school, high school, and college students how to become “authentic leaders.” He has presented internationally, written more than 25 books, and ...
• Pride & Joy: A Guide to Understanding Your Child’s Emotions and Solving Family Problems
  "Pride & Joy" is a wonderful resource for caretakers who are looking for a parenting book that stands out from the myriad of others. Kenneth Barish, a child psychologist and professor at Cornell University, encourages parents ...
• Talk to Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids’ “Go To Person” About Sex
  Sex has become so prevalent in America in recent years that not only is it casually accepted, it is commonplace. With just a few clicks, any child can access an unending world of pornography on his ...
• Through the Unknowable: Family Life with Depression, Alcohol, and Love
  Self-help books about how to cope with loss or trauma typically tend to fall into one of two simple categories: those which are written by professionals, and those which aren’t. The former tend to be ...
• Double Time: How I Survived – and Mostly Thrived – Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins
  Jane Roper and her husband wanted to get pregnant. They were in their early 30s and finally felt ready. So Roper went off the pill, and the couple, as she puts it, gave it the ...
• Hope with Eating Disorders: A Self-Help Guide for Parents, Carers and Friends of Sufferers
  Eating disorders are constantly in the news, and have been for some time now. Yet it’s quite astonishing to note how few people truly comprehend the psychological factors involved in them. Many are quick either ...
• Dosed: The Medication Generation Grows Up
  What happens when the use of psychotropic drugs in children becomes part of everyday life? If you were a child or raised children in the United States in the last 20 or 30 years, you ...
• White Elephants
  As I cried, I wanted to believe it was the alcohol that induced Mom’s words.  I had to believe it was the alcohol.  I don’t want them.  The words rang in my ears.  That’s the ...
• How’s Your Family Really Doing? 10 Keys to a Happy Loving Family
  When you think about it, who better to write a book about the wellness of a family than a husband and wife team who are mental health professionals and parents of two children?  Don MacMannis, ...
• Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope
  Ben Behind His Voices is an inspirational story about a family’s experience with schizophrenia. The focus of Randye Kaye’s book is on her son Ben, who struggled for many years with mental health and substance ...
• Bright Not Broken: Gifted Kids, ADHD, and Autism
  Diane M. Kennedy and Rebecca S. Banks, the authors of Bright Not Broken, and the contributor, Temple Grandin, all have a combination of personal and professional experience with learning and developmental disabilities. Kennedy and Banks are ...
• When My Mommy Cries
  Crystal Godfrey LaPoint’s tender story in When My Mommy Cries is one that has needed to be told for some time now. Like any good children’s author, LaPoint is able to succinctly express her theme, ...
• Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia
  Between three and six percent of all teens struggle with some type of eating disorder, be it bulimia, binge eating, or anorexia. Because these illnesses involve eating, they seem to take a blow at family ...
• Transform Your Life Now
  If you Google the phrase "transform your life," you get results showing you how to do just that in 5 easy ways, in less than 30 minutes, with 10 technologies, by 10 truths, or in ...
• Keeping Your Child in Mind
  A 3-year-old is happily playing on the floor near his mommy’s feet as she works on her laptop.  Unknowingly, she knocks a ballpoint pen onto the floor.  The little boy picks up the ballpoint pen, ...
• Seeing Ezra: A Mother’s Story of Autism, Unconditional Love, and the Meaning of Normal
  Autism is viewed as a tragedy. As a disorder that robs children of their lives and parents of their children. It’s a disorder that must be properly diagnosed and treated. And the younger it’s caught ...
• Kids On Meds: Up-to-Date Information About the Most Commonly Prescribed Psychiatric Medications
  Kids On Meds by Dr. Kevin T. Kalikow is both an education and a go-to guide for the medical professional and layman alike. Parents will find this book particularly informative, whether they want to know ...
• The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us
  I am what science calls a singleton. And according to G. Stanley Hall, a psychologist, professor and the first president of the American Psychological Association, I am without a doubt narcissistic, spoiled and a bumbling ...
• Runaway Mind: My Own Race with Bipolar Disorder
  Runaway Mind by Maggie Reese was a thoroughly enjoyable, engaging and educational book filled with firsthand accounts of what life can be like with bipolar disorder.  Maggie invites us into her life during this very ...
• Mistaken for ADHD
  After reading this book I believe the title says it all: “Mistaken for ADHD.” The author, Dr. Frank Barnhill, attempts to help parents, teachers, social workers and doctors who deal with adolescents and young children ...
• The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens
  As the parent of a teen, you might feel exactly like this mother: “My daughter went to high school her first day as a freshman and never returned. I lost my baby!” But you might ...