How My Family Came To Be

Includes a book jacket.

My book reflects on and is being told through the eyes of a nine-year-old Southern girl named Sofay White, whos an only child. She resides in Oklahoma with her parents. Who by the way, also live in the same household as her Grandparents along with their fifteen children. Sofay is a mouthy, sassy but inquisitive little girl whos growing up too fast, making her mature with wits and wisdom. Shes always at the wrong place at the right time: snickering, laughing, observing, and ready to tell. Observing and ready to tell. Her life is centered on many daily outrageous activities among her aunts and uncles mishaps. However, out of all of her relatives Sofay is more connected to her favorite Auntie Eisha. Eisha, whom by the way, has been exposed to life changes while trying to stay above hot water in dealing with: family rivalry, family disconnections, and confusion between a man and a woman.

In Michael Kimball's chilling first novel, The Way the Family Got Away, two siblings, a girl aged three and boy aged seven, try to comprehend the death of their infant brother. The story takes place on the road, as their family runs from their grief on a long and painful journey to their grandfather's house, slowly selling off all of their worldly possessions as they go. The children develop careful coping mechanisms to escape the grief and instability of their lives. The girl finds a new family in her dolls and plays out her own pain in the lives she creates for them; the boy makes a meticulous inventory of their trip, cataloging the names of the towns they drive through, the things they leave behind in each of them. Writing through the eyes and language of the children, Kimball tries to make sense of loss, love, and death in this poetic and profound work.

Charlie Wheelan and his family do what others dream of: They take a year off to travel the world. This is their story. What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre–COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to"—and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic—We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family’s gap-year experiment. Wheelan paints a picture of adventure and connectivity, juggling themes of local politics, global economics, and family dynamics while exploring answers to questions like: How do you sneak out of a Peruvian town that has been barricaded by the local army? And where can you get treatment for a flesh-eating bacteria your daughter picked up two continents ago? From Colombia to Cambodia, We Came, We Saw, We Left chronicles nine months across six continents with three teenagers. What could go wrong?

What is the American Dream, truly? This American social, cultural, and working-class family history, spanning some four centuries, represents a deeply personal quest for an answer from an unlikely source, namely the author’s own European progenitors. Because of their Mormon faith, their stories have been preserved, but not told. What they have to say about the American Dream is noteworthy. For the huge bulk of the author’s immediate family, their American Dream was not the American Dream; their reports and narratives, in principle, stand well outside the fantastic story of “liberty and justice for all” in the “land of the brave.” Indeed, their economic fortunes, or lack thereof, did not conform to the pattern; and most failed to go from being the vanquished of Europe to the victorious of America. For their trouble, and largely because of their Mormonism, they were cast in the role of America’s Caliban. Their American Dream may have been only to wake up from what quickly became a nightmare, especially for the scores of women and children who paid the ultimate price. Importantly, A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660–2016 is a cautionary tale in an auto-ethnographical vein, and suggests that coming to the United States of America was often not worth such sacrifice.

This story takes place in a typical small college town in Illinois that holds a long time dark secret. By a mere chance several college students are connected in a way they would never have thought possible. As a string of "accidents" occur that are soon to be discovered murders, the secrets and lies begin to unravel the small town and some of its oldest residents. New relationships are beginning to form as old ones are revisited or tested. Among the fight, confusion, truth and lies a struggle to save lives, may cost more than anyone is willing to give.

Two children mean twice the laughter, twice the mess, and twice as much fun! Record Baby #2's milestones along with wonderfully funny and fantastic family moments with this warm and whimsical journal by the author of the best-selling memory book When We Became Three. It's a thoughtful and entertaining way to promote goodwill between the siblings while creating a keepsake journal that will have the whole family laughing and reflecting for years to come.