Women Childhood

Giuliana Rancic is best known for interviewing A-listers on the red carpet and E! News, skewering their shocking style choices on Fashion Police, and giving viewers a front-row seat to her marriage and family life on her reality show, Giuliana & Bill. What fans may not know is that she learned English from Eddie Murphy, got her American citizenship so she could be a beauty queen, and used to have a bad habit of stealing cars for fun.

In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two children set out for her childhood home in New Jersey, where she finds herself grappling simultaneously with a mother slipping into severe dementia and a house that’s fallen into neglect. As Martha works to manage her mother’s care and the sprawling, ramshackle property—a broken septic system, invasive bamboo, dying ash trees—she is swept back, unwillingly, into memories of her fraught, dysfunctional childhood.

In Outside the Box, you will listen to chapters written by nine contributing authors, each of whom is a female entrepreneur, mom, and world traveler. Authors have committed to sharing their families journeys in the hopes of educating and inspiring other travel-loving moms.

Margaret Staples was nine years old at the beginning of 1939 when her father was posted to the British colony of Malta with the Royal Engineers. Swimming every day, with blue skies and balmy weather; Margaret and her siblings thought they were in paradise. Everything changed when the Second World War broke out. Hitler wanted to take control of Malta for its strategic position, right in the middle of the Mediterranean.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.

Clover hasn’t said “No” a day in her life. Until today. Normally a woman who tips her hairdresser even when the cut is hideous, is endlessly patient with her horrendous mother, and says yes every time her boss asks her to work late—today, things are going to be very different. Because Clover is taking the day off. Today, she’s going to do and say whatever she likes, even if it means her whole life unravels. What made Clover change her ways? Why doesn’t she care anymore? There’s more to this day than meets the eye.

Millions of adults have been diagnosed with ADHD: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Whether you received your diagnosis at 6, 26 or 60, the advice in this book is here to serve one purpose- help you understand your ADHD brain, how to manage it best & how to utilize your unique gifts to live your best life. ADHD does NOT mean you have to give up on your professional, personal & romantic endeavours. But it does present unique challenges the average person doesn’t face.

Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit.

Carla Funk grew up in a place of logging trucks and God, pellet guns and parables. Every Sunday, she sat with her mother and brother in the same pew at the Mennonite church while her dad stayed home with his cigarettes and a fridge full of whiskey. In these tender, humorous stories, Funk stitches together the wondrous and the mundane: making snow angels and carrying sacks of potatoes, tossing pig bladders like footballs, and vying for the Christmas pageant spotlight.

How to Save Your Inner Wonder Woman is a guide for partners, allies, and caregivers of childhood sexual abuse survivors. It uses the DC comic book superhero Wonder Woman to heal compassion fatigue. Author, and male survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Kenneth Rogers, Jr. strives to help professional caregivers and the loved ones of survivors of childhood sexual abuse battle the effects of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress.

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one. She was whisked away to Narnia and Kirrin Island and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy and played by the tracks with the Railway Children.

Don’t Expect Me to Cry is a powerful story of the horrors Janet experienced at the hands of multiple abusers, including her father, and the courageous journey of healing that brought her to a life that is inspirational to other survivors. Janet’s resilience is evident as she tells her story in three parts, reflecting her thoughts and experiences at critical stages of her life. She explains how, from that place of despair, she learned that it is possible to heal from the dark shame and trauma and live a steadier and more content life.

What does it take to rear a firstborn child? Renowned psychologist Kevin Leman educates moms and dads on the essentials of parenting and expounds on the traits that characterize firstborn children so new parents know what to expect. He explains how birth order can influence each stage of development—from infancy on into young adulthood. This audiobook will help first-time parents—especially mothers—adjust to their new situation and role while raising a happy, healthy child.

They stole her from her family when she was just a little girl. They broke her down and rebuilt her as a weapon. A killer. They trained her to be unstoppable... They succeeded. They raised her to be obedient... They failed. She was a government experiment, a young child stolen from foster care and trained to become a weapon. A killer. Against all odds, Samantha Black found a way to escape that life. With a new name and a fresh face she set out to reclaim the family she once knew.

In 1975, seven-year-old Doina Cornell left England with her father Jimmy Cornell, mother and brother to spend the next six years sailing around the world on a small yacht. The author has drawn on her memories, diaries and stories, to re-create the perfect life led by a sailing child: swimming, diving and playing the days away in deserted anchorages; visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world; falling in love with the sea in all its ever-changing moods, from balmy trade wind ocean passages to the treacherous breakers that crash onto tropical reefs.

With her family struggling amidst the nightly bombing raids in London’s East End, Ida Brogan is doing her very best to keep their spirits up. The Blitz has hit the Brogans hard, and rationing is more challenging than ever, but they are doing all they can to help the war effort. When Ida’s oldest friend Ellen returns to town, sick and in dire need of help, it is to Ida that she turns. But Ellen carries a secret, one that threatens not only Ida’s marriage but the entire foundation of the Brogan family. Can Ida let go of the past and see a way to forgive her friend?

After a 30-year absence Agnes is returning to Australia, the country of her birth, at the request of her aging, narcissistic mother. Having undergone a long period of psychotherapy she now entertains a hope that burning questions will be answered, haunting mysteries solved, and buried memories encouraged into the light. Something has blighted her life since childhood. Something has cast a long shadow over her existence, affecting her ability to grasp at life fully, to develop sustained relationships and to appreciate her own sense of self-worth.

All Jennifer Lewis wants is a normal life. A mother and father who loves her, family dinners, birthday parties, vacations, and playing with other kids in the neighborhood. Instead, her parents divorce and her mother marries an abusive man. Jennifer witnesses horrific fights. Her stepfather abuses her siblings and her. And the fallout ends in death and drug addiction for some of them. When she enters adulthood, she's insecure, full of fear, and destined to repeat all the trauma from which she's emerged.

Laurel and her son Simon are planning on a quiet Christmas at home in New York, when she gets a call from her father saying he needs her in Lake Summers in the heart of the Adirondacks. As twinkling lights go up and snowflakes begin to fall, Laurel can’t wait to leave New York behind to help her father run the family business and make snow angels with her son, even if it’s just for Christmas. But when she walks through the door, she’s shocked to find the inn in disrepair, and a letter saying her father will be gone until Christmas Eve.

For many years Elizabeth Lawson has battled single-handedly to run the family's historic horse stud in memory of her beloved father. But a devastating loss puts her dreams at risk. With no options left, Liz is forced to turn to her estranged sister Kayla for help. Kayla has built a new life in the city as a wedding planner, far removed from the stableyard sweat and dust of her rural upbringing. She never thought she'd go back. But when Liz calls out of the blue, Kayla forms a plan that could save their childhood home.