Grown Ups Are Really Stupid

How to heal the psychological wounds of an abused child? How can we restore security to a neglected child? How can we help a child and his parents create an emotional bond? How can an adopted child reconcile his or her successive lives? Confronted with parents who are unaffectionate, depressive, absent or excluded, a child can become withdrawn, panic-stricken by fear of abandonment, violent or unable to express him/herself in words or actions. In France, over 300,000 children are under protective care. Dr. Daniel Rousseau, who has worked in a nursery run by the French child welfare agency (Aide sociale à l’enfance), uses case studies to explain how these abused children invent solutions to survive and grow up, sometimes even without their parents. A child psychiatrist for 25 years, Dr Daniel Rousseau has been working at the Maine-et-Loire children’s home for 20 years. He has received three awards from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, the Fondation de France and the Observatoire National de l’Enfance en Danger for his research on children in the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance system.

Dumb parents, little brothers, gigantic messes, and homework--this is the plight of young readers everywhere. And, until now, it had not been expressed by someone so close to the source. /DIV DIVTen-year-old Alexa Kitchen may have an unusual talent--she is the world's youngest comics artist--but she really is just like many girls her age. Just trying to get by in a world that seems determined to undermine her at every turn. Luckily she's got a way with a pen and a good sense of humor. This collection of funny, insightful cartoons based on the real-life trials of many families will resonate with young readers everywhere.

"The perfect summer read." --British Vogue A whip-smart novel about modern motherhood and sibling rivalry, from one of Norway's rising stars--perfect for fans of Emma Straub and the films of Greta Gerwig! Exhilarating, funny, and unexpectedly devastating, Grown Ups is for anyone who has ever felt the fear of being overtaken by a sibling, who feels almost--but not quite--grown up, and who's struggled to navigate a new future for themselves. Ida is a forty-year-old architect, single and starting to panic. She's navigating Tinder and contemplating freezing her eggs, terrified that time has passed her by, silently, without her ever realizing it, which feels even more poignant and common in our COVID era. All she sees are other people's children, everywhere. Now stuck in the idyllic Norwegian countryside for a gathering to mark her mother's sixty-fifth birthday, Ida is regressing. She's fighting with her younger sister, Marthe, and flirting with her sister's husband. But when some supposedly wonderful news from Marthe heightens tensions further, Ida is forced to mark out new milestones of her own.

In 1976 the creators of National Lampoon, America's most popular humor magazine, decided to make a movie. It would be set on a college campus in the 1960s, loosely based on the experiences of Lampoon writers Chris Miller and Harold Ramis and Lampoon editor Doug Kenney. They named it Animal House, in honor of Miller's fraternity at Dartmouth, where the members had been nicknamed after animals. Miller, Ramis, and Kenney wrote a film treatment that was rejected and ridiculed by Hollywood studios—until at last Universal Pictures agreed to produce the film, with a budget of $3 million. A cast was assembled, made up almost completely of unknowns. Stephen Furst, who played Flounder, had been delivering pizzas. Kevin Bacon was a waiter in Manhattan when he was hired to play Chip. Chevy Chase was considered for the role of Otter, but it wound up going to the lesser-known Tim Matheson. John Belushi, for his unforgettable role as Bluto, made $40,000 (the movie's highest-paid actor). For four weeks in the fall of 1977, the actors and crew invaded the college town of Eugene, Oregon, forming their own sort of fraternity in the process. The hilarious, unforgettable movie they made wound up earning more than $600 million and became one of America's most beloved comedy classics. It launched countless careers and paved the way for today's comedies from directors such as Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips. Bestselling author Matty Simmons was the founder of National Lampoon and the producer of Animal House. In Fat, Drunk, and Stupid, he draws from exclusive interviews with actors including Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon, Peter Riegert, and Mark Metcalf, director John Landis, fellow producer Ivan Reitman, and other key players—as well as behind-the-scenes photos—to tell the movie's outrageous story, from its birth in the New York offices of the National Lampoon to writing a script, assembling the perfect cast, the wild weeks of filming, and, ultimately, to the film's release and megasuccess. This is a hilarious romp through one of the biggest grossing, most memorable, most frequently quoted, and most celebrated comedies of all time.

This is part of the Books for Adults [to read to their kids] series for kids and adults of all ages.Let's face it, sometimes adults are stupid -- every single one of them [ahem, us]. Also worthy of note: you should read to your kids A LOT. This is a lovely little entertaining book for grown-ups to read to their little ones and enjoy, and perhaps to help them understand why all grown-ups occasionally do really ridiculous things. And when the kid's you're reading this book to are old enough to understand what you're saying, this book prompts you to have really valuable conversations about the fallibility of humans and the saving grace of us all: understanding.Read/Think/Talk/Do Better

“Hart’s argument that we need to drastically revise our current view of illegal drugs is both powerful and timely . . . when it comes to the legacy of this country’s war on drugs, we should all share his outrage.” —The New York Times Book Review From one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, a powerful argument that the greatest damage from drugs flows from their being illegal, and a hopeful reckoning with the possibility of their use as part of a responsible and happy life Dr. Carl L. Hart, Ziff Professor at Columbia University and former chair of the Department of Psychology, is one of the world's preeminent experts on the effects of so-called recreational drugs on the human mind and body. Dr. Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, in a happy balance with the rest of his full and productive life as a researcher and professor, husband, father, and friend. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use--not drugs themselves--have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism. Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes. But one problem kept cropping up: the evidence from his research did not support his hypothesis. From inside the massively well-funded research arm of the American war on drugs, he saw how the facts did not support the ideology. The truth was dismissed and distorted in order to keep fear and outrage stoked, the funds rolling in, and Black and brown bodies behind bars. Drug Use for Grown-Ups will be controversial, to be sure: the propaganda war, Dr. Hart argues, has been tremendously effective. Imagine if the only subject of any discussion about driving automobiles was fatal car crashes. Drug Use for Grown-Ups offers a radically different vision: when used responsibly, drugs can enrich and enhance our lives. We have a long way to go, but the vital conversation this book will generate is an extraordinarily important step.

Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humourist. Diary of a Pilgrimage is a story of a journey to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau, which has been performed every ten years since 1634. The book is a witty account of this journey, part travelogue and part social commentary. They and I is a charming story in which fiction is intertwined with autobiographical motifs, and humor goes side by side with delicate lyricism. How difficult for an English gentleman, burdened not only with self-esteem, but also with three teenage children, to settle in a country house? Is it easy to turn a modest building into a historical landmark? On these and many other questions you will find the most unexpected and amusing answers in this novel.