Forced to be Family by Cheryl Dellasega

You can survive the “kitchen wars”—and live in peace with your family

“My sisters-in-law couldn’t stand me. I was really hurt when my kids weren’t mentioned in their grandmother’s obituary because they weren’t ‘full-blooded’ family.”

“My mom is always giving advice, always telling me to do such and such when she doesn’t do it herself. If my husband and I have a fight, she takes his side!”

“My sister did call me a week later to apologize but proceeded to tell me everything that was wrong with me, my husband, and my children.”

Sound familiar? There’s nothing new or unusual about conflict between mothers, sisters, and other female family members—but that doesn’t make it any less painful or destructive. Adding to the hurt of relational abuse within the family is the permanent nature of the relationship: you can sever relations with an abusive friend, but you can’t stop being the sister/daughter/niece of an abusive relative. Does that mean that there’s no way out?

In Forced to Be Family, you’ll discover how to determine whether a female family member is being abusive, recognize the sources of that abuse, and break the vicious cycle that keeps the abuse alive. You don’t have to choose between accepting abuse and “making a scene.” This insightful, reassuring guide gives you the strategies and understanding you need to reestablish warm and loving relationships with the women who will always be closest to you.

Cheryl Dellasega earned her Ph.D. in health education and counseling, and has worked clinically as a nurse practitioner. She is an expert on relational aggression (RA), a form of bullying used by females. She is the author of five nonfiction books on issues affecting women: Forced to be Family (Wiley, 2007), Mean Girls Grown Up (Wiley, 2005), The Starving Family (Champion Press, 2005), Girl Wars (2003), and Surviving Ophelia (2001). In 2007, Dr. Dellasega’s YA fiction series, Bloggrls, was launched by Marshall Cavendish. Dr. Dellasega’s speaking, writing, and teaching offer essential insights into the different conflicts that arise within the context of female friendships and family relationships.

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Families Like Mine by Abigail Garner

Abigail Garner was five years old when her parents divorced and her dad came out as gay. Like the millions of children growing up in these families today, she often found herself in the middle of the political and moral debates surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parenting.

Drawing on a decade of community organizing, and interviews with more than fifty grown sons and daughters of LGBT parents, Garner addresses such topics as coming out to children, facing homophobia at school, co-parenting with ex-partners, the impact of AIDS, and the children’s own sexuality.

Both practical and deeply personal, Families Like Mine provides an invaluable insider’s perspective for LGBT parents, their families, and their allies.

Abigail Garner is a writer, speaker and educator who is dedicated to a future of equality for LGBT families and communities. She speaks from her own experience of having a gay dad who came out to her when she was five years old. Bringing voice to a population of children that is often overlooked, Abigail has been featured on CNN, ABC World News Tonight, and National Public Radio. She is the author of the Lambda Literary Finalist, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is (HarperCollins, 2004).

She has a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership with a certificate in dispute resolution from Hamline University. She graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in anthropology.

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Speak Without Fear by Ivy Naistadt

For many of us, public speaking is at best a chore marked by great anxiety and at worst a potential career stopper. Ours is a time when the ability to communicate in front of individuals or groups in all types of business and other situations is becoming paramount. Speak Without Fear offers a unique, practical process for combating the stage fright that plagues us every day in these situations.

Unlike other books on public speaking, Speak Without Fear goes beyond the external techniques, such as how to breathe properly and keep eye contact, to delve deeply into the reason for your performance anxiety. It gets to the root of what’s giving you the sweats so you can identify what’s in the way and work through it to communicate naturally and comfortably before audiences of any size.

Ivy Naistadt’s easy-to-follow, step-by-step program will help you:

– Identify the degree and type of your nervousness
– Pinpoint the incidents and issues that, directly or indirectly, cause you fear and loathing in the spotlight
– Develop and master a technique for over-coming your anxiety that’s adaptable to your level of experience and need
– Use your new skills to shine in a variety of situations — whether speech making, interviewing, auditioning, or presenting
– No matter how anxious you are about going before an audience — any audience, whether it’s 1 or 1,000 — Speak Without Fear will – give you the tools to speak powerfully and persuasively.

Ivy Naistadt has been helping business professionals and others communicate more effectively through seminars and one-on-one consultations for 15 years. Her diverse client list includes senior management from such leading corporations as The New York Times, IBM, Kodak, Hershey, and Pitney Bowes as well as universities and private schools throughout the Northeast. A member of the National Speaker’s Association and American Society for Training and Development, she lives in New York.

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Yoga Kids by Marsha Wenig

YogaKids[registered] is not just yoga poses: it’s a program designed especially for children and for their varied learning styles. Blending traditional yoga and its benefits with new theories of multiple learning styles and twenty years of teaching experience, YogaKids[registered] is a comprehensive, imaginative, and playful approach to educating through yoga movements. Yoga educator Marsha Wenig has developed YogaKids[registered] to stimulate learning and to appeal to children. Children love to learn yoga with YogaKids[registered]. They embrace the message that learning is fun, that taking care of their bodies is easy, that exercise is play and feels good. These are lessons they’ll use throughout their lives.

Marsha Wenig, CYT, is the creator of YogaKids[registered] and the President of YogaKids[registered] International. Marsha is a certified yoga instructor as well as a certified yoga therapist for children with special needs. Through her YogaKids[registered] Facilitator Certification Program, hundreds of facilitators are being trained to teach YogaKids[registered]. YogaKids[registered] is considered the premier program for yoga education, and its trainees and facilitators work throughout the world. As an expert in the field of yoga for children, Marsha has written widely on this subject for Yoga Journal, Fitness, Parent Guide, Yoga Chicago, and manuals for her YogaKids Facilitator training program.

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A Career Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Stepmom by Jacqueline Fletcher

You have an exciting, fulfilling job. You’ve fallen in love with the man of your dreams—and met his three kids! Now what? Jacquelyn B. Fletcher shows how any professional woman turned wife and instant stepmother can build on the skills she employs at work—organization, team-building, goal-setting, and planning—to succeed at home in her new role as stepmom. Drawing on the latest research, her own experiences, and those of other real-life stepmothers, Fletcher offers advice, hope, encouragement, and much-needed answers to common conundrums, including:

– Why don’t I have control over my own schedule?
– What kind of relationship do I want with my stepkids?
– What if I want to have a baby of my own?
– How do we create a budget that feels fair if I make more money than my husband does?

A Career Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Stepmom is essential reading for the professional woman who has it all—and then suddenly has more than she expected.

Jacquelyn B. Fletcher is a freelance writer, marketing and publishing professional, stepdaughter, and stepmother of three young children. She writes for Your Stepfamily and Daughters, and has contributed to numerous other publications. She teaches writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where she lives.

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Men’s Health Better Body Blueprint by Michael Mejia

The ultimate training manual for beginning or returning exercisers

Drawing on the foundation of Men’s Health magazine, this superb guide explains everything that inexperienced or lapsed exercisers need to know to tailor a fitness program to their individual goals and abilities. The ability to personalize a workout plan allows readers to achieve quicker results and spend less time with ice packs and sore muscles.

Unlike other books that lump beginning exercisers into one group, this program differentiates among beginners, such as:
• high-schoolers with newfound interest in lifting
• 30-year-olds who want to get back the bodies they had when they played college sports
• 50-year-olds who work out only for the first few weeks after New Year’s resolutions every January
Michael Mejia, contributing editor to Men’s Health magazine and coauthor of Scrawny to Brawny, thoroughly explains the fundamentals of fitness, including strength training, cardiovascular activity, and nutrition. He provides self-assessment tests to help safeguard against injuries by identifying muscular imbalances, decreased flexibility, or other weaknesses–and then shows how to correct these problems.

Whether readers are “Newbies,” “Ex-jocks,” or “Seasonals”; hope to build muscle or increase strength; are willing to work out every day or are able to spare only a couple of days a week, they will find the blueprint for their better body in this book.

MICHAEL MEJIA, CSCS, former co-owner of a sport-specific training center in Port Washington, New York, focuses on helping young athletes improve their speed, agility, strength, balance, and flexibility. The coauthor of Scrawny to Brawny, he lives in Plainview, Long Island.

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Men’s Health Gym Bible by Michael Mejia & Myatt Murphy

Backed with the authority of the world’s leading men’s lifestyle magazine, this is the ultimate resource for guys looking for a total gym experience

In The Men’s Health Gym Bible, certified strength and conditioning coach Mike Mejia and magazine contributor Myatt Murphy instruct readers in the optimal use of a gym for strength training and cardiovascular fitness. The authors advise both novices and longtime gym rats on:

• how to choose the right personal trainer

• the value of group fitness classes–and how to fit them into any workout schedule

• how to design a gym program that meets personal fitness goals

Packed with hundreds of photographs that demonstrate proper technique for every piece of equipment found in the typical gym, The Men’s Health Gym Bible is the must-have accessory for every gym membership. There is simply no other book on the market that so comprehensively and expertly addresses the needs of gym enthusiasts.

MICHAEL MEJIA, CSCS, works with a clientele that ranges from elite athletes to corporate CEOs. He is a contributing editor and exercise advisor to Men’s Health, coauthor of The Men’s Health Workout Bible, and workout designer for The Testosterone Advantage Plan. He lives on Long Island, New York.

MYATT MURPHY is the author of Men’s Health The Body You Want in the Time You Have. He has also written articles on exercise, lifestyle, nutrition, and sports for more than 40 worldwide magazines, including Esquire, Fitness, Men’s Health, and Sports Illustrated. A frequent guest on CNN News and Good Morning America, he lives in New York City.

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