Rebel Mama

If you’re a mom (or mom-to-be) who wants to raise decent human beings, maintain your pre-baby identity, and not lose your sh*t along the way, congrats: you’ve just found the parenting book of your dreams. The Rebel Mama’s Handbook for (Cool) Moms is a girlfriend’s guide to early motherhood. It’s the Coles Notes for all those boring baby books you never read. It’s the instruction manual you wish your kid(s) came with - complete with cocktail list. Welcome to motherhood. Let’s do this.

Getting pregnant and having a baby was nothing like type-A Laura had planned. Tossed completely off balance, and in the midst of a global pandemic, she went from rule follower and spreadsheet organizer to rebel mama by the time her son, Jack, celebrated his first birthday. Join Laura in redefining motherhood norms through the milestones of getting pregnant, giving birth, circumcision, breastfeeding, sleeping, introducing solids, and all the phases in between. Her story shares what worked for her, and unlike many parenting books, is not meant to be a how to guide. Rather, it is meant to invite every fellow mama to awaken her rebellious side and storm the gates of any modern parenting practice that goes against her instinct! "With absolute honesty, exquisite perceptiveness, and a commitment to bury the concept of what is 'normal' for babies or parenting, Laura Rafferty (alias Rebel Mama) leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination and in so doing provides often a hilarious but remarkably comprehensive, edgy but always realistic and a warm-hearted picture of the magisterial highs and the inevitable challenges of becoming and being a mother. It is an intensely personal journey that she takes you on (no scientists needed here) an intensity that gives great vibrancy to the larger point she makes, and that is to trust yourself and your baby because there are as many ways to be that alleged elusive 'good mother' as there are mothers who strive to be one, that is, who strive and care to make their baby safe, secure and loved in whatever ways are possible, given her circumstances. I highly recommend the journey she will take you on." - Dr. James McKenna, Director of Mother Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at University of Notre Dame and author of Safe Infant Sleep "Rebel Mama is a fun, relaxing read with a powerful underlying message. When you become a rebel mama, you realize you have the power to create your own birth experience. You don't need permission. You seek the support you need and you get it. Laura's personal style puts you at ease and delivers her message with authority and grace. Pregnant couples will enjoy every single page of this guide to creating the birth they want, navigating the system, and launching into parenthood whether you are having your first or your last baby. Birth professionals would benefit, also, from taking notice of what families want. Rebel Mama is a five star experience!" - Barbara Harper, RN, CLD, CCCE, Midwife, Founder/Director of Waterbirth International and Author of Gentle Birth ChoicesReaders' Favorite 5 Star Review: "Upon deciding to have a child, the author realizes that in order to succeed and thrive in her new role she will need to abandon her previous approach of meticulously planning out her life and become a 'rebel mama.' This book is not intended to be a guide for new parents, but rather it is an opportunity for one new parent to share what helped her through the trials and tribulations of first-time parenthood. This is a very candid sharing of a very personal experience in the author's life. The lockdowns around the globe that were initiated in response to the Covid-19 pandemic pushed people into situations that gave them a new perspective on their lives, and the idea of going through that experience whilst also becoming a parent for the first time boggles my mind with the emotional implications. Laura Rafferty, though, is a mother who learns to take life in her stride, and her skilled prose brings her journey alive with warmth and humor. Rebel Mama is a great read for first-time parents who are feeling overwhelmed. Not because it will provide them with step-by-step instructions on what to do but because it gives a feeling of solidarity for those parents who are overwhelmed by the process and are finding it hard to adapt to the new life with their child."

Celebrated doula, healer, yoga teacher, and parenting coach Lori Bregman brings a holistic guide to being a more balanced, authentic, and joyful mother. Introducing the "five expressions of motherhood"—Action Mama, Flow Mama, Rebel Mama, Vulnerable Mama, and Free Mama—Lori offers supportive advice, exercises, meditations, and yoga practices to cultivate a healthy balanced life and stronger bonds. Accessible and encouraging, Mamaste provides foundational tools for parenting, relatable examples, and exercises to build selfawareness and mindfulness. Guiding new mothers along a journey of self-discovery, these practices ultimately lead to a more enriching and contented experience for both mother and child. Packaged in an inviting paperback and filled with nurturing advice, Mamaste is essential for any expecting or new parent.

“Those who enjoyed Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle will find much to admire” (Booklist, starred review) in this “thoroughly engrossing” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir about a boy on the run with his mother, as she abducts him to Latin America in search of the revolution. Carol Andreas was a traditional 1950s housewife from a small Mennonite town in central Kansas who became a radical feminist and Marxist revolutionary. From the late sixties to the early eighties, she went through multiple husbands and countless lovers while living in three states and five countries. She took her youngest son, Peter, with her wherever she went, even kidnapping him and running off to South America after his straitlaced father won a long and bitter custody fight. They were chasing the revolution together, though the more they chased it the more distant it became. They battled the bad “isms” (sexism, imperialism, capitalism, fascism, consumerism), and fought for the good “isms” (feminism, socialism, communism, egalitarianism). Between the ages of five and eleven, Peter lived in more than a dozen homes, moving from the comfortably bland suburbs of Detroit to a hippie commune in Berkeley to a socialist collective farm in pre-military coup Chile to highland villages and coastal shantytowns in Peru. When they secretly returned to America they settled down clandestinely in Denver, where his mother changed her name to hide from his father. A “luminous memoir” (Publishers Marketplace, starred review) and “an illuminating portrait of a childhood of excitement, adventure, and love” (Kirkus Reviews) this is an extraordinary account of a deep mother-son bond and the joy and toll of growing up in a radical age. Peter Andreas is an insightful and candid narrator of “a profound and enlightening book that will open readers up to different ideas about love, acceptance, and the bond between mother and son” (Library Journal, starred review).

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

A reimagining of the story behind Agent 355--a New York society girl and spy for George Washington during the Revolutionary War--perfect for fans of Julie Berry's The Lovely War. Rebellious Frannie Tasker knows little about the war between England and its thirteen colonies in 1776, until a shipwreck off her home in Grand Bahama Island presents an unthinkable opportunity. The body of a young woman floating in the sea gives Frannie the chance to escape her brutal stepfather--and she takes it. Assuming the identity of the drowned Emmeline Coates, Frannie is rescued by a British merchant ship and sails with the crew to New York. For the next three years, Frannie lives a lie as Miss Coates, swept up in a courtship by a dashing British lieutenant. But after witnessing the darker side of the war, she realizes that her position gives her power. Soon she's eavesdropping on British officers, risking everything to pass information on to George Washington's Culper spy ring as agent 355. Frannie believes in the fight for American liberty--but what will it cost her? Inspired by the true "355" and rich in historical detail and intrigue, this is the story of an unlikely New York society girl turned an even unlikelier spy.

A "brilliantly honest" ("INTERVIEW") "momoir" with a pop culture twist: music critic Evelyn McDonnell brings her punk-rocker perspective to her role as wife and alt-mom

Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts shows women how celebrating their sensuality can help them achieve their dreams—“think of it as The Power of Positive Thinking as interpreted by Anais Nin” (The New York Times). Relationship expert Regena Thomashauer teaches the lost “womanly arts” of identifying your desires, having fun no matter where you are, knowing sensual pleasure, befriending your inner bitch, flirting (in a way that makes your day, not just his), and more—because making pleasure your priority can actually help you reach your goals. So if you need a refresher course in fun—and you know you do—come to Mama.